Christmas Jewels

  

I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I love everything about it: the decorations, the baking, the wrapping of presents, and, of course, the stories.  Regardless of students' personal beliefs my favorite stories connect with kids because of the characters and the real-life situations they are in.

Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant - An Appalachian story of a boy who every Christmas waits for the Christmas train hoping for a specific present, and eventually this gift teaches him what Christmas is about. 

Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck - This story was originally published in 1955 but it is one that students love.  On Christmas Eve a boy is looking for the perfect gift for his father, a gift that will show how much he loves him, but he has very little money.  What he decides on ends up being even a greater gift that he thought. 

Welcome Comfort by Patricia Polacco - a custodian at a school sees a boy who's being bullied so he takes him under his wing.  He finds out this boys is a foster child and he starts spending time with him outside of school and through the years he becomes part of his family, so much so that when he retires he wants the boy to continue in his footsteps, some of which Comfort never expected.

Bah!  Humbug? by Lorna Balian - a brother and a sister on Christmas Eve prepare for Santa.  The big brother decides to set a trap for Santa so he can prove to his little sister that Santa is not real.  This is one of my very favorite books and I often have my students draw their own trap and tie it into Science with them labeling the simple machine parts they would use.

Santa's Book of Names by David McPhail - when the story begins, a young boy is having trouble learning to read.  On Christmas Eve, he ends up having to help Santa as he delivers presents and the practice and repeated effort he's put in to read pays off.

December by Eve Bunting - a homeless young boy and his mom only have a cardboard box house, a tiny tree (more like a branch), and a picture of an angel.  On Christmas Eve, they run into a frail old woman who needs a warm place for the night and they take her in.

Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo - a few days before Christmas a young girl sees an organ grinder and his monkey playing outside her window. One night she sees them sleeping on the street at midnight and she can't get them out of her mind. 

Going Home by Eve Bunting - Carlos and his family are going to Mexico for Christmas.  Carlos and his sisters have been in the U.S. since they were little and don't remember Mexico.  They don't understand how their parents think it's a good idea to "go home" when they're already "home."

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston - and Appalachian story set at the end of WWI.  Ruthie and her mom have been waiting for Ruthie's father and brother to return home but they're not home yet.   To continue her father's tradition of donating a Christmas tree to the town, Ruthie and her mom go to find the tree her father marked a year before.

The Mighty Santa Fe by William H. Hooks - what little boy doesn't love trains?  William is not happy to have to go to his Great Granny's house and leave his train behind until Granny takes him on a marvelous ride on the Mighty Santa Fe.

Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera - Sophie and her brother are all about "getting" when it comes to presents.  Sophie is tired of hearing her Auntie Claus tell her "it is far better to give than to receive," and she's wondering about her aunt's secretive and odd ways.  She hides in one of her aunt's boxes and learns more than she expected.

I didn't add 2 of my favorites because I know they're widely used:  
                 Twas the Night Before Christmas and The Polar Express

I'd love to hear about some of your favorites.  Happy Reading and Merry Christmas!!!

Moving On From Sounding Out

  Does this sound familiar? 

             Student:  "duh, eh, ef, ih, nah, ih, t.  I don't know what it says."

  Reading decoding for 3rd through 5th graders often sounds like this to me.  They are frustrated and I'm ready to pull my hair out when they're stopping at every other word and isolating each sound in this way.  Although students have been taught to look for chunks in the lower grades, those who still struggle with decoding in upper elementary usually isolate the sounds and have trouble blending them to hear a known word. 

  I heard about "BESTing a word" at a reading conference several years ago and I found it to be a great tool to get students to improve their decoding skills.  By upper elementary, students have learned about syllables so helping them to sound out in syllables and repeatedly put the syllable pieces together gets to a more identifiable word.  It, also, helps them with multisyllabic words that begin to show up in their textbooks and in standardized tests.

  When I worked with small groups as a reading specialist, I started out every lesson with 2 or 3 words to "BEST" and after a while students began to do it on their own.  I would write the word on the board and as a group we'd break it into syllables, examine each syllable, say each syllable in isolation and then combining the syllables repeatedly until the word was recognizable, and finally each student would use it in a sentence to make sure they understood what the word meant. 

  Here are bookmarks I made for students to keep in their reading folders:

Back To School - Let the reading aloud begin!

