Remember those wonderful Lincoln logs we played with? Here’s a chance to build a virtual log cabin. Once the cabin is finished, students use the magic of their imaginations to go inside and see the furnishings of a real cabin. There’s a surprise at the end, when they look out the window and see a bear looking in!
It’s a fun story that will be read again and again. Sound effects make this a particularly good selection for students with visual impairment. The reading vocabulary is grades 2-3. Log Cabin is the first in a set of five related activities.
Immediately after reading the story, students are ready to proceed to the next two activities. Show What You Know About Log Cabin is a three choice per question comprehension test.
Log Cabin Sequence uses the steps in building the cabin and the icons from the buttons in the building portion of the story. Students must reassemble the list of steps in the proper order.
Second Visit
Once they finish the anchor book that brings the cabin to life, students go back in to help tidy up by putting various things back onto the shelves, again with realistic sounds.
Both the basic Log Cabin story and the follow-up Fill The Shelves are good exercises in following a sequence of instructions.
Teacher Materials Pack
Be sure to download this file, because it has the complete scripts for Log Cabin and Fill The Shelves. Also included are the questions and answers for the two tests and the sequence sentences in the proper order.
Focus On Where
Fill The Shelves also focuses on location words such as on, next to, left, right, into, beside, at, above, between.
Online and Desktop Books
The two anchor books, Log Cabin and Fill The Shelves, can be read online in any modern web browser. New in 2020 is an online sequence activity, What’s Next? which should follow Log Cabin.
There also is a desktop version of the two books that you can open and read with a web browser application. No internet connection needed for the desktop version, and the sounds and movies play on all devices. Links to the online books and for downloading the desktop versions are at the foot of this page.
Follow up these activities with the two tests, Show What You Know About Log Cabin and Tell Me Where, available in PDF and Word format, and the Log Cabin Sequence off-computer activity.
Installation and Access Options
For both Classroom Suite® and Clicker 5®, the entire set of five activities is downloaded as a unit in zip format.
The entire zip file should be installed from within Classroom Suite® in order to retain links to movies. There are custom IntelliKeys® overlays for each activity in the Classroom Suite® set. A zip file with Dynavox® versions of all the overlays is also available to download. See the Special Needs Access section on the System Reqs page for information on controlling the Classroom Suite® version from PRC devices.
Decompress the zip file for Clicker 5® Log Cabin and copy the entire unit folders into the shared files. For details on installing Clicker 5® integrated study units, click here.
Go to the Publish area to Import the My Own Bookshelf® and Test Me Score Me® activities.
Sounds and Movies
In addition to feedback sounds, the Log Cabin story in Classroom Suite®, Clicker 5®, and My Own Bookshelf® includes a movie to aid the student in imagining shrinking down small enough to go inside and another movie of going into the cabin. The Classroom Suite®, Clicker 5®, and My Own Bookshelf® versions of Fill The Shelves have realistic sounds as items are placed onto the shelves.
The online versions have sounds and movies for each step in constructing and exploring the log cabin, including a very hungry bear. Movies also carry out the movements of the items onto the shelves in Fill The Shelves, and each one makes a realistic sound as it lands.
The PowerPoint® version of Log Cabin does not include the movies, but does use the sounds, as does the PowerPoint® version of Fill The Shelves.
There is a printable PDF version of both Log Cabin and Fill The Shelves, but these do not include sound effects. You can also use these on the computer. Use the buttons in the stories for navigation, instead of the arrows on the navigation bar. The “buttons” in the PDF of Fill The Shelves are actual clip art images of the items to put onto the shelves.
Assessment
The comprehension test and the Tell Me Where activity are included in the zip file for the Classroom Suite® and for the Clicker 5® study units. These same tests are supplied separately in Test Me Score Me® format to follow the My Own Bookshelf® stories. There are also PDF and Word® versions of these two tests, to follow the online, PDF or PowerPoint versions of the stories.
A Log Cabin Sequence activity is a part of the Classroom Suite and Clicker 5 study units, and there is also an online version, What’s Next?.
There is also a printable version of the sequence activity that can be be used as an off-computer activity.The off-computer version of Log Cabin Sequence is in PDF format, with the graphics and words for three steps on each page. These should be printed out in landscape mode, and then cut apart. In addition to using these graphics for sequence activities, you could separate the graphics and text for matching games.
Bonus Clip Art
All the clip art from Log Cabin, including the construction button art, the various types of logs, and all the furnishings of the cabin, can be downloaded as a separate file.
