Friday, October 31, 2014

Halloween Two-Voice Poems

Halloween is a big deal in our school. The day opens with an all-school Halloween parade through the classrooms, and the day ends with a large Halloween party thrown by legions of parents for the younger students. In between we try to still fit in a little learning. One of my favorite Halloween strategies is to surprise my students with You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Scary Stories to Read Together.


I mentioned in my original The Power of Poetry Friday in the Classroom post just how much my students love two-voice poems. At this point in the year, reading (and writing) two-voice poems have become almost second nature to them, and this series of books is in constant rotation during Poetry Friday time.

But, by holding out on them and keeping my copies of You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Scary Stories to Read Together well-hidden until Halloween, it makes for an extra-special time. These poems are great to use at the beginning of the day, especially when we are waiting for the Halloween parade to arrive, and it's a great way to spend any other odd 'edge' times that might arrive during an over-scheduled and over-excited school day.



This week's Poetry Friday Roundup is being curated by Linda at Teacher Dance. See the whole list of hosts at Poetry Friday by Kitlitosphere. This post is also linked up at Social Media Sunday, hosted by the IBA.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Trickster Tales from around the World, retold by Gerald McDermott

Many, many cultures have traditional tales that involve a trickster main character. Earlier I wrote a series of two posts about Anansi, a tricky spider from west Africa: Anansi tales retold by Eric Kimmel and Even More Anansi Trickster Tales. Gerald McDermott is another wonderful picture book author-illustrator who has written a series of stories focusing on different trickster characters from around the world. This post provides a quick overview of these different books and creative tricksters.


African Trickster Tales


Zomo the Rabbit: a trickster tale from West Africa (also available in Spanish). Zomo faces an impossible task but is able to use his tricks to meet each one, until he realizes that the joke might be on him! (Based on a Nigerian folktale.)


Anansi the Spider: a tale from the Ashanti (a Caldecott Honor book). This Anansi story includes an informative prologue about Ghana, the Ashanti people, and Anansi's role as a folk-hero and trickster.In this story, Anansi gets into trouble and is saved by the cooperation of his variously-talented spider sons. When he tries to give them a gift in thanks, he cannot decide which son deserves it, so his bright shining gift becomes the moon up in the sky.

Asian Trickster Tales


Monkey: a trickster tale from India. Monkey twice manages to outwit Crocodile who is waiting in the water to eat him. A sort-of pourquoi tale about why the crocodile lays low in the water. (The story is attributed to the Jataka tales from 3rd-4th century BC India and translated into English from Sanskrit in 1895.)

North American Trickster Tales


Coyote: a trickster tale from the American Southwest. Coyote is a common trickster among many North American tribes, but this version of the tale come from the Zuni of the American Southwest. In this particular tale, Coyote is quite hapless and is himself tricked by a group of crows who decide to have a little fun with him. This story also answers the question of why coyotes follow their nose and are grey with black tips for their noses.


Raven: a trickster tale from the Pacific Northwest (a Caldecott Honor book). Raven is a skilled trickster in Pacific Northwest traditional tales, but this particular tale is not attributed to an individual tribe. In this story, Raven must trick the Sky Chief himself in order to bring light and the sun to humanity.


Pig-Boy: a trickster tale from Hawai'i. Pig-Boy is based on the shape-shifting Hawaiian trickster, Kamapua-a. Hungry pig-boy becomes a variety of other creatures in his attempts to evade the angry king and even spends some time as a humu-humu-nuku-nuku-apua'a fish. (Sorry, just had to include that one in there!)

South American Trickster Tales


Jabuti the Tortoise: a trickster tale from the Amazon. This Jabuti tale references several others tricked by Jabuti, but in this story, Jabuti himself is tricked by Vulture who is jealous of his song and colors. This pourquoi tale explains why the tortoise's shell looks cracked and why Vulture is black when other birds are colorful. This Jabuti tale comes from the Tupi-Guarani tribe of the rain forests of Brazil.


Papago: the Mischief Maker. Papagayo is a bit of a bully and annoyance to the other creatures of the Amazon rain forest, especially to those who preferred to sleep during the day. But when the fearsome moon-dog starts eating away at the moon, it is Papagayo who convinces the nocturnal animals to scare him away. (No specific attribution.)


Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday Challenge is hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy and is a weekly roundup of educator blogs that are sharing nonfiction picture books. Click the link to check out other nonfiction posts.

Monday, October 27, 2014

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?


It's Monday! What are you reading? was started by Sheila at Book Journey and was adapted for children's books from pictures books through YA by Jen of Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee of Unleashing Readers. You can visit either site for a round up of blogs sharing their weekly readings and thoughts or search Twitter for #IMWAYR.

Picture Books


Take Away the A by Michael Escoffier and illustrated by Kris Di Giacomo. This very clever alphabet book combines sets of two words - one created by taking away a single letter from the original word. Thus, the beast knows he is the best, and the bride goes for a ride. I think this would be a really fun word-play activity to try with students - have them create and illustrate new word pairs. My students took to this book immediately.


Part 2 in my recent series about Anansi, a trickster character from West Africa, introduced books by a wide-range of authors, including several that won Newbery awards or honors. These are a great resource for introducing students to Anansi and/or trickster tales.


Many lessons are more memorable with a little humor, and grammar is no exception. This post from last week, Teaching Grammar with Humor, highlights one of my favorite book series for teaching grammar.


Ivan, the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate and illustrated by G. Brian Karas. This lovely nonfiction picture book is a great companion piece to The One and Only Ivan. though I would be wary of students reading this one first and 'spoiling' some of the power of the novel. This would also be great to use with older students as part of a discussion about zoos, animal rights, or perspective and point-of-view.


Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin by Chieri Uegaki and illustrated by Qin Leng. I had to put in a purchase request with our local library for this one, but it was well worth the wait. I loved this story about the patience and perseverance required to learn something new, as well as the lesson of the importance of celebrating progress and not just perfection. (H/T Carrie at There is a Book for That.)

Young Fiction


Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny by John Himmelman. This new book for younger readers comes out tomorrow, but you can read my full review here. A fun book for kids interested in martial arts and creative problem-solving.

Middle Grade


Nuts to You by Lynne Rae Perkins. I am normally a big fan of talking-animal style books, but this one just did not grab me. It seemed like a rather large-looking book to tell a very short story. I would highly recommend the Poppy series by Avi for more engaging stories or the Mistmantle or Redwall series for more involved and elaborate stories. (H/T Mary Lee at A Reading Year.)


The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Shane W. Evans. For some reason, I was expecting this book to be a picture book and was surprised to discover that it is, instead, a novel in verse. This format allows the reader to really be inside the head of 12-year-old Amira and to witness her frustrations and confusion as her life in Darfur, Sudan is thrown into turmoil by the arrival of the Janjaweed. Another book I could add to my text set about the Power of Girls and Schools.

Happy Reading!

Sunday, October 26, 2014

New Book Alert: Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny


Tales of Bunjistsu Bunny, written and illustrated by John Himmelman (ARC provided via Net Galley, publication date of Oct. 28th), is a collection of individual tales featuring Isabel, better known as Bunjistsu Bunny.

Isabel will delight young readers with her bunjitsu skills while also teaching them some of the precepts of Eastern thought. Although she is skilled with her body, Isabel often gets herself out of tricky situations by using her mind instead.

Fans of Kung Fu Panda movies or Jon Muth's Ken panda, Ku, will also love this book! Any kid who has ever wanted to be a ninja, learn jujitsu or other martial arts, or just outsmart their friends will enjoy learning from Isabel.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Teach Grammar with Humor

My third graders have grammar every-other week, as we alternate our grammar lessons with spelling. I love finding other books and resources to use alongside our grammar workbook to help them really grasp on to some of the biggest concepts.

Recently we finished up our unit on nouns by focusing in on the differences between singular, plural, and possessive nouns, which included sharing large sections of The Girl's Like Spaghetti together.


The Girl's Like Spaghetti by Lynne Truss is a the follow-up book to Eats, Shoots and Leaves and its companion picture book of the same title. Whereas Eats, Shoots and Leaves introduces the importance of the comma and its placement, The Girl's Like Spaghettii is all about the apostrophe.

After a quick discussion of the title and the two different versions (the girls like spaghetti and the girl IS like spaghetti), we move into some of the other sentences provided by the book. I like to use the SmartBoard to first present the sentence or phrase without any of the punctuation. Many students can then figure out at least one of the possible interpretations, and we will draw in the apostrophe and talk about what happens to the meaning as we shift the apostrophe around. You can easily gauge student understanding and engagement by who starts laughing and how quickly.

