When The Wonderful Happens

Love this book:

It's simple prose, but such a great message. What do we take for granted in our daily lives-like a bird being able to come out of a tiny egg or bread--how many things have to come together for that to work properly. The kids really enjoyed it! I asked them to write about what they think is wonderful out there in the world-I like that they came up with so many different answers:

A Skeleton's Perspective

So I decided to visit the public library again for the first time in years this past weekend. I had forgotten how enchanting all those rows of children's books are! :) I came across this gem:

Now, I am a huge fan of alternate versions of fairy tales-I think they lend themselves to all kinds of comparing activities. The vocabulary in this one was a little over the heads of my kiddos-but they were very intrigued by the story and the illustrations. Now it gets a little morbid-they live in a mausoleum and her whole foot bone breaks off in the shoe she leaves behind. But many details of the story line are the same as the traditional fairy tale and I think it's a really imaginative idea. If I had older kids I think I would have them re-write another fairy tale to feature skeletons as the main characters.

Anyway, after the story and our comparison activities, I asked the kids to write from the perspective of a skeleton. What would be different about your life? Here's what they came up with:

Presumably watching "Bones"....ba ha ha ha. 

Pumpkin Ethics

Well, I had a first happen with this writing assignment-every single student took the same side, and it wasn't the pumpkin's! :) Color me surprised. I asked them to make an argument of why it was right or wrong to turn pumpkins into jack-'o-lanterns. Every single student wrote that it was right. We are still working on the reasoning part, they will bring it up and say "it's right because it's right" or "it's right because that's what happens". But the more practice they get the better, the more they'll be able to apply that skill. Here's what they said:

because people love jack o'lanterns

Open-Ended Ladybugs

So last Thursday was Read for the Record-I know a lot of places participate in this activity. The book this year was Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad. Our fabulous librarian organized some fun ladybug-related activities for the kiddos. She had paper plates, stick-on dots, chenille wands and googly eyes-my kids were on cloud 9. If you read my blog at all, you know I firmly believe in open-ended art projects-so I basically passed out the materials and said go to town. I would lose points for not modeling for them, but in these cases I think it's important not to just show them what to make. Part of it is selfish, I love to see what different ideas the kids come up with. Part of it is believing kids should have some opportunities to express their creativity.

Anyway, here are some of the ladybugs they came up with:

Take Your Teacher Home

We all know the best way for kids to learn how to read, is to hear someone read to them daily. We also know the stresses and hectic schedules of being a parent. I've tried to make it a little easier for the kids to hear a story every night.

Back when I was actually a good teacher :), I did this regularly and thought I'd take the idea out of the vault again. I record stories for them to listen to. They take home a bag with a book and the recorded story. Like my artwork....

 Wal-mart used to sell walkmans for $5.00 and for a time, every visit I made there I'd pick up one. They've lasted pretty well, some of the doors where you put the cassette are not attached anymore-but they still work. I'm told Sears.com sells them now for that price. We have also been lucky enough to have a Donorschoose proposal filled, so we have about 5 mp3 players too-much easier to maintain!

There are drawbacks-it's extremely time-consuming to maintain. I record new stories about every 2 weeks (any neighbor listening in must be really confused because I'm reading stories out loud to myself :). Every morning I have to check the bags to rewind/fast forward the tapes, check the charge on the mp3 players, so the next person can just press play and it will work. I worry about them getting lost or damaged, but (knock on wood) we haven't had that happen yet. I've had several talks with the students about responsibility and how valuable the bags are.

The plus-side is, I know every child has the opportunity to hear a story every night. They don't always listen to it when they take it home, but I gave them the opportunity. One year a parent told me her son would fall asleep listening to the story every night.