Through the Eyes of Gordon Parks

"Gordon Parks:  How the Photographer Captured Black and White America"
by Carole Boston Weatherford
Illustrated by:  Jamey Christoph
Accelerated Reading Level:  4.0

Teachers today work hard to encourage their students' dreams.  But when Gordon was in school, his white teachers didn't have high expectations for him or many of his classmates.  But Gordon's determination to make a difference was not to be denied -- no matter what teachers or society told him.  With a used camera, Gordon taught himself photography.  He went on to become the first  black photographer for Life magazine and documented the civil rights movement.  This inspiring tale would make a great companion book to use with "Dorothea's Eyes" by Barb Rosenstock which I wrote about earlier this summer (Sweet Summertime).

If you are fortunate enough to have devices for your students to take pictures with, a perfect learning extension for these books would be to challenge your students to take a picture about a social injustice they see in their community and then write about it.  Who knows, maybe they will become the next famous photographer that helps change the world!

The Teachers are Back!

I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything new in the past week.  I have been very busy setting up my classroom for the new year.  There is nothing like setting up the classroom and looking around and seeing a nice, clean and well-organized learning space.  Now the challenge is to maintain it when all the students arrive!  Stay tuned for the big reveal as when I share my classroom set-up for the year!

Mapping the Ocean Floors

"Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea" by Robert Burleigh
Illustrated by Raul Colon

Accelerated Reading Level:  5.0

This beautifully illustrated story, told in first person, is of a trailblazing scientist and cartographer, Marie Tharp. As a child, Marie traveled with her father, a cartographer who specialized in helping farmers by mapping soil types in the central US.  Because of that, she fell in love with maps and decided to be a cartographer too.  While in school, she learned that little was known about oceans.  This lead her to wonder what the oceans' floors were like. So in an era where women were not welcomed into many careers (1940's), Marie perseveres and becomes a scientist.  She gets a job at the ocean lab of Columbia University in NY.  Here she faces another challenge -- debunking superstitions, as it was considered bad luck to have a women on a ship.   Stuck on land, she takes on any job they give her and works hard to prove herself.

      I was particularly struck by the admission that sometimes she was bored at the menial requests and thought about quitting, but Marie never gave up or stopped searching for something that might lead to a new scientific discovery.  This reminds me of children who don't see the value in doing repetitive tasks such as practicing a musical instrument, a sport, or reading.  What might they learn if they persevere?

       Eventually, Marie makes friends with Bruce Heezen, and together they start trying to figure out how deep the oceans are and what the topography is like on the floor of the ocean.  Using a new technology, sound waves (called "sounding"), they set out to map the ocean floors. Marie discovers the mountains and valleys underwater, and later discovers an extra deep valley that divides the Atlantic into two parts.  She is the first to draw a detailed map of the Atlantic Ocean.  As a result of her work, Marie discovers proof of plate tectonics and continental drift.

     Many grade levels do mapping units and a common task given to students is to make a map of a familiar place such as their classroom, their bedroom or their house.  This is not any easy task for young elementary students as they struggle with scales.  But what if you asked them to map something they can't see --- the insides of a hollow of a tree or the insides of beehive or a bird's nesting box?  What might they discover?  What would it lead them to wonder about next?

"Where Are My Books" by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Yippee!   Amazon.com has delivered my copy of this book that I reviewed earlier (http://kglick.blogspot.com/2016/08/for-love-of-all-good-books.html).  Now I can return the library's copy!

I can't wait to use it prior to introducing classroom library checkout procedures.

But today the author Twittered that she had just posted some resources for teachers on her website.  They look great!  If you are considering using this book this year in your classroom, be sure to go to Debbie Ridpath Ohi's website at http://debbieohi.com/read as well as http://debbieohi.com/printready to score some delightfully cute resources for this book and others!  Thank you Debbie!

Another delightful book from Patricia Polacco

Who can resist a story from Patricia Polacco?  While most of her stories are based off her or her families' lives, this one is slightly different.  Here, Patricia is retelling someone else's true story -- the story of Johnnie Wallen, a WWII veteran,and his experiences during the war while in the Philippines.  Patricia learned of Johnnie's story when she was on the road doing school visits and was invited to join in a reunion of WWII solders.  She tells Johnnie's story in first person voice, paying close attention to recording the exact words that Johnnie spoke.

"Tucky Jo and Little Heart" by Patricia Polacco
Accelerated Reading Level:  4.6

This remarkable story is about Kentucky-born Johnnie who convinced his parents to lie about his age so that he could join the military after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  He was only 15 at the time, and, of course, much smaller than most of his platoon.  He was part of a a special unit in the Pacific theater that was tasked with finding and destroying machine gun or enemy outposts and building an airstrip.  They fought 219 straight days in the bug infested jungles of the Pacific.  His entire body was covered in massive welts from bug bites.  Johnnie was sent ahead to clear brush when he heard rushing water and noticed a small village below with women trying to catch fish with their bare hands.  Suddenly, he heard a sound and noticed a small girl in the bush.  Neither of them spoke the others' language, but the little girl bent down and picked a leaf off a plant and applied its' sap to Johnnie's bug bites.  Immediately, the itch stopped.  He  shared a bit of his chocolate ration with her and tried to introduce himself as Kentucky Johnnie.  She renamed him "Kentucky Jo."  Jo named her "Little Heart" because of a heart shaped birthmark on her arm.  After she ran off, Jo collected as many of the leaves as he could to bring back to camp to help others.