Some of the sentences are easier for kids to parse than others. I often like to start with some of the more straight-forward ones like See the boys bat. Students can quickly see the connection to our earlier discussion about possessives and re-interpret the sentence as both See the boy's bat and See the boys' bat.


But my favorite, and of course a perennial student favorite, is the often-mistaken difference between its (possessive pronoun) and it's (contraction of it is). So, so many foolish grammar errors could be avoided if only their authors had remembered this visual aid:



Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Anansi the Trickster, part 2

Trickster tales are one of my favorite type of folktales. Last week I introduced five stories about Anansi the Spider retold by Eric Kimmel and illustrated by Janet Stevens. This week I have brought together a range of other Anansi stories from a variety of sources.


More Anansi Trickster Tales


Anansi the Spider: a tale from the Ashanti retold and illustrated by Gerald McDermott (a Caldecott Honor book). This Anansi story includes an informative prologue about Ghana, the Ashanti people, and Anansi's role as a folk-hero and trickster.In this story, Anansi gets into trouble and is saved by the cooperation of his variously-talented spider sons. When he tries to give them a gift in thanks, he cannot decide which son deserves it, so his bright shining gift becomes the moon up in the sky.


A Story, A Story retold and illustrated by Gail E. Haley (a Caldecott Medal winner). This story also has a prologue about Ananse and about the choices of African words and phrasing in the book. In this version, Ananse is depicted as a man, but he can spin webs and tricks many. Ananse uses his skills to fulfill the tasks laid out for him by Nyame, the Sky God, and he succeeds in winning the golden box of stories and bringing them back to the people.


Why Spider Spins Tales: a story from Africa (First-Start Legends series) retold by Janet Palazzo-Craig and illustrated by Dave Albers. This is another version of the same tale in A Story, A Story, geared towards younger readers. Spider is depicted as human but with four arms and four legs. (The afterward attributes the story to the Akan people of West Africa.)


Ananse and the Lizard: a west African tale retold and illustrated by Pat Cummings. This is another story when our trickster finds himself tricked. Ananse wishes to learn the name of the Chief's daughter so that he can marry her and become the chief himself, but Lizard tricks him into revealing the answer. My students last year loved their story so much they created their own Readers' Theater version of it to preform for the rest of the class. (Retold from a story found in a bookstore in Accra, Ghana.)


Spider and His Son Find Wisdom: an Akan tale retold by Melinda Lilly and illustrated by Charles Reasoner. In this story, Ananse is depicted as more of a man-spider hybrid, as is his son. Ananse seems himself as wise and thinks he holds all of the wisdom in the world - and he is determined to keep it for himself! But his son teaches him a lesson, and they decide to share wisdom with the people. (Attributed to the Akan people of Ghana.)


First Palm Trees: an Anancy Spiderman Story by James Berry and illustrated by Greg Couch. In this story, Anancy wants to win a reward from the King by being the first to create a plumed tree. But when he tries to enlist the Sun-Spirit to help, he soon finds himself negotiating between all four of the major spirits (Sun, Water, Earth, and Wind). Though in the end he cannot prove that he created the new palm trees, in time, people give him the credit.


Don't Leave an Elephant to go and Chase a Bird retold by James Berry and illustrated by Ann Grifalconi. This version opens with an author's note explaining some of the links between Anansi in Africa and his Caribbean descendant, Anancy. Here, Anancy is depicted as a man in a wood-cut style. He feels something is about to happen, which kicks off a round of trading-up items until Anancy is promised a baby elephant. However, he gets distracted by a pretty bird and winds up with nothing. (The author's note bases this retelling on the original collected in R.S. Rattray's Akan-Ashanti Folktales.)

Anthologies that Contain Anansi Stories


Misoso: once upon a time tales from Africa retold by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Reynold Ruffins. This wonderful collection of illustrated short stories from Africa includes on from Liberia entitled "Anansi and the Phantom Food." In this tale, a spider-version of Anansi sets off to try and find food for his starving village, but he encounters an increasingly-appealing series of food-based villages. Continuing in his greedy, he heads towards one last village only to discover that he is back home, has nothing to show for his trip, and no one will believe him.


