Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna: the true cost of war

 

Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P. Dobbs is a historical fiction, #ownvoices story of the author's great-grandmother who trekked across Mexico during the 1913 revolution towards the U.S. border.  This is an important chapter book that is excellent for grades 3 and up.  Although this is a refugee, war story, readers can still relate to the characters and their emotions since they are all universal themes of family, friendship, hope and love.

12 year-old Petra whose mother passed away a year ago is grappling with the trauma of her father being forced to fight in the revolution.  Alone in her village with her aging grandmother and two younger siblings, Petra is forced to lookout for their well-being.  Her father promises to return as she remembers his words before he left, "in a world full of darkness and uncertainty, there's always enough rom for one more promise."  Petra clings to the hope of reuniting with her father after the war.  Readers can discuss times when they were forced to say goodbye to loved ones and what that felt like.  Did they make plans to stay in touch or reunite one day?  Why does that offer comfort?

When the Federales, "the monsters" who are the army for the government of Huerta, attack their village, Petra and her family must flee or be killed.  Petra thinks, "My home, my life--everything I knew was gone.  There was nothing to come back to.  I thought about Papa and prayed that one day we'd find each other."  Readers can try to imagine what they would do in Petra's situation.  Would they stay close-by in case her father returned or risk losing touch with him if they left their village?  

 Using their wits and knowledge of their ancestors, they make their way north meeting various groups of people along the way who offer advice, hope and friendship to Petra who desperately needs the encouragement.  "...sincere friendships can sprout even amid the darkest moments and places."  These friends provide a safe space for Petra to share her insecurities and develop a sense of confidence in her abilities.  Readers can share people in their lives who offer this support and even think about who they offer their support to, as well.

The story is quite well-told with Spanish words and folklore mixed in that adds authenticity to the characters and their mindsets.  The relationship that Petra has with her grandma and younger siblings is touching and relatable for many readers.  She faces prejudice for being darker-skinned so others look down upon her.  Readers can discuss ways in which prejudice still exists in the world today.  How does that affect how people earn money to support their families?

The author's note at the end explains more about how Dobbs' great-grandmother escaped the war and fled to the U.S.  She provides a timeline that explains the complicated history of power in Mexico and is helpful for even adults to read and understand.  I hope that this book makes its way into many classrooms, libraries, and book clubs.  Refugee perspectives are so often left out of history books that the more we have them, the better we can empathize with their circumstances.  Here is a free teaching guide that goes with the book for more ideas on how to use it with students.

Fun games to play with K-12 students: in-person or virtually

 Categories: roll the dice or draw a card with a color and the student picks a square from that row and teams can come up with examples, pairs of students, or individuals or even the whole class can write or draw them.

The Name 5 came in my Pinterest feed and I saved it to use with remote learners, but my in-person learners loved to play it, too! Here is the original source for this sheet.

Another alternative way to play is to pick a category that goes with a book you will be reading & use the Name 5 as a concept formation tool.

Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament: did you know that the game has been around longer than the pyramids?  That's a fun-fact shared by author Drew Daywalt in his read-aloud video of The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors. 

 It is easy to do a class tournament which is in-person.  Pair students up, they play best out of 3 rounds and the winner gets paired up with another until there is one champion.  There are variations on this, like, the loser of the rounds sits down or they follow their opponent who beat them and cheer them on. This is the slide I used with my second graders and a video of our first round of playing. The second round went much better!

In a virtual environment there are also variations.  You can send partners into breakout rooms and then narrow it down from there.  Or you can pair opponents up and all stay in the same room.  For example, when I did this with 2nd graders I called the pairs out and made sure that they knew whose square to be focused on during the match.  The winner of the round keeps their camera on.  At the end of the round I re-paired them up for the next round, etc.  For the last round we all turned our cameras on and cheered them on.  

As a challenge you can ask students to come up with other ideas rather than rock, paper, scissors.  You can even show them the clip from The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon shares his version:

High Five tournament: Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri's picture book, High Five is especially fun to read before this activity.  

The book trailer previews some variations on the style of high fiving:

After watching you can ask students which ones they liked the most, which ones were the hardest, etc.  You can even have them recreate them and then choose one action to add on top of it.  Students can work on these alone or individually and share them on a Flipgrid and have students vote for their favorites. You can also have a tournament in your class with students competing and some acting as judges, like in the book.

