Ask The Right Questions

On the way back to our classrooms after dismissal yesterday, my colleague asked me, "Is it really quiet on your morning walks?"

At lunch, a whole table of us had been talking about how hard it is to preserve time for ourselves once school starts. There had been the usual surface level amazement that I continue to get up at 5:00 a.m. and walk for a half an hour at 5:30, even though there is no longer a dog to make such an activity mandatory.

My colleague's after school follow-up question was far from a surface level question. She came at my morning walk from an unexpected and thoughtful direction. And she got more of an answer than perhaps she expected, because when you walk in the dark, you pay closer attention to the sounds around you. My walks right now are loud with insect sounds -- crickets and tree crickets, buzzing, chirping and whirring. As winter comes, my walks will be more and more silent, until I have the chance to listen to the different sounds of snow underfoot. Late in February or early in March, I will hear the first robin singing in the dark, and my spring and summer walks will be loud with birds singing territory-marking songs.

Her question felt like the metaphorical unplugging of a dam of talk in me. I felt myself light up when I knew I had a great answer to her question. After I shared, her affirmation of my day-to-day scientific way of living in the world made me feel really really good.

And now I'm wondering, how can I do this for my students? How can I find the right questions to ask each one of them?

• I know the lists of possible writing topics we are making and sharing in early writers' workshop will help me. I need to model listing in a way that gets beyond, "I love pizza. I play soccer."
• I need to listen carefully. Then I will hear two boys singing songs from "baby TV shows" on the way to the buses, I can ask about this, and learn that when they go home, they have to watch Barney and Teletubbies with their young cousins.
• I need to watch. I need to notice how my fourth grade siblings interact in such kind and thoughtful ways with their kindergarten brothers and sisters when they see them in the hallway.
• And I need to learn to ask questions that go beyond the obvious or the surface, questions that dig into a topic, or approach it at a slant, or come in the back door so that my students can have the feeling I had of the dam breaking and the light coming on when they answer me.

Mind Your Manners B.B. Wolf

MIND YOUR MANNERS, B.B. WOLF is a fun new book by Judy Sierra. I am always looking for books that can start classroom conversations about reading and also books that extend what we know about well-known fairy tale characters.

In this story, B.B. Wolf is invited to a tea. But his friend reminds him that he'll have to behave so they learn good manner from an etiquette book. When B.B. A few of our favorite fairy tale characters make an appearance, some lines from well-known fairy tales show up throughout the story, and the ending is a happy one. Did I mention that the tea takes place in a library?

This is a fun book--appropriate for children of all ages. My third and fourth graders loved it when I read it aloud on the first day of school--lots to see in the illustrations that connect to favorite stories.

Happy New Year!

In homes all around our school community, parents are asking students, "How was your first day of school? Do you like your teacher?"

In fewer homes scattered throughout the school community and beyond, spouses are asking the teachers, "How was your first day of school? Did you get a good class this year?"

It's good to be back. It's good to quit trying to pretend I can really be ready for a group of strangers and just go for it. Just jump in the water, no matter how shocking the temperature or the current, and start stroking hard and sure for the island in the middle.

2 New Picture Books

I found two great new picture books this week. I think both will be great additions to classroom libraries--especially K-2 classrooms. Both will also make GREAT baby gifts. I had no idea that Mem Fox had a new book coming out. WHERE THE GIANT SLEEPS is a great bedtime book for young children. Older readers will find lots to love about the book too. Just like in TIME FOR BED, Mem Fox gets readers ready to sleep but this time, she tells us where giants and fairies and other fairy tale creatures sleep. The pictures are peaceful and colorful at the same time. And Mem Fox's rhyme and rhythm is unmistakable--she is brilliant at this. (Mem Fox is a favorite at our house. Each of us has our own favorite--my youngest daughter's favorite today is THE MAGIC HAT but WHERE IS THE GREEN SHEEP is a very close second for her. I bought this new one for myself and one for a gift! THAT SPECIAL LITTLE BABY is a new book by Jane Ann Peddicord. It will make a beautiful baby gift for a new baby girl. It is a story of a baby and all of the things she does and learns. Through the book, we see her as a baby and as she grows. The repeated text will be fun for young children ("That special little baby, always up to something new..."). And the illustrations are colorful-set on white. It is a great book about a baby who is loved very much!

The First Day of School

A great piece in The Columbus Dispatch today about the first day of school--as a child, parent, and grandparent. It was written by Lisa Pettit. A perfect piece for this weekend! Enjoy!

Welcome Back to School

If you have never visited Bruce Lansky's poetry site, it is a great one to bookmark in the classroom. So many fun poems for both kids and adults. There are lots of great things to read and to try. A favorite poetry site!

I thought this one by Kenn Nesbitt worked for this week.

Welcome Back to School by Kenn Nesbitt

“Dear students, the summer has ended.
The school year at last has begun.
But this year is totally different.
I promise we’ll only have fun.

