You know who has an awesome job? Renan Ozturk. He’s an expeditionary artist. That means he travels with people on expeditions to fascinating locales, and then he documents the trip through art. I learned about him by reading Millbrook’s new title Secrets of the Sky Caves and editing the FREE teaching tools that support this book.

As you read this fascinating book, you’ll meet Ozturk, who painted the caves of Mustang, Nepal, on the climbing expedition documented in this story.

Author Sandra K. Athans, who also happens to be a fourth-grade teacher and literacy specialist, put together two great classroom assignments for this book. CCSS Research Project: Cool and Critical Jobs invites students to learn more about some of the jobs that went into exploring the Mustang caves, such as the expeditionary artist. The other piece is In Their Own Words: CCSS Close Reading and Analysis Assignment, in which students perform a close reading and analysis on the words of experience and advice offered by members of the Mustang team.

Both assignments address Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Check them out, and check back in two weeks for more FREE downloadable teaching tools.

Each season, our editorial staff puts our heads together to come up with great extras to help you get more out of our new series and titles. To download free resources for a book or series, find a book or series on our website. If you haven’t registered with us, please do so at the upper right corner of the page. On future visits, you’ll need to sign in to download files. Then look in the right-hand column of the page for the eSource logo. Just under the Font Lens, you’ll see the downloadable eSource files. Click on an individual file or on “download all.”