Book for teaching compare and contrast in Social Studies - colonial life

I love teaching reading skills with picture books, and fifth graders like it too.   A great book that goes with our social studies curriculum and teaches comparing and contrasting life in England versus in the colonies is William's House by Ginger Howard. the book discusses how William needs to build his house differently in the colonies than his father's in England due to the weather and other factors.

It was interesting and effectively taught the reading skill while incorporating our social studies curriculum.  I'm grateful for our wonderful librarian who found it for me.

Reading Fun

To teach kids how to write effective questions, prove their answers using the text, and how important it is to read the book, I play "Stump Mrs. Mulder."  Kids make up questions, and I have a certain amount of time to answer it.  Their questions have to be specific, and they need to know the answer and the page number to prove it.  They may make up inference questions, and I make a big deal if they do, but they still need to know the page that caused them to infer the information.  I typically let them win once.  We don't play it a lot, but it's a great game for Mondays when we need to refresh their minds.  It's also fun on Fridays, too.