Applications needed: Web browser, IntelliTools Classroom Suite, Clicker 5, My Own Bookshelf, Test Me Score Me, PowerPoint, Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Word.
Subject area: Reading.
Level: Grades 2-3 .
Online Links-Activities
Annie’s Books Online
More About The Online Versions: click here. Post about the online and desktop books Log Cabin, What’s Next? and Fill The Shelves, with links, screenshots and more information.
Log Cabin books link: logCabin/index.html Log Cabin, What’s Next? and Fill The Shelves books, linked by a menu page, to read online. Written in HTML5, so sounds should play on iPad. For details on using Annie’s Books Online, click here.
Desktop version of Log Cabin books link: logCabinDesktop.zip (108.6 MB) Log Cabin, What’s Next? and Fill The Shelves, linked by a menu page, to read from the desktop using a modern web browser, no active internet connection needed! For details on using Annie’s Desktop Books, click here.
Downloads-Activities
Printable Activities
TeacherMaterialsLogCabin.zip (8.9 KB) Teacher’s pack of scripts for both books, two tests, and the sequence activity, as .rtf files. Any text reader app.
LogCabin.pdf (3.6 MB) Log Cabin book to print. No movies. Acrobat Reader.
FillTheShelves.pdf (2.7 MB) Fill The Shelves book to print. No movies. Acrobat Reader.
PDFTestsLogCabin2020.zip (2.8 MB) Show What You Know About Log Cabin (comprehension test) and Tell me Where (direction words fill blank) in PDF format to work on the computer or to print. Acrobat Reader.
LogCabinTestsWord.zip (2.0 MB) Show What You Know About Log Cabin (comprehension test) and Tell me Where (direction words fill blank) to print. Microsoft Word
LogCabinSequence.pdf (8.1 MB) Log Cabin Sequence activity to print and use off-computer. Acrobat Reader.
Clicker 5
LogCabinClickMac.zip (14.1 MB) All five Log Cabin activities plus menu grid in Clicker 5 MAC. Has QuickTime movies. Installing Clicker integrated study units, click here
LogCabinClickWin.zip (14.3 MB) All five Log Cabin activities plus menu grid in Clicker 5 WIN. Has AVI (Indeo compression) movies. Indeo will not play in Vista. Contact me if you need another movie format. Installing Clicker integrated study units, click here
Classroom Suite
LogCabinSuite.zip (32.7 MB) All 5 Log Cabin activities in Classroom Suite v.3 or later. Install zip file using the Import button. Custom IntelliKeys overlays attached to each activity.
LogCabinDynavox.zip (1.2 MB) (TITLE) Five Log Cabin activity overlays saved as Dynavox package files. Decompress zip file to use.
PowerPoint
LogCabinPowerPoint.zip (20.2 MB) Log Cabin and Fill The Shelves activities saved as .ppt and .pptx files. No movies. PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007 versions for both activities in this single zip file.
SoftTouch
LogCabinMBS.zip (12.2 MB) folders with Log Cabin book and movies to import into My Own Bookshelf.
FillTheShelvesMBS.zip (9.0 MB) folders with Fill The Shelves book to import into My Own Bookshelf.
LogCabinCompTMSM.zip (3.0 MB) Test on Log Cabin story using clip art for answers. Requires Test Me Score Me.
TellMeWhereTMSM.zip (5.1 MB) Fill the blank test on Fill The Shelves Story story with text answers. Requires Test Me Score Me.
Downloads-Resources
CabinCipArt.zip (1.8 MB) Clip art in JPEG format from Log Cabin and Fill The Shelves stories including the building the cabin button icons and all the furnishings of the cabin, plus the bear, naturally! To preview the collection, click here.
Anne,
April 19, 2009 @ 7:43 pmAs usual your work is awesome! I’m doing a Classroom Suite training this week and will demo this activity and your website. Thanks for this.
Nena
WOW! As always Ann, you have gone above and beyond what anyone would ever think about doing. Not to mention that you are sharing these for FREE with us!!! Your attention to detail is always stupendous. The clip art is wonderful and the extension activitites are just great! I always love getting new goodies from you. It’s like Christmas:)
April 21, 2009 @ 10:58 pmThanks so much!!!
Dinell
All work here in the office stopped as everyone looked at Log Cabin – it is incredible and I can’t wait to show it to kids – the adults certainly love it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
April 23, 2009 @ 9:22 amCindy