         Over the next several days, Jo built a friendship with the silent girl and discovered that the only remaining people in her village were women and children, all of whom were starving.  Using some of the army's dynamite, Jo set off an explosion in the river causing it to "rain fish."  He then helped hunt for the villagers.   Friendships continued to grow between Jo, his troop and the villagers.  One day enemy soldiers were advancing, killing everyone and everything in its path.  Jo was instrumental in saving the entire village.  But that was the last he saw of "Little Heart" until a strange twist of fate brings them back together many years later at the end of Jo's life.

          This book doesn't avoid the horrors of war, but it does present it in a manageable way for children .  This book would be a wonderful addition to Random Acts of Kindness of Week in early March or if you are doing something with "pay it forward."

Are you Missing a Crayon?

"The Day the Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt
Accelerated Reading Level:  3.8
Guided Reading Level:  M

Last winter, one of the most memorable learning activities that I did with my students was to participate in the the MN Star of the North Picture Book Award contest.  With the help of the public library, I reserved small reading group sets of each nominated award book.  Then I allowed each reading group to choose one that they wanted to read and present to their classmates.

For the next couple of weeks, I built small group reading lessons around these books with a focus on vocabulary and fluency.  After each reading group became experts at their book, they read it aloud to their classmates,  I filmed each group's presentation and put the videos up on our class blog for their parents to enjoy.  The class then voted in March for their favorite nominated book during media.  The 2016 winner in my class and statewide, was "The Day the Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt.

        This hysterical story told in first person voice from the perspective of the crayons through letters instantly lent itself to every one of my students becoming the most dramatic reader ever!  Because it was the class' favorite book, it led to letter writing lessons and discussions on perspective and first person vs. third person voice in books that we read.  This book is definitely one that I plan on using again and again in the coming years.


        However, joy upon joy --- there is a sequel:

"The Day the Crayons Came Home" by Drew Daywalt
Accelerated Reading Level:  3.3

        Again, this story is told in first person voice from the crayon's perspective, but instead of letters, the crayon's owner, Duncan, receives a stack of postcards.  In this story, we learn that Duncan, like all children, has lost some of his crayons.  As a result, those crayons have had some eventful adventures, but they all want to come home (back to Duncan's crayon box).  Unfortunately, when Duncan retrieves the lost crayons, are not all are in their original shape and thus, cannot fit in Duncan's crayon box.  But Duncan creatively solves that problem and saves the day!

         It is a rare day, in most classrooms, that crayons are not lost and/or found.  Children are constantly saying "I can't find my ____ crayon" or "I lost my ____ crayon."  At the end of the day when the children have gone home, it is not uncommon for the teacher or the building engineer to find a fist full of crayons abandoned in strange places.  And of course, the next day, nobody wants to claim them!  This book may be the secret to solving these problems!

        During the first week, teachers spend a great deal of time teaching procedures, as well as developing children's awareness that they need to be responsible for their school tools.  This book will now become a must read aloud for me during those first few days of school.   Undoubtedly, the humor and message from this book will captivate my future students and I am confident it will help save more than one crayon from the building engineer's hungry vacuum!

A Memoir that started a Writing Career

Today's featured book, is a very unusual book, in that has a book inside a book.  There is one author who is really two authors.  Confused???  The adult author is writing a memoir about when he was younger and wrote his first book.  His younger self is co-author of this book and his original work is included in the final story.

"Billy's Booger" by William Joyce and his younger self, Billy Joyce
Accelerated Reading Level:  3.5

For young Billy, school really wasn't his thing.  He loved drawing and doodling and had a very active imagination.  Included in the drawings are examples of his school work where he turned the most mundane things into a piece of art.  School just wasn't his thing.  (I'm sure if you been teaching for awhile, you can think of at least a few other students who were like Billy!)  One day he hears about a book writing contest and exciedly decides to enter.  He checked out all kinds of books from the library and got to work.  Eventually, his book was finished.  The topic?  His green buddy - the booger.  His entire book is in the middle of this memoir.  Billy doesn't win the writing contest, but he does become a winner in the most important way possible --- acceptance by his peers and he is launched into his adult career as a writer.

         This book would be a fine addition to a memoir collection as well as a character education book.

All Goodness comes Straight from the Garden!

If your school has a school garden or is contemplating adding one, the following two books would be wonderful additions to your garden and/or plant curriculum mentor texts.

"Alice Waters and the Trip to Delicious" by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Alice Waters has always loved foods.   In fact, when she was 3 years old, she won first place in a costume contest by dressing in foods.  It was natural for her to become a chef and travel to France to perfect her craft.  When she returned to the United States, she opened a restaurant with its mission to use locally grown fresh foods --- no frozen foods allowed.  She wanted to serve only the healthiest foods to others.  In 1995, when she realized that children were not be being served healthy foods for school lunches, she organized the Edible Schoolyard Project where children helped grow the foods that they would eat.  She then taught them to cook and love the foods they grew.  The Edible Schoolyard Project has spread across the nation and because of Alice, the farm to table restaurant movement had grown.

"Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table" by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Accelerated Reading Level:  4.2

Will Allen played grew up in a family that grew most of its' own food and was a famous basketball player in Belgium.  When he returned to Milwaukee, he noticed that many inner city residents lacked access to fresh, healthy foods.  So he brought some empty city lots and started the urban community garden movement.  When lots weren't available, he taught children and eventually adults how to grow fresh foods in pots on their porches or on roofs of the city's buildings.   He continues to travel the world helping others learn how to farm and whenever he "sees children, he see farmers."  Wonderful inspiration of how one man can made a big difference in his community and beyond!