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Houghton Mifflin Reading Fourth Grade Resources
Teacher Read Aloud: On the Frontier with Mr. Audubon
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Reading Selection: By the Shores of Silver Lake
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Web Resources 
Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History: Pictures of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Central Pacific Railroad, Photographic History Museum: Site contains many images of old trains.
The New Nation: Read about the Transcontinental Railroad on America’s Story.
Driving the Last Spike: Pictures and information from the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
Welcome to the Braille Bug Site: Information about Braille and blindness for kids from the American Foundation for the Blind.
Blindness: Information for kids about blindness from a visually impaired teacher.
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Information about the author of "By the Shores of Silver Lake" from Eduplace.
eWord Game: An interactive word game to reinforce the Key Vocabulary for "By the Shores of Silver Lake."
Hidden Message Puzzle: A word search activity from Eduplace.
Discovery Education Streaming Video Resources 
Search for Elementary Video Adventures: Early America (clip on Trains)
Search for Follow My Leader (clip on Jimmy Struggles to Adjust to Loss of His Sight)
Reading 
Preparing to Read/Key Vocabulary Graphic Organizer Inspiration V8 / Inspiration V7 / PDF
Build background for"By the Shores of Silver Lake," page 109A:
The New Nation: Read about the Transcontinental Railroad on America’s Story.
Driving the Last Spike: Pictures and information from the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
Comprehension Skill Lesson, Making Generalizations, page 113 Inspiration V8 / Inspiration V7 / PDF
Genre Lesson, Historical Fiction, page 115 Inspiration V8 / Inspiration V7 / PDF
Comprehension Skill Lesson, Noting Details, page 121 Inspiration V8 / Inspiration V7 / PDF
Classroom Management Handbook, page 1-13 #2:
For information about the life of Louis Braille, read his biography:
… Louis Braille Biography …: Biography from the Braille Bug site.
ELL Handbook, page 48-49:
Central Pacific Railroad, Photographic History Museum: Site contains many images of old trains.
Reaching All Students: English Language Learners, page 123: Chain of events chart to organize sequence of events in story Inspiration V8 / Inspiration V7 / PDF
Information & Study Skills: Taking Notes, page 133C:
Show students how to take notes using graphic organizing software, if available, instead of note cards (links to URLs, sticky notes for citations, color-coding main ideas and details, etc.)
Word Work 
Expanding Your Vocabulary: Railroad words, page 133J Inspiration V8 / Inspiration V7 / PDF
Writing & Language 
Writing Skills: Writing a Friendly Letter, page 133M:
Students can use a postcard template created in a word processing program to publish their friendly letters. Since they may write about a real or imaginary trip, they might want to include images downloaded from Internet for the picture side of the card and get some information to share about their trip on the same website as the image.
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