The Ogress and the Orphans-trust, power & love

 

The Ogress and the Orphans, a middle grade chapter book by Kelly Barnhill, reads like a fairy tale: a town dominated by an evil, glowing, greedy man, an orphanage full of sweet children who only hope of a better life ahead, and an outsider, the Ogress, who lurks nearby and leaves the community members gifts in order to alleviate their suffering.  It is no surprise that this book was a National Book Award Finalist.

From the first page the reader knows that all of the characters will come to a head at one point and the journey to that climax is well worth the wait.  I loved how skillfully Barnhill describes the relationships of the children towards one another and their caregivers.  The mystery of the community's fire lingers over the whole story as they are told to hate the Ogress by their greedy, orange leader.  The Ogress is my favorite character of the entire story. She has a gentleness that many can envision in a friend and the way she is treated is just heart-breaking. Children who read this will root for her and there will be discussions of the choices the characters make that drive the story forward.  

This book is similar to Barnhill's other fantasy novel, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, a Newbery Medal winner.  They both feature a misunderstood magical creature who is portrayed as the villain by power-hungry forces.  Readers will delight in both of these stories as the action-packed scenes, humor, and heart over-ride any reminder that they are indeed, fantasy stories. Both of these lend themselves well to read-aloud books for teachers, parents, and caregivers. Every reader will want to discuss these rich stories that are sure to be classics. 

Hispanic Heritage Month Ideas

September 15 - October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month and although we need to share Latinx voices all year round, this is the month that we can bring all of their books together in one place and celebrate.  Over the years I have done school-wide books and other times we focus on author studies for each grade level:

Kindergarten-1st grades: Juana Martinez-Neal, Matt de la Peña

2nd-3rd grades: Meg Medina, Yuyi Morales, Pat Mora

4th-5th grades: Gary Soto, Duncan Tonatiuh, Pam Muñoz Ryan,  Margarita Engle

Here are some specific books with lesson ideas:

Kindergarten - 1st grades

Prior the read aloud teach students how to say donkey in sign language. share that the author and illustrator, Anuska Allepuz is originally from Spain, and have them predict what the donkey eats that turns it green.  

After reading, go over the difference between fiction and nonfiction. What do they think this book is and why?  

Have the students choose a food for the donkey to eat and color their donkey the color of that food.  Students can also write the food and color on the template.

Before reading Moon Rope by Lois Ehlert, share that folktales often have a lesson and that this story is from Peru.  Review the animals that they will encounter in the story and have them act out the motions of the animals while they listen.  

After the story give each child a page with pictures from the book.  For example, here is one I provide:

Ask them to cut out the pictures and arrange them in order. They can number them or tape them to a piece of yarn for the full "Moon Rope" retelling experience.

Feel the Beat by Marilyn Singer and Let's Dance! by Valerie Bolling feature dances from Latin and South America.  Feel the Beat has a CD that comes with it, so students can listen to the poem with music.  Let's Dance can be read then students can get up and dance to Latinx music.  If you have shakers and maracas it's even better!

Here is an audio sample of Feel the Beat. 

2nd-3rd Grades

Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina and Angela Dominguez is perfect for making predictions and having students discuss all of the ways someone who speaks another language could feel.

Students share the words that they know in Spanish and learn the sign language for parrot. before listening to the story.   During the reading I like to share a prop of a suitcase with a snapshot and red feather like Abuela shares with Mia.  Students like to handle the objects after they hear the story.  Once the read aloud is complete, students can discuss the ways that language pushed the characters apart and how they were brought together.

As an extension of the book, students can make their own parrots out of paper or other STEM building materials.

Dreamers by Yuyi Morales is a beautiful story to share with students.  I ask students what it is like to move to another country.  Students discuss the wide range of feelings an immigrant could have.   Prior to reading the book we listen to Morales give background on her story and what her drawings symbolize.

After listening to the story, students brainstorm what gives them their identity.  Then they write a bio poem on a template provided by the teacher. You can get it HERE.

All the Way to Havana is a special picture book by Margarita Engle and Mike Curato.  Students get to learn about Cuba by listening to the author's note about how prior to 1959 there was a car ban in the country.  

There's a great trailer show:

As the book is read, it's really a poem, so the students can chant the sounds they hear.  After reading the story students can build a car of their design using the materials in their STEM bins.  When they are finished they can walk around and look at each other's creations.  TeachingBooks.Net also has an audio clip of Curato explaining how he went about creating the illustrations for the story.

4th-5th Grades

Students may recognize the skulls or caleveras from the movie Coco and associate it with The Day of the Dead.  Ask the students how it became so popular and invite them to listen to biography picture book, Funny Bones by Duncan Tonatiuh.  I give students a biography graphic organizer to use to write their notes and sketch their images.  

Students can listen to Tonatuih on TeachingBooks.Net explain his process for creating the illustrations.

After reading the story students can try to make their own calaveras out of paper plates. HERE are the directions.

