The unit we constructed for our third graders was based around the novel The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling. It is a wonderful story about a young boy named John who loves chocolate.  One day John comes across a special coin with his initials on it. He finds that with this special coin, he is able to buy a special box of chocolate from a special store. After eating this delicious chocolate, John soon finds that everything he touches to his lips turns to chocolate, including his mother! This story is not only fun to read, but it teaches a lesson about being too greedy and to be careful what you wish for. 

Our goal while designing our "Chocolate Touch" unit was to create a cross-curricular unit including subject areas such as math and language arts. At the time we began our unit, our third graders were starting to learn all about graphs and charts, so we were able to incorporate The Chocolate Touch into this by having the students conduct surveys of other classrooms and graph their results on The Graph Club. Once all graphs were complete, our third graders were asked to analyze the results. Along with this math lesson, we had our students using technology for many language arts activities. These activities included: creating character maps on Kidspiration, story illustrations and a final draft on Storybook Weaver, a chocolate fact book Powerpoint presentation, and a chocolate cookbook Powerpoint presentation which enhanced their learning of steps in a process. Overall, the students are meeting curriculum benchmarks and standards while enjoying chocolate at the same time!