For a craft idea, have you thought about duct-tape wallets? Good directions with photos are available at http://www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/duct_tape_wallet.html and the site owner gives permission to reproduce the directions. This is definitely a project where the adult should demonstrate; the directions seem complicated until you "see" what is meant. Try some wild and crazy duct tape for cool wallets -- http://www.duckbrand.com/Products/duck-tapes/color-duck-tapes.aspx

I've been told by teens that these wallets last a lot longer than the cloth wallets most carry.

Good luck!

My special education elementary students really enjoyed picture books by Dav Pilkey...they thought they were hilarious. Some other individual titles that are pictures books with more mature stories:

• Magnus at the Fire
• City of Snow: The Great Blizzard of 1888
• Police Cat
• Go Home! The True Story of James the Cat
• Titanicat
• Hero Cat
• One Potato, Two Potato
• The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (non-fiction)
• Snowflake Bentley (non-fiction biography)

There are a lot of biographical picture books that should be interesting to older students as well.

For non-fiction, you might look at the series called True Tales of Survival. These are short enough to be read aloud quickly, and the stories are very engaging.

When I've gone school visiting to schools where I know a lot of the kids read below grade level I bring in awesome non-fiction picture books. Both Actual Size and Prehistoric Actual Size (by Steve Jenkins) wowed even 8th graders! Another series that has proven popular are the books by Ben Hillman (How Big Is It? How Fast Is It? How Weird Is It?).

A genre that has also worked well is true animal tales such as:

Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival by Kirby Lason

Elephants Can Paint, Too! by Katya Arnold

Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends and Travels with Tarra by Carol Buckley

Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle by Major Brian Dennis

Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World by Craig Hatkoff

Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship and Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship by Isabella Hatkoff

And lastly, I have long a list of funny, not-too-sweet picture books that I like to use with older readers. Here's just a few titles:

Lady Muck William Mayne 1997 Sowk and Boark, two greedy pigs, plot to bcome rich from the sale of truffles they have found in the woods, but things do not turn out as planned.

The Happy Hocky Family Lane Smith 1993 Funny very short stories about chores, sharing toys (or not), ants and birthdays.

The Happy Hocky Family Moves to the Country Lane Smith 2003 More hijinks as the family learn about farm animals ("If Farmer Dill's rooster crows 17 times a day, and the Hocky family has heard him 6,205 times..."), squirrels, and snow.

The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit Werner Holzwarth 2007 Little Mole tries to find out who pooped on his head so he can take his revenge.

Old Black Fly Jim Aylesworth 1992 Rhyming text follows an old black fly through the alphabet as he has a very busy bad day landing where he should not be.

Egg Drop Mini Grey 2009 Once there was an egg who wanted to fly. It climbs to the top of a very tall tower and jumps. "Whee!" it cries. "I am flying!" But it is not flying. It is falling. Will there be a happy (or maybe sunny side-up?) ending for this modern day Humpty Dumpty?

John Patrick Norman McHennessy---the boy who was always late John Burningham 1987/2008 A teacher regrets his decision to disbelieve a student's outlandish excuses for being tardy.

Hush, Little Dragon Boni Ashburn 2008 Baby dragons have to eat too.

Twelve Terrible Things Kelley, Marty 2008 "Just about everything in this book is terrible. You're probably going to turn the page, anyway, aren't you? Okay. Go ahead. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED." Monsters under the bed. Birthday party clowns. Long car rides. Mean big brothers. If you have ever felt yourself becoming nostalgic for childhood this book will cure you.

Princess Penelope's Parrot Lester, Helen 1996 A spoiled little princes wants to impress the (very, very rich!) little prince who comes to visit, but her mistreated parrot sends the prince running by repeating all the mean things the princess has said.

The Big Bad Wolf and me Perret, Delphine 2006 When the Big Bad Wolf is mistaken for a dog, he comes to live in a boy's closet and eat chocolate chip cookies.

Gator gumbo : a spicy-hot tale Fleming, Candace 2004 A hungry alligator, too old and slow to catch some good meat for his spicy gumbo, has to rely on trickery instead.

Mr. Maxwell's Mouse Asch, Frank 2004 Instead of ordering his usual baked mouse, today hungry Mr. Maxwell asks for a live mouse instead.

The mystery of Eatum Hall Kelly, John 2004 Mr. and Mrs. Pork-Fowler are invited to spend a weekend of gourmet dining at a spooky castle where their host, Mr. Hunter, is anxious to "meat" them.

The Spider and the Fly Howitt, Mary Botham; DiTerlizzi, Tony 2002 An illustrated version of the well-known poem about a wily spider who preys on the vanity and innocence of a little fly.

Ugly Fish LaReau, Kara 2006 At first Ugly Fish likes being alone in his tank so much that he eats any fish that tries to share it, but when he becomes lonely, he devises a better plan.

Whatever Bee, William 2005 Billy, unimpressed with everything his father does with him, always responds "whatever", until the world's "hungriest" tiger comes along and gets his attention.

Pierre : a cautionary tale in five chapters and a prologue Sendak, Maurice 1962 Pierre’s ‘I don’t care!’ intrigues a hungry lion.