Other books by Duncan Tonatiuh that I like to share are Separate is Never Equal and Dear Primo: 

Frida, a picture book by Jonah Winter and Ana Juan, is a beautifully told and illustrated story about artist, Frida Kahlo. Since I use this book with older readers I like to use the idea found on Common Sense Media  called, Queen of the Selfies.  Prior to reading the story I ask students to define what a selfie is, what makes them like or dislike one and how long they think selfies have been around.

Then I ask them what they know about Frida Kahlo:

We look at her self-portraits and try to guess what her life was like:

We read the book aloud and go back to her paintings to find clues to what she endured:

Finally, students are challenged to create a self-portrait using Frida's style of including important feelings, objects, and symbols. We use the app PicCollage on our iPads to do this. Here is my example:

Gary Soto's book of poetry, Neighborhood Odes is excellent for this age group.  Prior to reading  the poems, students brainstorm ideas from their neighborhood, family, friends, or objects they own.

I share that in Neighborhood Odes, Gary Soto focuses on these categories.  I challenge the students to try to match up the titles of the poems and the papel picado cutout-illustrations based on clues.  

Then I show them Soto's news story about the museum that opened in his honor:

We read one of his poems, "Ode to Pablo's Tennis Shoes" and students underline the parts that stand out to them.  They pick something from their brainstormed list and write an ode or a story about that idea.

As an extension we read his poem, "Oranges" that was made into a short film. After we read it, we watch the video and compare and contrast it to the poem.  

If students want to read a picture book by Soto, I recommend Too Many Tamales:

Shannon McClintock-Miller has created a Choice Board for students to explore, as well. If you have more titles you suggest please leave them in the comments!

24 books to teach RESPONSIBILITY for elementary/middle readers

 Each month our school focuses on a character trait to teach, practice, and discuss with our students. September is all about RESPONSIBILITY.  Our students are learning to be responsible in many ways: how to manage their time, supplies, events, friendships, and being part of a community.  Here are the books I recommend to my teachers to read to their classes.  These range from picture books to chapter books and all provide a rich context for how RESPONSIBILITY plays a role in all of our lives:

With all of these books readers can identify the ways that the main characters are being responsible and how that effects others in the story.  They can also relate the plot to their own lives. Have they been asked to take care of something in a similar way?  What happens when we don't live up to our responsibilities? How can we fix it?  These are powerful conversations that will have our children thinking about their actions.

If you have other favorites please add them in the comments!

The Mushroom Fan Club: putting the FUN in Fungi!

 The Mushroom Fan Club, a nonfiction picture book written and illustrated by Elise Gravel is a delight for all of the senses.  We have Gravel's popular nonfiction  Disgusting Critters series   in our school library and it's highly popular with our students, so when I spotted this book in our local comic book store, Chops Comics, I knew I had to take a closer look!

Gravel takes the reader along with her and her daughter as they venture into the woods looking for some mushrooms. She adds diagrams that help readers learn the names of the parts of the mushrooms and differentiates among popular types they have encountered on their hunts.  

The best part is that Gravel brings personality to the mushrooms so readers can remember the information, connect with it and share what they've learned with others.  I am going to use this book with my kindergarten - 2nd grade classes when we are working on the difference between fiction and nonfiction.  I've used her book, The Fly, for this learning objective before and the students love to listen to the facts about flies, which they see everyday.  

The Mushroom Fan Club offers many opportunities for interactive listening and follow-up activities.  My favorite parts of the book are that there are actions that readers can do along with the mushrooms.  For example, Gravel's daughter stomps on puffballs to help spread their spores for reproduction, so readers can act out stomping, just like her daughter.  

There are also species of mushrooms that Gravel does not get to describe, she leaves only the attention-grabbing names.  Readers can choose one to research, illustrate and share a fact with the community.  Or they can draw what they think the mushroom would look like based on the clues in the name and then they can look up the actual one to see how close they were!

Readers can, of course, walk outside and look for mushrooms as a follow-up and document what they have found.  They can learn about what mushrooms grow in their area.  We are lucky in our town to have a mushroom hunting club and at our farmers' market, many mushroom growers who are happy to share their knowledge about mushrooms.

Finally, Gravel adds instructions on how to do a spore print which is perfect for a classroom art activity.  All you need are mushrooms, paper and a glass or bowl. 

 I'm looking forward to reading this book with my students and encouraging them to get outside to look for mushrooms.  I'm incredibly impressed with anything that Gravel has written so I feel lucky to have found this copy nearby! It's a must-have for school libraries, science classrooms and home libraries.

183 Books for Kicking Off the New School Year

 

The new school year is upon us and books are the greatest way to learn about students, build relationships and discuss characters, storylines, and illustrations.  Even if you've already started the school year these books below will help to keep your classes full of memorable common reads that you can come back to again and again.  I like to put up the book covers of books we've read all year long so students can return to their favorites, check them out for themselves, find read-alikes and get ideas for their own writing.

From picture books to chapter books, nonfiction and poetry, riddles and jokes, there is something for every reader here!

Click here for access to the slideshow.  If you have more titles you'd like to suggest please add them in the comments!