Friday, January 22, 2016

Recommended Picture Book: A Rock is Lively by Dianna Hutts Aston


Title: A Rock is Lively

Author: Dianna Hutts Aston

Illustrator: Sylvia Long

Publisher: Chronicle Books, Aug 17, 2012

Topic: Science: Geology, Rocks, Soil, Minerals

Age: 5-8

Opening: A rock is lively.....bubbling like a pot of soup deep beneath the earth's crust...

Summary: A rock is many things. It is lively, mixed up, surprising, helpful, creative, inventive and so much more. Here is a simple introduction to the science of rocks and minerals.

Resources:
Chronicle books provide a compiled lesson plan with activities for Dianna Aston's three books, An Egg is Quiet, A Butterfly is Patient, A Seed is Sleepy, A Nest is Loud, and A Rock is Lively.

A to Z kids stuff has various activities that explores rocks.

Review:
A beautifully illustrated book paired with poetic prose gives way to a stunning lesson on rocks, soil and minerals. Perfect for the classroom, flowing and lyrical text gives way to informative data on different kinds of rocks and minerals. Children are introduced to the life cycle of rocks, chemical makeup and diversity of rocks. This book brought back a lot of good memories of my childhood which was spent digging around in dirt and finding rock treasures. I loved cracking open rocks to see what beauty they held inside. How I wish I had this book growing up. This is a classroom must have!


Sunday, January 10, 2016

Multicultural Children's Book Day 2016


Our mission is to not only raise awareness for the kid’s books that celebrate diversity, but to get more of these of books into classrooms and libraries.


Title: The Legend of the Colombian Mermaid

Author: Janet Balletta

Illustrator: Estella Mejia

Publisher: WRB Publishing, November 29, 2013

Topic: Multicultural, Colombian Legends, Mermaids, Morals & Values: Obedience, Cultures and Traditions: Religious observance: Good Friday

Age: 5-8

Opening: A long time ago in a town called Valledupar, Colombia, lived a young girl, her little brother, and their parents in a house at the edge of the Guatapuri River.

Summary: Young Judith and her little brother plays by the side of the Guatapuri river known to have mermaid who loves to steal children who disobey the rule of swimming during the holy week leading to Good Friday. When her brother goes missing, she must summon her courage and find a way to get her brother back before the mermaid turns him into a mermaid too.

Resources:
The author provides a teaching guide at the end of the story. It includes a vocabulary list and discussion questions.

Other extended learning activities could include:
Research Colombia. It's people, currency, weather, holidays, language, education, games, etc.
Research Guatapuri River. Where is it located? How long/deep is it? What kind of animals live in and around the river?
Compare and Contrast: Religious or cultural traditions are different for each family or community. How does your family or community observe Good Friday or other religious or cultural holiday similar to it?
All About Legends? What is a legend? How are legends different from myths? Do you know any legends from your country, state, or town?

Review:
The Legend of the Colombian Mermaid combines Colombian cultural and religious traditions surrounding the Good Friday holiday. The legend follows that a young girl disobeyed her parents and went swimming in the river during the holy observance of Good Friday, something that was strictly forbidden. The young girl disappeared into the river and was said to have turned into a mermaid. Now, La Sirena, lonely, wants playmates to keep her company. So she steals children who come to swim in the river during the Holy Week of Good Friday.

Judith and her brother are like most children, they love the outdoors and they live near a river and love to go swimming. While they know well the legend of the mermaid, La Sirena, they still proceed to go playing at the edge of the river, despite their parents warning not to. The minute Judith turns away from her younger brother, he goes missing. Frantic, she gets help from the animals native to the river. They help her come up with a plan to win her brother back from La Sirena before it is too late and she turns him into a mermaid forever.

This story is nice in that children and students are introduced to a legend from another country and culture. They are introduced to a religious holiday practiced among many Christians and Catholics. Teachers and parents have the opportunity to help their students research a new culture with different traditions. Children can learn about Colombia, the Guatapuri River, animals that live in that area. While the story did feel a bit didactic and did a lot of 'telling' as oppose to 'showing', it is nice to see stories that promote religious and cultural morals and values such as obedience, faith, honesty and courage, values that are universally shared around the world. While I could appreciate the story, I was not a huge fan of the illustrations. There was one illustration though that really stood out, it looked like it was done in oil paints on canvas, drastically different from the other illustrations. It was really pretty.






Mission: The Multicultural Children's Book Day team’s mission is to spread the word and raise awareness about the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Our young readers need to see themselves within the pages of a book and experience other cultures, languages, traditions and religions within the pages of a book. We encourage readers, parents, teachers, caregivers and librarians to follow along the fun book reviews, author visits, event details, a multicultural children’s book linky and via our hashtag (#ReadYourWorld) on Twitter and other social media.


Multicultural Children’s Book Day has 12 amazing Co-Host and you can view them here.


Multicultural Children’s Book day 2016 Medallion Level Sponsors! #ReadYourWorld



Classroom Reading Challenge:
Help spread the word on our  Classroom Reading Challenge . This very special offering from MCCBD offers teachers and classrooms the chance to (very easily) earn a free hardcover multicultural children's book for their classroom library. These books are not only donated by the Junior Library Guild, but they are pre-screened and approved by them as well.
What we could really use some help with is spreading the word to your teacher/librarian/classroom connections so we can get them involved in this program. There is no cost to teachers and classrooms and we've made the whole process as simple as possible. You can help by tweeting the below info:
 Teachers! Earn a FREE #Multicultural Kids Book for Your Classroom! #teachers, #books #teacherlife  http://ow.ly/UUy96

The Classroom Reading Challenge has begun! Teachers can earn a free diversity book! #teachers, #books
 
http://multiculturalchildrensbookday.com/?p=1796

Friday, January 8, 2016

Recommended Picture Book: The Water Hole by Graeme Base


Title: The Water Hole

Author: Graeme Base

Illustrator: Graeme Base

Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers, Sept 1, 2001

Topic: Counting, Science: water, Animals, Seasons, Rain and rainfall,

Age: 2-8 (7-12)

Opening: One rhino drinking at the water hole.

Summary: As an ever-growing numbers of animals visit a watering hole, introducing the numbers one through ten, the water dwindles.

Resources:
Teacher Notes can be found here for lower, middle and upper primary students.
Check out these story stretching educational ideas. Subjects include: mathematics, zoology, geography, observation, and language.
The Little Big Book Club has a wonderful educational guide for children 0-2.
Here is a lesson plan that brings the fine arts alive with this book.

Review:
What I really like the most about this book is that it uniquely combines various sciences, like math, geography, natural science and animal science into an easy to read-a-loud book. The beautiful and detailed illustrations invite children to look deeper into the pictures to find other animals carefully hidden in the artwork. Young children will meet animals from different continents while learning to count from one to ten. They will also observe the diminishing water supply as each new group visits the water hole until there is no water left. Then something amazing happens and children are introduced to the life cycle of water and seasonal changes. This book is so sparsely, well written and masterfully illustrated that it can be used in just about any age setting from pre-readers to children who can read on their own.