Concrete Poetry - combining art and the words

"Ode to a Commode" by Brian P Cleary

Poetry is something that you often have to convince students to read.  But once you hook them in with humorous poetry like that of Shel Silverstein and Bruce Lanky, you have converts.  Here is another form of poetry that is engaging to reluctant poetry readers:  concrete poetry.  If you are not familiar with that term, it is a poem that is written about an object and the words of the poem are written in a way that creates a shape of that object.  I like that the author explains what concrete poems are and also gives addition resources for books and websites.  I found that the poems were cute.  Some were more difficult to read than others due to fonts, but I'm sure this will draw students in to reading a different type of poetry.  If you are working with 3rd graders or older, you may want to have them try to create their own concrete poems.  It is not an easy thing to do, because you have to be able to draw the shape, be aware of space as you fill it in with words.  So this may be a project that you ask students to do as partners.

Feathers and Beaks are more than flying and eating tools!

"Feathers:  Not Just for Flying" by Melissa Stewart
Accelerated Reading Level:  5.1

It is always a treat when an adult can learn something from a children's book.  This book focuses on feathers from 10 birds.  While many children may think that the sole purpose for bird feathers is flying, each of the ten feathers discussed in this book have a different function.  This illustrated book looks and feels like a nature journal with "feathers" taped or stapled in and notes on what makes the feather unique.  I love that the author didn't try to educate us on ten birds, but narrowed in and focused on one small part of the bird --- its feathers.  As a teacher at a STEM school, we teach students how to be scientists recording in a science journal.  There is a specific layout that much be followed.  Because of the scrapbook layout, this could lead to discussions comparing science and nature journals.  It is my intention this year, to take my students outside more to observe nature --- whatever part of nature they are most inclined to observe.  If they find artifacts along the way, this book can serve as guide for making nature notes.  I highly recommend this book as part of your science curriculum.

"Beaks!" by Sneed B. Collard III
Accelerated Reading Level:  4.2
Guided Reading Level:  P

The books that I have reviewed since starting this blog, have all been published within the last year.  This one was published in 2012.  I have included it in this post because I feel it is a perfect fit to go with "Feathers:  Not Just for Flying."  Here the author focuses on a different part of birds -- their beaks and uses simple sentences to explain how beaks help the birds.  It also goes on to provide information about each featured bird.  If you do the two books together, you really should compare the artistic styles of the books.  "Feathers" is illustrations and "Beaks" is 3D cut paper.  It might be fun to work with your schools art teacher and see if students could illustrate and color an object and then create the same object with cut papers and put them side by side.

Humor for teachers

"32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny" by Phillip Done

I know that I started this blog with the intention of reviewing children's literature for teachers and eventually to share ideas for the classroom, but this book was one that I just had to share with any elementary teachers reading this!  I have not laughed so hard or frequently while reading for a very long time.  I constantly was stopping family members and reading portions aloud to them.  No matter what grade you have been teaching, many of the incidents Phillip Done recounted in book ring so true!  This may be a perfect gift for future student teachers --- especially if you put a bookmark in the part where Phillip Done explains the four types of teacher looks that all future teachers should master.  Thank you, thank you for a terrific reminder, that despite all the problems and aggravations that come with teaching, there is an abundance of incredible joy with one of the greatest jobs in the world.  Share this with your fellow teachers.  Start staff meetings out with excerpts and then share a related memory.  I'm sure it will bring you closer to your teammates and relieve tensions.

Rock on with the "Punk Skunks!"

"Punk Skunks" by Trisha Speed Shaskan

This entertaining story is about two best skunk friends (BSF) who both have individual interests, but also enjoy making music together.  Kit plays the drums and Buzz plays guitar.  But one day the two friends have a disagreement about a song and get in a fight where they say hurtful things to each other.

