I am in love! I discovered an amazing new book today. TEK, The Modern Cave Boy by Patrick McDonnell is the perfect fit into a tech based and literature based classroom that is also promoting self regulation and mindfulness. Yes, all that I found in one book today. Not only that, but I think this book just may grab your boys’ attention!
A little like Calvin and Hobbs, this delightful book is FULL of humor! It’s about a little cave boy that loves his tablet. He plays games. He plays a lot of games. His friend dinosaur is concerned because he knows this is a problem. Tek stays in his cave all day and plays on his phone, his tablet and his game box. I laughed when I thought of the cave reference as I know lots of teenage boys whose Mom’s refer to their sons in their rooms as their caves. I’m sure this is not unlike many little girls too.
The cave mom is upset that Dad invented the Internet (as though it was invented a long time ago). As time passes, Tek misses playing out in the snow during the Ice Age and he never learned his dinosaur names. Dad says he needs to light a fire under his son’s butt but he hadn’t invented fire yet. Luckily, Big Poppa the volcano does it for him and Tek goes flying into the sky. Tek crashes and is totally DISCONNECTED.
When Tek awoke, he was breathing the fresh air, being warmed by the sun and was tickled by the grass. As he looked around he saw wonderful people, animals and things. He loved it! He ran to find his friend Larry and they happily played all day.
At night they also reached for the stars that they couldn’t see before because of the glare of his gadgets.
This book is so much fun! It is perfect for launching a balanced literacy lesson that will engage students because the topic is fun and meaningful. (Plus it’s shaped like a tablet.) It can teach them about the importance of getting out and paying attention to your world and balancing your technology use and time for active play. This book can be used to launch lessons about history, dinosaurs, friends, nature, inventions, genius hour, healthy living and so much more.
Why not have some fun with this book?
If you’d like to grab these free printables that I created for TEK, click here.
(Font and clipart credits: KG fonts, Whimsy Workshop and David’s Simple Teaching)
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