A visit to the public library uncovers. . .

Posted on January 30, 2011 by carriegelson

I went to the library and what did I find? Some “new to me books”! Exactly why public libraries are such lovely places. You can walk in empty handed and walk out with a bag bursting full of undiscovered treasures. For free! At least that’s what happens to me.

Some books I found today that I have to share – first here and then this week, in the classroom! Excited at the possibilities . . . These will need to be more than book talks – all are simple and quick to read – but like a lovely sweet treat – something to savour for some time afterwards . . .

In Leaf by Stephen Michael King, a little boy escapes his Mom’s intentions to give his hair a trim. While hiding out with his his adorable little dog, a bird drops a seed on his head. A shoot pops up and grows a leaf. Now he needs to carefully tend to this living thing on top of his head. Simple, sweet, endearing. The best thing about this book? It is nearly wordless – the only text – sound effects – Whooosh, Boing, Sploosh, Glurg glurg . . .

Kathryn Otoshi has created a wonderful book called Zero all about finding value in yourself. I can see this book fitting in wonderfully with extension lessons with the Mindup curriculum where we explore looking at things from a different perspective. Is Zero empty inside? Or is she open and full of possibilities?

“This book is pretty funny,” announces my son. And it is but also a little bit more . . . Penguin by Polly Dunbar lets us look at a child’s frustration when he can’t communicate in the way he wants to with a new friend. And my, my, the things we tend to do as we get frustrated!

Happy Reading!

Sarah Perry’s If inspires

Posted on January 26, 2011 by carriegelson

Our reading group explored the book If by Sarah Perry. This is the classic book to introduce the concept that one simple question can lead us to deeper questions and endless wondering. Each page features an amazing visual with an If phrase such as If music could be held . . . , If mice were hair . . . (a pretty creepy idea!) If toes were teeth. . . (gives a whole new image to wiggly teeth we decided :)) We lingered on each page- shouting out questions as someone else wondered something that made our thinking bigger and our wondering even broader.

Some truly great questions shared in wonder webs (inspired from specific pages in the story).

If leaves were fish . . .

Would we have to rake up fallen fish? (Jena)

Would there be fish flying around on a windy day? (Catriona)

Would they be smelly? (Lisa)

Will they change colour? (Kevin)

Would they still use chlorophyll? (Alyson)

Then what would the caterpillars eat? (Ricky)

Can the fish breathe? (Annie)

If hummingbirds told secrets . . .

Would they tell secrets to their predators? Can the animals understand? Would the ears get poked? (Gary)

How would it say the same language as me? wondered Truman. He then added little drawings of people asking: “What did you say?” “What does it mean?” “What would it be?”

A book to pick up again and again. Let the wondering begin!

What do our little thinkers think of Little Ant Big Thinker?

Posted on January 25, 2011 by carriegelson

I love when I have so many books in my “must read” pile, that when we have a spare 5 or 10 minutes, I know just the book to choose! Today it was Little Ant Big Thinker or Where does the Ocean End? by Andre Usatschow and illustrated by Alexandra Junge.

As we’ve been working on asking questions as we read, I thought this would be a great time to read this book about a little ant with some very big questions. The book begins with the little ant wondering if the ocean ever ends and if so, where? He begins to get anxious – how can he ever know, if he never can see the end? An elephant happens along and despite their attempts at peering out over the water on tiptoe and climbing a tree for a better view, the two of them cannot see the end of the ocean. A fish swims up and scoffs at their worry: “The ocean ends right here!” he explains. Okay, problem solved. Until of course the question pops into the ant’s head: “But where does the ocean begin?”

We quite liked this book.

Catriona, always summarizes so nicely: “It begins at the end and ends at the beginning!”

Alyson notes: “Wondering is a great thing. Little people can think big too!”

Jeremiah has his own question about the little ant: “What if his brain gets so big from all of that wondering, and he tips over?!”

Hmm, what if . . . ?

Picture Books we read this week

Posted on January 17, 2011 by carriegelson

While searching through the library for interesting picture books, I came across Oma’s Quilt. I pulled it off the shelf because it is illustrated by Stephane Jorisch (who also illustrated Suki’s Kimono – one of my favourite books). Then I noticed it was written by Canadian author, Paulette Bourgeois (author of the Franklin books and Big Sarah’s Little Boots) This book was bound to be a good one! I tried it out with our reading group. The story: Emily’s Oma (grandmother) has to move to a retirement home and she is very reluctant to do so. What about her precious things? Her neighbours? Cooking apple strudel? Even the bowling alley at the home doesn’t change her mind (smelly shoes!) While Emily and her mother are sorting through Oma’s possessions, Emily has a wonderful idea. Why not make a memory quilt for Oma!? Some students made text to text connections to Eve Bunting‘s The Memory String. This book received a big round of applause. Look for it in the library!

