History · Grade 1–2 to Grade 7–8
One event, two front pages
Tell a point of view from something made up.
Your child reads a pack of cards about the first moon landing and writes a front page for a chosen reader. Then they check another editor's page phrase by phrase: stated in the cards, guessed, or made up.
- Grade 1–2 to Grade 7–8
- 30 min
- A printout
- On the screen
Free to sign up.
Is it a good fit?
- Ready if Your child can listen to a short sentence and find the same words on a card.
- Too much today? The Grade 1–2 level: one picture and two true captions, each from the cards.
- Too easy? The Grade 3–4 level: a headline for a named reader, three details with a card each, and the other page marked line by line.
What your child practises
- What a source really says
- Stated, guessed or not supported
- Writing for a reader
“That's a guess. No card says that.”
If your child says something like this, in their own words, the idea has landed. Finishing the rounds means they took part; this is the learning.
Your part
- Paper and pens
- Each question has a Read it to me button
- At Grade 1–2 a grown-up reads the cards with your child
Take it off the screen (optional)
Find two real news pages about the same day with different headlines, and read them together.
More like this
The full design
What it is
Two honest front pages about the same day can lead with different things, and neither may make anything up. Your child reads a small pack of cards about one real day, the first landing on the moon in July 1969 (the mission record, the crew, the first steps, what they did), agrees what is actually stated, and writes a front page for a named reader while a second editor writes another. Then the pages are swapped and every phrase is judged: stated in the pack, guessed from it, or not supported at all. The lesson is the difference between a point of view and a lie.
How it goes
The cards are on the screen, each with a letter and a name. Your child taps which of three sentences is actually written in a card; a sentence nobody wrote gets "which card says that? look for the words", never a mark. Then the reader, the lead and three details from a list that mixes stated facts with guesses and inventions. Then the other editor's page: tap a phrase, say stated, guessed or not supported; a wrong call gets the card that settles it. Then one phrase replaced with something the pack supports, and the two pages side by side, each phrase lighting its card when tapped. "It depends, everyone has their own truth" is offered as a lead at 5–6 and the Pet catches it: a fact is stated in a source or it is not.
The Pet
It notices the honest choice ("you chose a different lead without changing the facts"). It asks, at every phrase: which source supports those words? It remembers the headline that added too much. Its dare is the next step up, played at once: the sentence that is really in a card, or the honest headline when two cards disagree; at 5–6, the card written as it happened; at 7–8, two real news pages about one day, found with you that evening, and who wrote each, when and why.
By band
1–2: one picture and two captions, yours and the other editor's, each true and each from the pack. 3–4: a headline for a named reader (the town, the ferry lane, the children's page), three details under it, the source for each; then the other page marked phrase by phrase, one guess and one invention caught, and one fixed. 5–6: two cards that disagree about how many people watched on television (about 600 million, about 530 million), and the honest headline that says so; then two towns' papers, Houston and London, with different dates for the same first step. 7–8: who wrote a card, and when, before what it says: the card written as it happened, why two honest counts differ, why three made-up papers wrote their headlines, what two pages agree on, and who is on neither page.
What it grows
Telling a point of view from an invention is the heart of reading history and of reading the news, and children of eight and nine can do it when the sources are few and in front of them. Writing for a named reader makes the choice of lead visible; marking another writer's phrases makes "how do you know?" a habit.
Done, and what counts as evidence
Done means two pages marked. The pair, with its stated, guessed and not-supported marks, is a work sample; the fixed phrase is the observation.
What's personal
The day on the screen is a real one, told in cards we wrote after NASA's record of Apollo 11. Your family's own event (a move, a wedding, the day the dog came) with your photos as the cards is a later addition, not built yet. Nobody real is put in a character's mouth, and the second editor is a person at your table, with the Pet standing in only when no one is there.