Here are our kindergarteners following the directions for a partner high five challenge:

This was the list that we practiced a few moves at a time.  With older groups you can go through the motions and see who can perform them without looking at the list of directions:

Mannequin Challenge: Back in 2016 there was a viral video challenge that asked people to hold a pose while the camera spans the room.  You can do this with students by choosing a prompt, asking them to hold a pose that they interpret as a good response and either video tape them OR take photos.  Here is a clip of first graders holding a power pose:

We did this for Children's Book Week 2021 because the slogan was Reading is a Superpower. We replicated the girl in the center of the poster designed by illustrator Bryan Collier: 

Students shared their superpower poses and we copied classmates. I turned their photos into a collage to share with families.

More ideas can be found on this site, Teaching With a Mountain View, for upper elementary and up.

Beautiful Oops game:

Read aloud (or show a video read aloud of the book) Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg & challenge your students to take one of the mistakes in the and show an example of it:

• A spill
• Bent paper
• A drip of paint
• A scrap of paper
• A smudge & smear
• A stain
• Holes
• A wad 

After they have made an example of a mistake they can put them all out on a table.  Pull students' names, one-by-one, and have them choose one of the mistakes to turn into something else, like in the book.

This is fun because it builds community, students love thinking about their connections to one another and this is one way to create that bond.  It's also enjoyable because they are all based on mistakes.  They won't be perfect and that is the whole point.  Students can be creative and if they are stuck they can use the book as a mentor text.

Finally, you can display the art and do a gallery walk with others in the school & see if they can spot the "mistake" that inspired the art!

You can even award a "Best in Show" and give them the follow-up book to Beautiful Oops!: My Book of Beautiful Oops! an interactive journal for young artists!

The book's website has more ideas on how to use the book and join the world-wide community sharing their Beautiful Oops on social media: 

Infinite Country: a multi-generational saga in less than 200 pages

 

Infinite Country, a young adult and adult novel, by Patricia Engel clocks in at less than 200 pages, but it is a richly told story of a Colombian family whose choices have everlasting effects on future generations.  Engel rotates the point-of-view throughout the story so it is told in a series of present-day snapshots and flashbacks to when their family was started with the union of Elena and Mauro.

The story opens with 15-year Talia's breaking out of a juvenile detention facility in the Andes mountains, "it was her idea to tie up the nun."  Immediately the reader is drawn into the story and curious about all of the events that led to that point.  Thankfully, Engel reveals just enough information through each character's chapters so it slowly trickles out, piece by piece.  Talia's crime was justified in her mind yet "Talia considered how people who do horrible things can be victims, and how victims can be people who do horrible things."  Readers can discuss if this is true and when history has done this for various people.  Does this still happen today?

As the story moves forward the reader learns that "Talia's mother was abroad and sent Talia to Columbia when she was a baby but this story was so common it couldn't possibly be considered trauma."  The choice that Elena makes resonates with everyone in the family.  Readers can discuss if this is truly traumatic and in what way?  Engel continues to divulge more of the how and why behind Elena's decision and the way it is revealed through the different characters' chapters makes it most heart-wrenching to read.  

"People say drugs and alcohol are the greatest and most persuasive narcotics--the elements most likely to ruin a life.  They're wrong. It's love."  Engel drops this incredibly deep thought in the middle of the story as Mauro is dipping in and out of sobriety in his attempt to deal with the splitting up of his family.  Readers can talk about addiction and the ways in which love drives people to do the unthinkable.  How does Elena and Mauro's love story ruin lives? Did it ruin their own, their children's, Elena's mother's, or all of theirs, or none of theirs?

Another aspect of this novel that is especially meaningful is the idea of dual-identity that immigrants continually must grapple with on a daily basis.  Elena thinks, "when you leave one country for another, nobody tells you years will bleed together like rain on newsprint.  One year becomes five and five years becomes ten. Ten years become fifteen."  Even over the course of many years in another country, immigrants hope to one day return, but in this story, Elena cannot just visit Columbia since her status is undocumented.  Her family in the U.S. must straddle the awkward rope of trying to fit-in while not standing out and attracting the attention of authorities.  Readers can discuss the stress of living this way.  What are the drawbacks of this life for Elena and her children?  What are the benefits? Which outweighs the other?