Cow-Tail Switch and Other West African Stories by Harold Courlander and George Herzog with drawings by Madye Lee Chastain (a Newbery Honor book). This classic collection of West African folktales includes several stories featuring Anansi or spider, including "Anansi's Fishing Expedition" (the likely inspiration for Anansi Goes Fishing),  "Anansi and Nothing Go Hunting for Wives," and "Hungry Spider and the Turtle" (a likely inspiration for Anansi's Party Time). The end of the book includes detailed footnotes about the provenance of each story.


Ashley Bryan's African Tales, Uh-Huh written and illustrated by Ashley Bryan. This wonderfully-illustrated collection of African folktales opens with an Anansi story: Ananse the Spider in Search of a Fool, which is a retelling of the same story in Anansi Goes Fishing and "Anansi's Fishing Expedition" (above). The credits at the end of the book attribute the story to R.S. Rattray's Akan-Ashanti Folktales.


Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday Challenge is hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy and is a weekly roundup of educator blogs that are sharing nonfiction picture books. Click the link to check out other nonfiction posts.

Monday, October 20, 2014

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?


My #TBR pile is growing with new purchases for my classroom library, recommended by my students. We'll see how many of these I can get through, since I expect most to disappear from the library on Monday!


It's Monday! What are you reading? was started by Sheila at Book Journey and was adapted for children's books from pictures books through YA by Jen of Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee of Unleashing Readers. You can visit either site for a round up of blogs sharing their weekly readings and thoughts or search Twitter for #IMWAYR.

Picture Books


Anansi the Trickster, Part 1 introduces five different Anansi tales retold by Eric Kimmel and illustrated by Janet Stevens. My students absolutely love Anansi and all the trouble he gets in to (and out of). Part 2, next week, will look at Anansi picture books by other authors and illustrators.


The Troublemaker by Lauren Castillo. I didn't think too much of this book when I first read it, but I decided to share it with my students this week, because we had a PJ/Stuffed Animal spirit day, and it fit well with Edward Tulane. The kids really enjoyed the story and keeping an eye on the sneaky raccoon. You need the see the illustrations to appreciate this one, and I think it will come up again when our Mock Caldecott conversations get rolling. (H/T Elisabeth at The Dirigible Plum.)


Neighborhood Sharks: hunting with the great whites of California's Farallon Islands by Katherine Roy. Just wow. The artwork and level of detail in this book is stunning, and it is a great mix of draw-you-in story, nonfiction information, and details about the scientists who study sharks. I had to share this book with a former student who loves sharks, and she sat down and immediately devoured the whole thing. This one should definitely be a part of your Caldecott conversation.

Poetry

 

Celebrating the Poetry of Paul Fleischman with Joyful Noise and Big Talk. I got to hear Paul Fleischman speak twice this week, and this post highlights some of the reasons I love his poetry writing, especially, and how I use it with my students.

Middle Grade


Rain Reign is a brand new book from Ann M. Martin, told from the perspective of Rose, a young girl with a diagnosis of high functioning autism. There were some great and engaging things about this book, but I was hoping for more. Having recently read a spate of both fiction and nonfiction books about children with autism (Life, Animated and The Reason I Jump, among others), I was looking for new insights, new ways for a child to recognize his or herself in this book. Will be interested to get some student perspectives on this one.


The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech. I love Sharon Creech, and I was hoping to love this book as well, but for me it fell a little flat. None of the characters seemed developed beyond broad generalizations, in contrast to a book like Walk Two Moons where even minor characters immediately seem to come to live on the page. So much focuses on the adult's point-of-view as well, rather than the mysterious boy left on the porch, that I wonder whether it would grab a child's attention or not. Would love to hear other opinions. (H/T Adrienne at Reading Power Gear.)


Bad Magic by Pseudonymous Bosch. This brand new entry from Pseudonymous Bosch kick-starts a new series, after the conclusion of his five-book Secret Series. (Though maybe not required, reading the first series first will make this book make more sense later on.) I was really drawn to the initial books in the Secret Series, but I felt like the stories reached a point where they seemed to just be going on-and-on without much plan or development, and this book gave me that same feeling again. I think readers of the first series might enjoy this book, but I'm not sure that it would hook new readers. Interested to hear what others think.

Happy Reading!