Making MIracles

In Susan Morgenstern's (not related to Rhoda) wonderful book, the narrator is asked what he wants to be when he grows up and this wonderful book takes us through his journey.  The illustrations reminded me a little of Maurice Sendak and are a perfect fit to the text (translated by the way)!  The story starts with the question "What will you do when you grow up?"  The last page of this book takes your breath away!  There's a twist at the end... don't want to ruin the surprise, but you MUST add this one to your collection.

An Observation

I spent Monday and Tuesday facilitating a group of visitors that were here from Casper, Wyoming.  I've been doing a five year project with the staff at Paradise Valley Elementary (it's an excellent little school... the leadership and staff are amazing)!  We've set up visitation classrooms and facilitators for teachers from around the Casper area... amazing teachers!  They were here to talk hosting and facilitating...

     We were in a colleague's second grade classroom, watching her reader's and writer's workshops (and some specific word work as well).  The beauty of observing a classroom is the depth of talk among children when their teacher is conferring with another student across the room...  One little girl said, "Hey, while Mrs. B. is busy, let's pretend this is school."  Problem solving at it's finest.  The thing is, when Mrs. B. is with her students there is no pretending--everything is real, honest, authentic, sincere...

     There's a beauty in watching a teacher like Mrs. B. work with children... after our first day together, during our debrief, we synthesized our observations into four categories:

• Evidence of Language - it's grounded in conversation, each word is explicit and metacognitive (student to student and teacher to student), the language is challenging and scholarly
  
• Evidence of Trust/Community - there's a rhythm, a specific cadence to every interaction, trust is at the heart of learning
• Evidence of Choice/Independence - the learners see themselves in control, they use questions to deepen their understanding, their self-image is well-defined and contagious
  
• Evidence of Thinking - thinking forms the crux of each interaction, each conference nudges the thinking to greater depth, the room itself permeates respect for each learner and his/her individual needs
  

     The rituals and routines of the workshop are guiding individuals to independence through a subtle undercurrent of trust... every child's thinking is acknowledged, not necessarily confirmed, but acknowledged... "Hmm... you should think more about... That's grand, have you thought about..."  There's no doubt that Mrs. B. loves her students (in the most professional sense of the word).  And with rigor, intimacy, and inquiry alive and well, students don't have to pretend... they are in school and in school the way it should be!
     I wish every child had a teacher like Mrs. B.  One whose interactions with children are not contrived and controlled by mindless activities and fill-in-the-blank thinking, but are instead honest and heartfelt and most of all, authentic.   It was a grand two days!

Welcome Fall...

Fall is my favorite time of year.  I was visiting my colleague Karen's classroom earlier this week and at the beginning of writer's workshop she said to her children, "You know boy and girls, I was walking my dog this morning and I noticed all the beautiful colors of fall, all the leaves on the ground, the crisp air... and my heart said that today we just needed to spend some time writing about fall (she proceeded to have a masterful conversation about writing about a specific topic with her students).  
     So, we're going to put our writing projects aside for today's workshop and just spend some time writing about fall... you can get out your journals and write what you're thinking about, what's on your heart or mind... you know there are a lot of wonderful books written about this time of year, I've pulled a few here that you might like to read..."  And then she shared a snippet of a few of her favorites and then her second graders settled in to 40 minutes of quiet writing time... independently.  And as Karen meandered around the room, conferring as needed, nudging as needed, and writing as needed I thought to myself... "Now that is what real writers do!"
     Here are my favorite books about autumn (many of which Karen made available to her students), what are your favorites... 

Hello, Harvest Moon by R. Fletcher 

When Autumn Falls by K. Nidey

In November by C. Rylant

Pumpkins by K. Robbins

Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden by G. Levenson 

Pumpkin, Pumpkin by J. Titherington

Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! by E. Wallace

Autumn Leaves by K. Robbins

Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic by S. Schnur

When Autumn Comes by R. Maass

Autumn Across America by S. Simon

It's Fall by L. Glaser

Autumnblings by D. Florian

Hope is...

This is a beautiful book that I love having on display in my classroom.  And kids love reading it.  Hope.  A simple word that can mean so much to so many.
     I found this book while wandering the bookstore and had to buy it and since then I've recommended it to several teaching colleagues.  It's a book about comfort and peace.  The author wrote it to comfort her son after the events of 9/11.
     It begins with the line Sometimes hope feels far away.  But hope is always there.  I love the simple phrases and repeated text... Hope is the warmth of strong arms around you... Hope is scared words asking for help, and finding hope is there... Hope is sad tears flowing, making room for joy.
     It's a great mentor text for writers and the photographs are amazing (and there's a story in the photographs as well).  It's simple.  It's beautiful.  It's hopeful.

Give her the River

Michael Dennis Browne's picture-book is a beautifully written story of a father's love for his daughter.  The poetic language coupled with Wendell Minor's paintings make this a wonderful text to share with writers.  I love using it as mentor text for a study of "writing vignettes with a repeated line."  It's also a wonderful text to use during a study of "creating sensory images." 

     "If I could give her anything, I'd give her the river..." a father's dream for his daughter, beautifully writtern.  I first found this book in the bargain section of The Tattered Cover.  And, while it's not a new book, it's once I revisit often.  A first grade teacher I know used it in conjunction with an inquiry study of a river's ecosystem, bringing a bit of poetry into a typically non-fiction oriented study.

Odd Boy Out

I love this book. The more I read of his work, the more Don Brown is one of my favorite authors.  In Odd Boy Out he tells the story of Albert Einstein as a young boy who spends most of his time alone, spends hours building houses of cards, and provokes his teachers.  It's such a well-crafted book and focuses on Einstein's as he finds himself the "odd boy" at school.  It portrays Einstein's childhood in a surprising and poignant way.  The illustrations (I have the older version) are thought provoking and portray Einstein's life in the perfect combination of watercolor and pen-and-ink.  It follows Einstein from infancy to adulthood... and the author's notes are especially interesting.  It's an intriguing text.

     I use this book in a study of endurance and also share it with parent groups.  It tells the story of a unique man with such a melancholy and sad childhood.  One of my favorite lines is "The 'mindless and mechanical method of teaching caused me great difficulties,' he said.  'I would rather let all kinds of punishment descend upon me than learn to rattle something off by heart." 

     My students loved hearing the book and our discussions were rich and thought-provoking.  Not a new book, but certainly one worth exploring again.

The Magician's Elephant

What is it that draws us to Kate DiCamillo... her brilliance with words?  Allegory?  The sense of darkness and light that meanders through her work?  The story itself?
     She's done it again with the story of Peter Augustus Duchene--an orphan who visits a fortuneteller and discovers that his fate relies on an elephant that falls from the sky (the result of a magician's trick gone wrong).  DiCamillo's books are perfect for drawing on a sense of questioning and inference... and just plain fun to read.  So much for Peter buying fish and bread at the market (a bit Jack and the Beanstalk like)...
     You must follow the elephant.  She will lead you there.  From that point you just want to read it aloud to someone--if not your students, your own children.  There's an eeriness in this book, but it's a grand tale.    
     The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is a book I read with my students to enhance our study of stamina and endurance... and this book will definitely find a place on my bookshelf.