Primary classroom teachers who have enriched their students’ writing experiences across the content areas with the help of Education Northwest’s line of Wee Can guidebooks will be excited to learn about the latest installment, Wee Can Travel: Aligning 6+1 Trait® Strategies With Social Studies Standards for Elementary Students. Like its predecessors—Wee Can Write, Wee Can Count, and Wee Can Celebrate—this guidebook is based on the 6+1 Trait Writing Model of Instruction & Assessment pioneered by Education Northwest and used by thousands of teachers around the world.

Wee Can Travel guides K–4 teachers in weaving together reading, writing, speaking, and art into important social studies themes. Each of the 12 chapters highlights a different piece of award-winning children’s literature:

1. The Pledge of Allegiance
2. Johnny Appleseed
3. Follow the Dream
4. Legend of the Indian Paintbrush
5. Stone Soup
6. Coming on Home
7. The Twelve Days of Christmas
8. Martin’s Big Words
9. Follow the Drinking Gourd
10. A. Lincoln and Me
11. The Gardener
12. Watch the Stars Come Out

With these classics, authors Carolyn McMahon and Peggy Warrick use standards developed by the National Council for the Social Studies to present fun and practical 6+1 Trait activities related to history, civics, economics, and geography. The themed units give teachers easily prepared, ready-to-use lessons and materials that can be adapted to their existing social studies curricula, while simultaneously developing young students’ understanding of the traits of effective writing.

When asked what prompted the authors to write the book, McMahon and Warrick explained, “Having taught themes linked to social studies in our classrooms and talking to other teachers about ways to tie social studies into trait-based activities, we came up with the idea of a thematic book that would take students through the school year—from August through May. The end result has everything teachers need to integrate social studies themes with the 6+1 Traits of writing: great book selections, activities created specifically for K–4 classrooms, and learning center activities that are clearly aligned with national social studies standards.”

Also included are three assessment tools and pages ready for teachers to copy and use. Copies can be ordered online or by calling 1.888.827.7241.