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!  Expectantly awaited by some and fearfully dreaded by others...school is just about to start.  I fall on the expectantly awaited side.  True, I'm retired and now only work part-time, so I still get to enjoy lunch outside a school cafeteria, time with family, and sleeping in, REGARDLESS, the beginning of school is a joyful anticipation of what's to come: connecting with new kids, new families, and, hopefully, making a difference in someone's life.  Now my job is out of a classroom (RTI coordinator- probably not the most loved position) but thinking about the beginning of school takes me back to planning for kids anyway.

The first couple of weeks I spent time sharing lots of books - - books that would become mentor texts for the year, books that told about my life, books I just loved, books that generated possible writing topics.

   Marianthe's Story by Aliki - This book has two stories ("Painted Words" and "Spoken Memories").  It is the story of a young girl moving to the U.S. from another country and her experience as she goes to school and begins to learn a new language.  It not only helped me let students know about my life, but in our current world it is common to find students from other countries, so it provided an opportunity for hearing about their stories and for discussing empathy and patience with those still learning the language.

   How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting - similar to the one above in that it helped students open up about their own personal stories, if you have immigrant students in your class.

  A Box of Friends by Pam Munoz Ryan - loved to use it to find out about the students (where they've been, what they love).  The child in this story makes a box with items that remind her about special people and events in her life after she moves to a new house.  I had students respond in their writing notebooks by drawing a box and putting pictures of memories or people they wanted to remember.  It became a source of writing ideas for later.  The book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox is similar, and I have used it before as well.

  Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon,, by Patty Lovell - great for talking about bullying, about how you can stand up for yourself without hitting or crying.  This is also a book that's great to use when talking about developing characters in writing.

  Flossie & the Fox, by Patricia McKissack - a fun story that will be a mentor text for persuasive text, for voice, for story ideas, for character development.  I like using it at the beginning of school because in the Author's Note, she tells how this story came out of stories she heard her family tell. We discussed how we all have stories we've heard in our family and students add those to their writing notebooks as they gather ideas for writing.

  First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg - definitely a read for the very first day!

I won't tell much about it, so you check it out, but students love it.  A good mentor text for later, when teaching about endings.

  Painting the Wind, Patricia Maclachlan - a boy wants to learn how to draw the wind, so he watches different artists paint.  I like to use it to talk about how we can learn from each other, from the writers we read, etc.

  Ruby the Copycat, by Margaret Rathmann - great for talking about being a good friend and the importance of doing your own thing.

         Something Might Happen, by Helen Lester - a lemur is afraid of everything, fearing something awful could happen.  He doesn't have doors or windows.  He won't bathe.  He won't go outside when his friends ask him to join them. 

 

Nadia's Hands by Karen English - a young girl is chosen to be a flower girl in a Pakistani wedding and worries about what kids will say at school when they see the mehndi designs on her hands.  I love it to generate discussions on how we are alike and different, how our family traditions help us be unique.

The Name Jar, by Yangsook Choi - in this story a Korean girl is frustrated about how no one can pronounce her name and decides to change her name to one suggested by someof her classmates.  It's great to share how each student got their names, and again be able to celebrate the things that make each of us unique.

Dancing in the Wings, by Debbie Allen - Sassy is an outspoken girl who wants to be a ballerina more than anything in the world.  She thinks she is too tall, has feet too big, so she'll never get to be one.  This story shows that hard work and perseverance can help us accomplish dreams.

Up North at the Cabin, by Marsha Wilson Chall - perfect story to talk about what everyone did in the summer.  Later, a mentor text for describing, figurative language, and rich details. 

Hopefully you are excitedly planning for the beginning of school and these will remind you of stories you want to share with your students.  Connecting through a book begins to build your class community day one.

HAPPY READING!

Summer = Reading



 One of the things I love about summer is the laziness of it.  As a teacher, summer has always been a time to slow down, relax, and enjoy being lazy.  And, reading is the best way to do all 3!!!!  Even though I'm retired now, summer is still a time I catch up on reading.  It is one of my favorite things to do in the summer, so I love sharing titles with others.

   For the last few years, I've spent the last days of school doing book talks for each grade level.  I get my grade level piles together and introduce, or reacquaint, students with favorite characters, or intriguing situations, or historical fiction that will begin to build their background knowledge for the following year.  For 30 to 40 minutes, I read snippets of stories and leave students with a tease that, hopefully, will make them find that book.  I challenge them to find out the rest of the story, or to find a character they want to introduce to me the next year.