This brightly colored engaging story has a simple text that has fun rhythm full of playful onomatopoeia.  This story would a wonderful mentor text for introducing onomatopoeia or to build background for a personal narrative writing assignment about a time they had a fight with a friend.  I'm sure students will return frequently to reread this independently.  Rock on!

A Wordless Wonder

"Sidewalk Flowers" by Jon Arno Lawson

This is a wordless story of a father and daughter walking home on evening through a busy city.  It is laid out in a comic book fashion with most of the book in black and white ink.  The little girl and flowers are colored.  The little girl is very observant of the interesting people and surroundings of her city.  As they walk, she stops and gathers flowers, many of which would be considered weeds by adults.  After gathering a fist full of flowers, the girl discreetly begins random acts of kindness by leaving some of the flowers she has collected with others, including a dead bird and a homeless man.   She has enough flowers left over to gift to her mother and brothers and still have one left for herself.

      When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure I liked it.   But the more I read, the more engaged I became. I liked how observant the girl was to find the various floral treasures in the city and the variety of people they encountered.  I was touched by the girl’s thoughtfulness.  

       I don’t think this would be a good read aloud, but it might be an interesting addition to a writing center where a group of students could work together to create a narrative for the story. I think you might want to compare the father-daughter relationships between this book and “Ask Me” by Bernard Waber that I previously reviewed.  Students might be able to relate times when their parents were distracted by work and times when they had their undivided attention.

Ancient Egyptians

"Mummy Cat" by Marcus Ewert
Accelerated Reading Level:  3.2

If you teach a unit on Ancient Egypt, this may be a perfect text to introduce the subject as well as the topic of friendship.  This story is told from Queen Hatshepsut's cat's point of view.   As it awakens from the dead and travels through the pyramid to check on his beloved friend, the Queen, the cat recounts their life together.  The illustrations include actual hieroglyphics and a background story.  The author includes additional facts about the Ancient Egyptians and the mummification process at the end of the book.  This would make and excellent mentor text to have students sort out fact from fiction.

Ben Franklin and the Scientific Method

"Mesmerized:  How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled all of France" by Mara Rockliff
Accelerated Reading Level:  5.0

This is an excellent book to introduce scientific method and explain how we got the terms "blind" test and the "placebo effect."  Here we find Ben sailing to France during the American Revolution to ask King Louis the 16th and Queen Marie Antoinette for financial assistance.  While in France, there was a great deal of talk about something strange and new --- SCIENCE, from a Dr. Mesmer.

       The book does a great job comparing the differences between Ben Franklin, a simple man, and the fancy Dr. Mesmer who seemed to have a special force that could make people do unusual things.  Everyone in France thought Dr. Mesmer's science was amazing and ground breaking, except skeptical Benjamin Franklin.  Ben went on to scientifically prove that Dr. Mesmer was doing nothing more than utilizing the power or people's thoughts, which today we would can hypnosis.  Dr. Mesmer disappeared in disgrace and Ben secured funding for the Revolutionary soldiers and headed back home.

            I really liked this book and found this information of Ben Franklin refreshing.  There is  a lot of stuff going on in the illustrations and side bars which could be confusing to young students.  I would recommend this more for 4th and 5th graders, but with the appropriate scaffolding, you could use it to help introduce the scientific method to 2nd and 3rd graders.

Questioning

"Ask Me" by Bernard Waber
Accelerated Reader Level:  1.7

In this sweet story, a father and daughter are taking a walk.  The inquisitive girl encourages her father to ask her questions to find out her favorite things.  Then, he follows up to gather more details.  This is a quick read that would be an excellent mentor text for either providing more details, question words or how to ask and answer questions.  It also could be used as a two-voice partner read (reader's theater).  The illustrations make this a perfect book to include at the beginning of the year.  You could ask students to partner up with someone that was not in their class last year.  Then they could partner up and ask them "get to know you questions" and follow it up with questions to gain more details.  When they are finished, each partner could introduce their new friend and share the most interesting thing they learned about them.   Another one for my wish list!