Elena and Mauro's children's perspective are told in vastly different ways. Talia, the youngest, is in Colombia with her father and her side of the story is the first the reader learns.  Karina, the first-born, is in the U.S. with her mother and younger brother, who was born in the U.S. so his experience contrasts to hers.  She has to go to great lengths to wrap her mind around half of her family being in another country. A country that she is a citizen of but will never live in, unless she is found and deported by ICE.  Nando, the only son of the family is bullied incessantly but he keeps it all to himself.  Nando and Karina's perspectives are ones that readers can discuss. Who has it better?  

Elena "blamed herself for displacing her own children, especially her girls.  Karina and Talia, binational, each born in one country and raised in another like repotted flowers, creatures forced to live in the wrong habitat."  Mauro's upbringing, what he teaches Talia in terms of folklore and native Columbian stories, weaves its way through the story.  Engel beautifully uses the stories of the serpent, princesses, jaguar and condors to reflect what is happening to the family.  Readers can try to find the parallels in these mentions. Which family member fits each animal's role?

Overall, this story leaves the reader with hope, want for action on current immigration policies in the U.S., and more empathy towards immigrant stories.  Engel's Columbian background adds authenticity to every layer and is a must-read for any young adult and adult. 

How Far You've Come: now & then lesson idea

 As the school year comes to a close, I always want students to reflect back on their progress academically, but also in other ways.  When looking for activities to encourage students to look at their whole selves, I came across this Now & Then lesson idea from the late literacy specialist, Dr. Rozlyn Linder's book, The Big Book of Details: 46 Moves for Teaching Writers to Elaborate.  

First, we read a picture book where the author was one way when he was younger, but now he was different.  The book for this lesson was Malcolm Mitchell's My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World.  But any biography or story where the character makes a change would do fine as a mentor text.

After listening to the story we discussed how he changed from when he was little. That led the students to share how they connected to his struggles.  Next, I passed out scrap paper and modeled how to brainstorm the ways that I was when I was little compared to now. Some things have changed and some have stayed the same.  Ask students to do the same. I turned on a song that was 3 minutes 30 seconds long so that was the timer that was up.  

After the timer goes off, ask students to share with their classmates some of the ones that stood out to them.  

Finally, the publication part. Since I did this with 5th graders, I wanted to have something to project and print off for the hallway before their recognition ceremony.  So I told them to use the PIC COLLAGE EDU app on their iPads to publish their final lists.  They could also have written a poem, a story, or a visual collage of their ideas, too.

Here are some examples of their final pieces: 

Although I did this with students to reflect about themselves, you can also do this about characters in a book, a real person's biography, or a place for geography and Social Studies lessons.  What I appreciate about this is the open-ended topic, while still being within the confines of time and change or stagnation.  

May is Mental Health Month:145 Picture & Chapter Books for elementary/middle school

Bibliotherapy is defined as "the use of literature to help people cope with emotional problems, mental illness, or changes in their lives (Pardeck, 1994), or to produce effective change and promote personality growth and development (Lenkowsky, 1987; Adderholdt-Elliott & Eller, 1989)." Books provide a neutral space to discuss these sensitive issues that students face and providing students with these opportunities to listen to, read, and talk about stories where characters are facing difficulties, it will help them in their own struggles and shows them how to support others who face these issues.  In gathering books for my teachers in my school, I came upon a website that listed the various branches of mental health issues.

These sub-categories helped me narrow down books to offer :

Of course there are many more excellent books that fit these categories. These were what we had available in our school library that I offered to the teachers.  If you have suggestions for additional titles please add them in the comments below!

If you'd like more resources on Mental Health Month, check out the Learning for Justice site.

Get 'em Moving: kinesthetic teaching & learning ideas

 

During my undergraduate education in elementary education I had to take a special education course.  I remember my professor comparing the scaffolding, accommodations and modifications that we make as teachers for our special education students to a wheelchair ramp.  He reminded us that many others benefit from the wheelchair ramp and use it rather than steps.  This is how teachers should approach their instructional design: that all could benefit from their intentional prompts and choices to make the lesson reach all learners.  

After several years of classroom teaching, I had SIOP Sheltered Instructional training and the facilitator told us something similar:  although SIOP is targeted towards English Language Learners, the approach benefits everyone in the classroom.  Finally, when I got trained on Kagan strategies, I heard this again!  That all students benefit from getting moving and being accountable for their engagement.  This idea of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has caused me to incorporate more of it into my library lessons for students in across the grades, from kindergarten on up.

Below are some online resources that focus on kinesthetic learning ideas:

More readings I recommend with highly engaging strategies to use in the classroom are: