Themes, Morals, Lessons

The moral of this story is, "Let them talk during read aloud."

In reading workshop, we've been working on finding the themes/morals/lessons that an author may or may not intend for us to extract or infer from his/her story.

In read aloud the other day, we had a bunch of fun finding silly themes/morals/lessons in 3 picture books.

How could we not read parts of Squids Will Be Squids by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith? Besides remembering or learning what a fable is, we also had a great discussion about why Scieszka can get away with writing a run-on sentence a whole paragraph long (in the Serious Historical Foreword), and fourth graders can't. Or should I say...and fourth graders are required to chop it into sentences, because some of my students CAN (and do) write whole paragraphs and pages without punctuation!

I read "Grasshopper Logic," and the conversation turned to the other things that are not good to say to a "hopping mad Grasshopper Mom."

Next, I read "He who..." because I knew they would be able to fill in the moral on their own. They could. ("He who smelt it...")

The last one I read, my own personal favorite of the entire collection, was "Straw and Matches." They started getting the double entendres and puns from the very beginning: "It was the end of summer vacation. Straw had done everything he could think of. He was bored. So he went over to play with someone he had been warned to stay away from." They groaned with laughter when they heard the moral and knew it was both about choosing one's friends and about playing with fire.

I didn't read any more from "Squids Will Be Squids," because my goal was for them to want to read more on their own. (It worked.)

Next came Jane Wattenberg's version of Henny-Penny. (How did it happen that this book got so old so fast! It's from seems-like-yesterday, but in-reality 2000!)

I read the whole book, because how often you get to shout, "CHICKABUNGA!" during a regular school day?

I swear, this class found more in Wattenberg's illustrations than any class ever! Not only that, but they could identify nearly every world landmark the flock of fowl visits in the course of the story. (Only the Coliseum and Stone Henge stumped them.) And one student knew what a cave would be like it it was "dank." WOW!

A few morals of this story? "Don't leave home until you lay your egg." "Stranger Danger -- Don't follow someone you don't know into a dark, dank cave." "Check to see what hit you in the head before you run off to tell the king the sky is falling." And here's mine: "Sometimes it's best to be the last one in the cave, because you might be the only one who makes it out!"
We ended with The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Bob Hartman. They knew the moral before I ever started reading, so this one, too, was more about the puns and word play. (Lamburgers, Sloppy Does, Chocolate Moose, Boy Chops, Three-Pig Salad, Baked Boy-tato, Boys-n-Berry Pie...it goes on and on.)

After read aloud was over, one of my students asked if I had The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Sadly, I only have the variant. I will have to correct that soon. A day later, the same student came back from the book fair with The Dog Who Cried Wolf.

I love it when I get them started and they keep going on their own!

Poetry Friday--Note to self

Remember to think twice when you are frustrated. Perhaps you should think of him as a poet rather than a problem.

The Poet
by Tom Wayman

Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbook
May speak much but makes little sense
Cannot give clear verbal instructions
Does not understand what he reads
Does not understand what he hears
Cannot handle “yes-no” questions


(The rest is here. Round up is at Mentor Texts.)

Humor, Memory, Imagination

Great read aloud today! I love it when the sense of humor part of 4th graders' brains starts to develop in earnest. Or in hilarity, as it were.

That's all I'm going to write for today because I left the books I read aloud today at school, and without them in front of me, all the specifics are gone. Poof.

So instead, let's ponder this article about what happens to an adult's brain when the memory starts to go.

Sigh.

Stay tuned for more about today's great read aloud.

Mr. Pine's Mixed-Up Signs

I visited Joseph-Beth Bookstore in Cincinnati over the weekend. I was thrilled to see a republished edition of one of my favorite books from childhood-Mr. Pine's Mixed-Up Signs! My husband was in the store with me and I recited the first page before opening the book! (Scary how you can still do that 40 years later...). So, of course I bought the book. I read it to my eight year old who loved it too. How could you not love Mr. Pine?

I did a little research on the publisher--Purple House Press. It seems their mission is to bring back those great children's books that have gone out of print. They have republished all of the Mr. Pine books! (I believe the company is names after their first project--Mr. Pine's Purple House.) And the site has a bit of info about the author, Leonard Kessler.

So, I found a great book from childhood and a great company with a mission that I love! I am looking forward to adding all of the Mr. Pine books to my collection once again!

Trucktown Debut!

It was a big week for us in Columbus. Jon Scieszka and Loren Long stopped by Columbus on their book tour for their new, amazing series for young readers--TRUCKTOWN!


They visited our school on Thursday, thanks to Cover to Cover Bookstore and Simon and Schuster. To get ready for the visit, I read the new book SMASH! CRASH! to lots of K-2 classrooms. I got the same feeling when I read this book as I did when I read Mo Willem's DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS to young children when it first came out. SMASH! CRASH! begs for child participation--yelling Smash! Crash! is part of the fun. But there is more to this first book than that.--great fun characters that are predictable in their actions, some great humor, fun fonts , and amazing illustrations. How three illustrators can come together to create one illustration is fascinating to me. And the result is amazing. If you know the work of Loren Long, David Shannon, and David Gordon, you can see in each illustration, what each person brings to the art. The colors, the characters, even the lettering is quite engaging.

The visit was great fun! Loren Long spoke to our K-2 students at Chapman. He drew a truck--showing them how he did that, read the book (asking them to join in when it was time to yell CRASH!), and spent time answering questions. Loren came dressed in his Trucktown Mechanic Suit which added to the fun.

Both Jon and Loren spoke at Cover to Cover and it was standing room only. The audience's reaction to the book was extremely positive as the kids joined in and laughed throughout the book. If either of them come anywhere near your city, go see them!

Jon, our new National Ambassador for Children's Literature, talked a bit about what we can expect from Trucktown in the next few years. I think he said that there will be 50 TRUCKTOWN books over the next few years. More picture books likes SMASH! CRASH!, some easy chapter books that young children can read on their own, board books, and more.

I am a huge fan of kids reading books where they know and love the characters. These Trucktown characters are certainly characters that we will all find ourselves falling in love with--my current favorite is IZZY the Ice Cream Truck. (After seeing Loren Long act out Izzy'a part, Izzy may be my lifetime favorite character!)

You can tell that Jon Scieszka did a great deal of research before embarking on such a project. These book are very inviting for the kids he wrote them for. In a Columbus Dispatch article announcing his visit to Columbus, Jon spoke a bit about his platform: The article said that his message is that: Adults should back off from making kids read the "right" books, expand the definition of reading to include all mediums and technologies, stop demonizing television and, above all, read themselves.

Perfect timing for a series like this and a perfect team to create the series. I can't wait to see the rest of the series!

Another Teacher to Add to the Cool Teachers List

Mrs. Baker from The Wednesday Wars definitely deserves a place on our list of 100+ Cool Teachers in Children's Literature. What a great teacher--someone who helps students find out who it is that they are. I LOVED her! She may be one of my favorite teachers of all time.

And I LOVED the book--definitely deserving of the Newbery Honor that it received last week.

With all of the new books that have come out recently, let us know if you know of any more recent teacher characters that belong on our list!

Congratulations, Mary Lee!

Woooohooooo! We just found out that Mary Lee Hahn has just been selected to serve on the Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts Committee sponsored by the Children's Literature Assembly of NCTE. This list is always one I look forward to each year.

I can't think of a better person to serve on this committee! They are lucky to have her join them.

January Carnival of Children's Literature -- Book Awards Edition

It's up at Wizards Wireless!

30-Day Challenge: Boot Camp and Struggling Readers

In late December, I decided I would join a one-month Women's Boot Camp to start exercising again. The bootcamp starts at 5:30 am each day so I figured that not much would interfere with that time! I was inspired by HipWriterMama's Fall 30 Day Challenge. Then, lucky for me, HipWriterMama announced her 2008 New Year's 30-Day Challenge so I immediately joined. My theory is that the more public I make this venture, the better chance I have of sticking with it.

HipWriterMama wants an update check-in each Monday. Friday marked the halfway mark of the first month of bootcamp. Getting up at 4:45 has been an interesting thing. But Bootcamp is a pretty fun time--even though I am totally and completely out of shape. I plan to sign up and pay for the February session this week.

Funny thing is that I have learned lots about teaching. As adults, we don't often put ourselves in positions where we struggle. Most of us have found work that we love and that we are pretty good at. Same thing with hobbies. So, participating in the class as a "struggling exerciser" has been a challenge. But I have learned a lot about what my struggling kids in school must go through each day.
I wrote an article about my first week at bootcamp that was posted on Choice Literacy's website on Saturday. It compares my experience with bootcamp to that of my struggling readers in reading workshop.

I haven't lost as much weight as I was hoping but since I am trying to make this a new habit, I am okay with that, I guess. I feel better, have a bit more energy and am hopefully healthier.

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