The wolves in the walls Gaiman, Neil, McKean, Dave 2003 Lucy is sure there are wolves living in the walls of her house, although others in her family disagree, and it turns out she is right.

Wolves Gravett, Emily 2006 When a young rabbit checks out a library book about wolves, he learns much more about their behavior than he wanted to know.

My lucky day Keiko, Kasza 2003 When a young pig knocks on a fox's door, the fox thinks dinner has arrived, but the pig has other plans.

The paper bag princess Munsch, Robert N. 1980 Elizabeth, a beautiful princess, is about to marry Prince Ronald when a dragon smashes her castle, burns her clothes with his fiery breath, and prince-naps Ronald. Luckily Elizabeth knows just what to do.

Good Enough to Eat Brock Cole 2007 When an ogre comes to town demanding a bride, the mayor sacrifices the homeless girl with no name that everyone thinks of as a pest and bother, but she takes control of the situation and outwits them all.

A craft that was a big hit with my teens was "Whatever" crafting. Basically I saved bits and pieces of stuff, put it all out on the table, and let the teens create whatever they wanted out of it. Here are some of the types of materials we had:

• leftover cardboard boxes
• the hard plastic rolls from the inside of the receipt paper
• string, ribbon, yarn
• anything leftover from other craft projects: the ends of foam, craft paper, beads, pipe cleaners, pom poms, etc.
• some new stuff I had picked up to used "someday": Crayola model magic, fake money (very popular item), small satin flowers
• markers, pencils, pens, crayons
• rulers, scissors, hole punches
• tape, gule, stapler

I wasn't sure how the program would go over, but my teens all liked that they could just create without any expectation that the item(s) they made had to look like "something".

Introduce mythology and astronomy with such books as Zoo in the Sky: A Book of Animal Constellations or Once Upon a Starry Night: A Book of Constellations, both by Jacqueline Mitton.

Craft: Have the students bring their own dark blue or black cotton t-shirts. You provide constellation patterns and glow-in-the-dark fabric paint in small squeezable tubes.

Books on American Indian star legends are also available, such as Coyote Places the Stars by Harriet Peck Taylor and They Dance in the Sky by Jean Guard Monroe.

For a craft idea, what about chain mail? My group of friends runs a booth at the local renaissance faire every year where we teach children as young as 3 to make chain mail. There are tutorials available online here: http://www.mailleartisans.org/weaves/subcat.cgi?mode=cat&key=1

You can use cheap jewelry jump rings for materials. There are other possibilities that will be more durable, but they're more expensive.

Here's a new book from ALA that might help: "The Hipster Librarian's Guide to Teen Craft Projects"

If you're interested in including technology, check out Capstone Press's online database Pebble Go. (You can get a 30 day trial to try it). It is cool looking for older students, but it is extremely easy to use, the reading level is about 2nd grade, and the text can be read aloud. It's also great to project or to use with a Smart board.

Depending on the abilities of your students, they might really enjoy doing a basic research project with this or similar resources. Last year my special education students created a movie about the animals they planned to see on their upcoming zoo trip- they each chose three photos from a simple image search and then narrated them on Windows movie maker.

Regarding books - I think Mo Willem's pigeon books are great fun for all ages, and they can be interactive.

For crafts - easy magic tricks they can make are always fun for teens. You can make a "disappearing picture" with cardstock and acetate, a "magic worm" connected by string to their clothing, or, my personal favorite, the "pick a card" trick where they have gathered from several identical decks 5 or 6 matching cards that they put in a decorated envelope.

Hi Alexis: I have great success with Paul Jennings' short stories. They're mostly written from a kid's point of view, they all have a twist to them and they are mostly hilarious. They still crack me up and I'm grandmother age (but don't tell people!). Jennings goes down well with all ages.

David Shannon, who writes the No David! stories has also written Duck on a bike, a picture book that is one of my all-time favourites. The illustrations alone are priceless but add the story and Shannon has another winner.

Have you read any Chris Van Allsburg to your special kids? He wrote Jumanji, the Polar Express & several others, all of which are thought-provoking and illustrated with amazing art (his own).

I also find that kids enjoy myths and legends though maybe re-tellings would be most appropriate for special needs or EAL kids, since the vocabulary can be pretty high in the standard texts. Mary Pope Osbourne's retellings have terrific illustrations....

And I agree with Tamsin about the Paperbag Princess. Robert Munsch's early books are really useful with EAL kids (I'm a librarian in China) and they work especially well if the reader adds sound effects. Asian kids respond really well to humour.

Best of luck with your class. Cheers

Louise

Re the great Ben Hillman series: there is a fourth book, How Strong Is It? One of the more surprise-filled books, it's marvelously illustrated (like the others) and a really great read, with everything from shark bites to spider string! Highly Recommended!

A few of the books that I have read to older kids (and adults) that have been huge hits with lots of laughs are Bubba the Cowboy Prince: A Fractured Texas Tale by Helen Ketterman and Big Plans by Bob Shea. I also like to read Flossie and the Fox by Patricia McKissack. These books allow for the reader to get creative and interactive!