The Lightning Thief in the Elementary Classroom: Some Ideas and Resources

Last year I read The Lightning Thief with my 5th grade classroom, and they enjoyed the entire experience so much that I am currently about half way done reading it aloud to my 4th graders. Literacy instruction in my building is taught using a guided reading format, with time for read aloud, guided reading, and silent time. My guided reading centers have been based around activities based either on the events of The Lightning Thief or on Greek Mythology.

My class has been enjoying this book immensely, and I have literally seen dozens of students move on to the other books in the series after reading this first one, which is full of monsters, epic quests, and modern twists on Greek myths.

I have thrown in a few items of interest for those of you out there thinking about reading this book. I am having great success reading this to a fairly advanced group of 4th graders, and found it to be a comfortable read aloud for 5th graders. I don't honestly think I would suggest it for 3rd grade, but I'm sure many teachers have read it, I just think some of the more challenging aspects of the book will be lost on that age group. I would recommend it for second semester 4th grade up through maybe 7th or 8th grade, but for read aloud up through 6th.

The links I am specifically including here are a great teacher's guide (this will open as a Word document) that I have pulled from and a link to Rick Riordan's (the author of the series) personal website that includes great teacher resources.

Also, check out this Wordle of The Lightning Thief. This was created using the entire text of the book, which I found on wattpad and pasted into the Wordle site.