We have been reading a lot of Howard B Wigglebottom books to help us learn about ourselves and our relationships. Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns about Bullies teaches us about the importance of asking for help when bullying doesn’t stop. Howard has a little voice inside his head that tells him Be brave, Be bold, A teacher must be told. But it isn’t always easy to trust our intuition and Howard suffers many unpleasant interactions with the Snorton twins before he finally decides to report their behaviour. Finally, he can sleep easily, knowing that he was brave, he was bold when his teacher was finally told. “I am okay. I am safe.” he assures himself at the end. Such an important book!

This book tells us about Winston, the bear from Churchill, Manitoba who decides to mobolize a group of polar bears to teach the tourists who come to see the polar bears about the effects of global warming on the melting ice in the Arctic. “Ice is nice!” the bears chant during their protest march. We learn that we must all do our part to protect the Earth. “Recycle!” “Walk, Bike, Ride!” “Solar Power!” “Turn down the furnace!” Winston of Churchill by Jean Davies Okimoto was the winner of the Green Earth Book Award. This book is also in Seymour’s library.

Happy Reading!

The power of a lie!

Posted on December 6, 2010 by carriegelson

Our reading group has been busy writing and talking about connections we have to the books we are reading. This title had big connecting power!

A Big, Fat Enormous Lie by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and illustrated by David McPhail (one of my favourite illustrators!) is a book we can all relate to easily. A little boy lies over one small thing and his lie comes alive in the form of a monster, following him everywhere, bothering him, sitting on his stomach. The monster keeps growing and growing and growing until it can only be escaped by . . . telling the truth. Phew! The relief! This little book sure inspired some powerful writing from our reading group. We all recognized that lies can be pretty powerful but not as powerful as the truth 🙂

Sergio writes: “When I lie, I get bad luck and I crash into everything and my stomach hurts. Oww! Oww! Oww! Ouch that hurts.”

Ricky explains: “Lying is a bad thing. If you lie, you will have bad feelings and your tummy will feel like it’s hurt. When you have a nap, it makes you feel better. But when you wake up, you still have to tell the truth. So if you tell the truth, everything will be okay.”

Annie summarizes the story, “The message of the book is that you should never lie to anyone. You have to admit it. When you don’t tell the truth, you’ll feel like the lie is lying in your stomach. After you tell the truth, the lie is gone.”

Lisa writes, “If you tell a lie, you feel guilty because you just want it to go away. If you did something wrong, you should tell, don’t lie. If you lie, you need to tell someone. If you don’t tell, it is going to get bad, then worst. You feel guilty if you lie. It feels good if you tell the truth.”

A beautiful book to inspire hope on Remembrance Day

Posted on November 11, 2010 by carriegelson

We read this beautiful book by Michael Foreman on the eve of Remembrance Day.

Both the text and illustrations are simple and beautiful. As a read aloud, it is perfect. Each page brings exclamations, predictions, connections, sighs, expressions of joy and anger! The story? A boy finds a tiny plant in a pile of rubble next to a barbed wire fence – he nurtures it and it grows into a grape vine, spreading to cover the fence and bringing birds and butterflies and children to play. Then the soldiers tear out the plant and throw it over the fence. “Huh? No! Why?” – the class erupted in outrage!

The boy is sad and troubled and suffers a miserable winter with his family in his war torn home. Then in the spring he notices the vine is growing on the other side of the fence and soon seeds also sprout again on his side. With more watering and care the vine soon grows and the green tendrils become entwined as they grow up either side of the fence to meet together at the top. Again, the children have their beautiful garden. This time on both sides of the fence. The subtitle of this book is A Story of Hope and it certainly is. The discussion continued as we went for our afternoon walk outside. Questions, connections and thoughts still to be shared. How lucky we were to have a beautiful afternoon walk in the sunshine, talking about hope and peace and community. Books like this work their magic! How do we talk about war and conflict with children? How do we honour peace? Sometimes all we need is the perfect book to get us started.

Howard B. Wigglebottom Listens to His Heart

Posted on October 26, 2010 by carriegelson

Howard B. Wigglebottom Listens to His Heart written by Howard Binkow and illustrated by Susan F. Cornelison definitely spoke to us.

In this story, Howard learns to do what makes him feel good about himself even though his friends made fun of him at first. Howard loves to dance and finds out from his grandfather that he comes from a long line of dancing Wigglebottoms. He practices and practices and wows all of his friends at the Sock Hop!

When Howard does what he loves – it makes his heart sing!

Students wrote responses to this story – writing about the message of the book and/or about an activity that makes them feel really happy and why. From Howard, we learned that we can celebrate and be proud of who we are!

Jena: I think that the message of this book is that you should do what you want to do and it doesn’t matter what other people say. Just do what you want to do. I’m good at reading because when I read I start to fall into the book like I’m with the character. I feel great when I’m reading.

Alyson: The message in this book is do not listen to other people’s opinion. Listen to your own. My favourite sport is hockey and soccer when I’m playing with me Dad. And swimming!

Annie: I’m good at running and when I run, I feel like I can run around the world. When I was little I kept on practicing at running. Last year I got a little fast. Then I got faster and faster. Now I’m the third fastest runner.