   A few years back, I worked with a wonderful media specialist, my friend Teresa Cruce, to create bookmarks for summer reading for each grade level.  On one side I compiled a list of books for each grade level, and she added on the backside information about the public library with dates of special library events, plus a few dates she would meet them at the public library.  I, or other faculty members, would join her in meeting students. We would help students choose books, talk with students about their summer, or read aloud to the group.  She always takes pictures of the students "caught at the library in the summer" and posts them in school at the beginning of the year.  I am no longer there, but Teresa continues to do this during the summer and the families love it.  Some teachers set a date with their class to meet at the library.  It's been a wonderful experience.

   For the book talks, I don't think it matters much which titles are shared.  The important things are that they are grade level appropriate and that the one sharing loves them.  It is hard to recommend a book you don't know well.  There's a wonderful website that helps in choosing age appropriate books,
http://www.readaloudamerica.org/booklist.htm.  Here are copies of my bookmarks.

Martina Josefina Catalina Cucaracha...unforgettable character

  I am totally biased about this book.  It is based on a Cuban folktale that I grew up listening to and it is written by a childhood friend, Carmen Agra Deedy, so it is close and dear to my heart.  Nevertheless, I promise that anyone who reads it will fall in love with Martina and with the ways in which Carmen develops such believable characters.

  All students enjoy the story, the way in which Spanish words are weaved into the story, and the rich detailed illustrations by Michael Austin.  For those of Cuban heritage, each page is filled with details of our culture.  When I read it, I talk to kids about all the objects that tell ME stories, all of my own.

  One activity I did with 1st graders came out of their disappointment at the end.  The story ends with Martina falling in love and saying yes to Perez' wedding proposal.  Every class I read it with, 6 of them, was sad they hadn't gotten to see the wedding, so each class took an event related to the wedding and we wrote a sequel as a class.  One class wrote about Martina's wedding dress, one class wrote about the wedding, one wrote about the wedding reception, etc.  They drew pictures for each story that was written on chart paper and we had our own publishing party by posting them out in a hall for all to see.

    With older students, it is a wonderful mentor text to work on developing characters.  Students love when Martina sits on the balcony to receive suitors and "she crossed her leg, and crossed her leg, and crossed her leg."  The vocabulary is rich with words that students don't generally use but the context helps them define it, so it is also a great tool for teaching about context clues.

   If you don't know this book, get to a library or, better yet, a bookstore.  You will want to use it again and again with students.

Where I'm From

     Poetry is a writing genre that students some times are leary of.  Some of my 4th and 5th grade boys think poems are just for girls. Many students think all poems have to rhyme, so they spend all their energy in coming up with rhyming words and their products have no depth.

     One of the first poem writing activities I do is using the poem Where I'm From by George Ella Lyon as a mentor text, along with the book Momma, Where Are You From by Marie Bradby

       After reading these and discussing them, I share my poem, Teacher, Teacher, Where Are You From?" (a copy is found on this blog, the first blog entry).  Together we talk about how I used those books to create my own and I share how I used a list to brainstorm.

       Students, then, are asked to make a list of things, people, and events that make them who they are.  They get the Where I'm From template to help with their brainstorming and to help them with the structure of the poem.  After 10 minutes of brainstorming, students pair up to share their lists and partners are encouraged to add ideas as the lists are revised.  After this buddy time, students set out to write.  They are not required to follow the template or to just fill in the blanks.  The template is a guide for their brainstorming and structure.

Here's a copy of the template and a 5th grade student sample:

       

TEXT STRUCTURE MENTOR TEXTS

     On Pinterest I found this great anchor chart on text structure:
                                               http://pinterest.com/pin/34340015878746199/
      It reminded me of the lessons I did to teach text structure.  I found that using a mentor text, and adding it to a similar chart we made, helped students to better identify text structures independently.  As we worked on text structures, students would compare and contrast the books read aloud as an added piece of information to help guide their thinking.

      Here are some of my favorites.  I hope you, and your students, enjoy them!