“We won’t study any mathematics,
and recess will last all day long.
Instead of the Pledge of Allegiance,
we’ll belt out a rock ’n’ roll song.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Why I'm Like This

Praise for Why I'm Like This by Cynthia Kaplan:
"Striking a note somewhere between David Sedaris and Anna Quindlen, Kaplan spins traumas personal and professional for maximum laughs..." --People

A blend of David Sedaris and Anna Quindlen? Two of my favorites...SOLD! (You want to know what a blend of Sedaris and Quindlen sounds like, and by proxy what Kaplan sounds like? Mother Reader. Check out her Tinkerbell post and her tooth fairy post and then read Kaplan and tell me if I'm not right.)

Kaplan's new book, Leave the Building Quickly was the one that originally caught my eye in the new nonfiction display at the Tattered Cover in Denver, but you might know how I am about reading books in order. I had to buy and read Why I'm Like This first. I will be buying Leave The Building Quickly as soon as I'm in a bookstore again.

I'm only about halfway through Why I'm Like This, but it gave me the first cosmic reading event of the summer. I was reading it on the plane on the way home from a "Care For An Elderly Parent" trip. Only recently have I begun to be able to consistently act like an adult when I'm back home with my mom. I've finally figured out how not to revert automatically back to a surly 13 year-old. In the nick of time, I might add. So I've just had a stressful, but successful week, and I read this:

"One of the hardest things about growing up is how one day it suddenly dawns on you that your parents are human. It hadn't occurred to you before. Why should it have? But then something happens, some thing happens, and the veil drops...These are just moments, really, blips on the parental screen, during which they reveal their humanity, and that they are in the world, flailing about as helplessly as everyone else, everyone who is not your parents. Blowing it. Surviving. Hanging on by their nails. That they are at once more spectacularly resourceful and more deeply flawed than you might have ever imagined inspires both scorn and admiration, two emotions you'd always reserved for nonrelatives. But, happily, between the blips, they are just the same as they have always been...and you breathe a sigh of relief. It is too painful for them to be human."

(I know, that's not a particularly Sedaris/Quindlen/MR-sounding quote, but it was my cosmic reading event. Go get the book, either one, and read some whole essays. See if you can read them without snorting, smirking, guffawing, or having one of your own cosmic reading events.)

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko

I was excited to see a new book by Gennifer Choldenko--If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period. Her book, Al Capone Does My Shirts caused amazing conversation in my 5th grade class a few years ago. Her topic in that book had depth and was quite surprising. The same is true for this new book.

IF A TREE FALLS AT LUNCH PERIOD is told in two voices--kind of. There are alternating chapters. Every other chapter is told by Kirsten--a 7th grader who is not fitting in with friends the way she used to. Her parents are having some marital problems and she is having a hard time. The alternating chapters focus on Walk. Walk is new to this mostly white school and is very well liked by classmates. As an African-American, he is dealing with fitting in in different ways.

Kirsten and Walk develop a great friendship.

But that is just the beginning. Gennifer Choldenko throws the reader with a huge surprise midbook. At first, I thought it was unrealistic, but now that I've finished the book, it makes more sense to me.

This book had depth. The title alone and the tree metaphor throughout is well done. I would say this book is for early middle school readers--maybe 5th grade mature kids. It is full of some big life issues as her other book is.

I read for character, not plot. I liked this book because I believed in the characters. They were real and very likable. I wanted them to be okay. I think they are characters who will stay with me.

Here is a link to a great interview with the author about the book.

Choose Your Own Adventure for Grown-Ups

A new fun book for adults (thanks to Today I Like for the recommendation).

Pretty Little Mistakes: A Do-Over Novel by Heather Mcelhatton is a fun read and one that you can read for a few minutes each day--although it is a bit addicting and you can find yourself spending lots of time reading and rereading it-creating a new adventure each time.

I have only spent a bit of time with this book but it is quite fun! A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure for grown ups. It does have a bit of a different feel when you are all grown up, reading a book like this. You know that choices are big once you've been through a bit of life. When I read some, I found myself wanting more information before I made decisions!? Overanalyzing the choices. But the fun is that you can go back to the beginning and make new choices and change your life's course.

You Read To Me, I'll Read To You: Scary Stories

I was so happy to see a new book in the You Read to Me, I'll Read to You series. This one is on very short scary tales to read together. How fun is that for a theme?

These books have been favorites every year during our weekly Poetry Friday celebration in our classroom. (We read poetry together while enjoying a morning treat--often donuts--with friends during the first 15-20 minutes of class each Friday.) My kids will be VERY excited to see this new book in our classroom library. I think it will quickly be a class favorite.

The book follows the same format as the others--poems for two voices. These poems are a tiny bit scary (tiny being the key word). Topics of ghosts, monsters, and other scary things will be fun for kids to read without having to worry about any nightmares. They are all in good fun.

This looks like a Halloween book and it will be fun to read then. But it will be one that is fun to read all year round.

If you haven't checked out the others, there is the first one of Short Stories, one of Fairy Tales, and Mother Goose Tales.