                           CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

             

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                                       DESCRIPTIVE
                

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                                                  PROBLEM & SOLUTION
 

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                             COMPARE & CONTRAST

     

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                                          CAUSE & EFFECT

 

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Words Paint

     The Aminal is an old book that never gets old with students.  I've used it with Kindergarten through 3rd graders and they've all loved it.  It's great to use to teach visualization as a comprehension strategy, and to teach about using specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives to make our writing "paint pictures."
When I use it, I put it in a folder and don't show any pictures to the students.  Students fold and divide a piece of paper into 8 boxes.  On the first box, they write the title and authors, and their names.  On boxes 2 - 7 they listen to each child's description and draw what they picture.  On the 8th box, they write "I think it is..." and draw a picture.  Before doing this, we go back and think about what we know from what Patrick initially said, often I re-read those pages so they can make their predictions.

     Then I re-read each description and we look at the illustrations of what each child pictured, comparing the books' illustrations to ours.  Kids get a kick out of seeing the similarities and differences, and we talk about what specific words may have been better to use.  When we unveil the final picture that shows what the "aminal" is, students are usually surprised.  Of course, there are always a couple of students that are right on target, but for the most part few get the prediction correct.  This is a great opportunity to talk about how readers have to be like detectives as they read, going back to re-read sections, and storing clues throughout their reading.

Making History Real - WWII

     I often hear students complain about how boring Social Studies is, how it's just a bunch of stuff that happened long ago and they hate having to remember people and dates that mean nothing to them.  Thankfully, in the last few years children's literature has really exploded in historical fiction.  These are my favorites and although all but one are picture books, older students still get touched by these characters and the injustices, bravery, and pain suffered by those they represent.

Rose Blanche, Christopher Gallantz and Roberto Innocenti - Rose is a young German girl who gets curious about trucks passing through her town and decides to follow one after seeing a boy jump out of one only to be thrown back in by the soldiers.  What she finds is a concentration camp and she begins to save and steal food to take to the children at the camp.  I love that it shows students that all Germans were not in agreement with the Nazis and it leads into talking about how the authors used the German resistance group's name as the title and main character's name.

The Harmonica, Tony Johnston - This book tells the story of a young boy taken to a concentration camp and separated from his family.  The officer in charge likes how the boy plays his harmonica so his life is saved by being able to play for the officer every night.

Terrible Things, Eve Bunting - This is an allegory of the Holocaust.  The setting is the woods and the "terrible things" repeatedly come to take different animals away for absurd reasons while the other animals look away, until it is their turn. 

Erika's Star, Ruth Vander Zees and Roberto Innocenti - By far, this book generates the most outrage and discussion by students.  As it begins the narrator tells of a lady he met while visiting Germany and the lady begins to tell her story by saying she doesn't know her name, her birthday, or her parents but she knows they saved her life as they traveled on a train to a concentration camp.

Luba, The Angel of Bergen-Belsen, Luba Tryszynska-Frederick, Ann Marshall and Michelle Roehm McCann - This is the truly amazing true story of how Luba, along with the women in her concentration camp, saved children who had been separated from their parents by hiding them in their sleeping quarters.

So Far From the Sea, Eve Bunting - As the story begins, a family is going to visit the grandfather's tomb and the father tells the story of how his father's family was taken to a Japanese internment camp due to the fear Americans had after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

The Bracelet, Yoshiko Uchida - A Japanese-American girl is confused when her family is taken to an internment camp.  She can't understand why.  She's just like her best friend. She's a girl scout, for goodness sake!

The Devil's Arithmetic, Jane Yolen - The only chapter book in the mix is a story that begins in present time with a 12-year old girl who doesn't see the point of celebrating a Jewish holiday hearing the same stories every year.  Suddenly, she is transported back to a Polish village just as the villagers are taken to a death camp.  The story unfolds telling of the apalling conditions of their travel and life at the camp.

The Butterfly, Patricia Polacco - Monique lives in a small French village occupied by the Nazis.  She begins to see what she thinks is a ghost in her bedroom at night and soon finds out that this young Jewish girl and her family have been hiding in her basement.  Her mom is part of the French resistance.

One of my favorite lessons with these picture books, before beginning any talk about this in Social Studies, is to divide the class into groups and hand each group a book with the strict directions to not read any of it (students look at me like I'm crazy), but to only pay attention to the pictures and jot down their thoughts, questions, and reactions.  Warning, it won't be a quiet lesson because students immediately want to talk about what they're seeing so groups get into great discussions.  To keep them from reading the text, you have to give them only about 10 minutes per book.  We rotate the books around the room and later group share their thinking.  As you probably imagine, students can't wait to read the books after that, which they do during their independent reading.