ReedALOUD: Have You Seen My Monster?

Last week, the kindergarten students and I read, Have You Seen My Monster? by Steve Light. Back in the fall, these students and I had a great time reading Have You Seen My Dragon and subsequently created our own counting book. I thought it would be fun to recreate this lesson with Steve's newest book. It's just as fabulous. The students and I spent time exploring each spread - identifying and counting shapes as well as taking in the fair atmosphere.

In Have You Seen My Monster, a little girl gallivants through a county fair, searching for her furry friend. Readers will surely spot the friendly monster as well as twenty shapes, identified here by their proper names—trapezoids, ellipses, kites, and more—hidden among iconic fair attractions from the fun house to the Ferris wheel. Maybe the monster is judging the pies? Or perhaps he’s at the monster-truck rally? Youngsters will be so mesmerized by Steve Light’s masterful pen-and-ink illustrations, decorated with vivid splashes of color, they won’t even realize they’ve learned how to spot a nonagon while looking for a monster.

The Finished Projects

Each kindergarten class created their own book/slide show.
 

About the Lessons

We began by naming all the shapes we could. I then read, Have You Seen My Monster by Steve Light. We identified the shapes in the book and talked about how there are shapes everywhere. There's not much time left in this school year, so the production part of the project needed to happen in one forty-five minute block. With four parent volunteers for each class, we managed to accomplish our task.

The students worked in pairs to capture a photograph in a designated location of the school. They knew that the photograph should include as many shapes as possible.

The students went to their designated space, decided upon the direction and focus of the photograph, took the photograph, and then returned to the library to work with Skitch to outline and label their shapes. The expectations were that they outline a number of shapes and label at least one.

I modeled the entire process with the students before they set off.

It was reaffirming to look around my library and see such engaged and collaborative learners.

ReedALOUD: Yard Sale

I was handed Yard Sale at a meeting at a Starbucks. The bustle and noise of the coffee shop faded away on each page turn.There are times that I have been handed a book and, on just one brief reading, I know that it is an important book and that I need to choose the right time to share it with students. That time happened to be yesterday with my third graders.

Yard Sale is written by Eve Bunting, author of over 250 books, and illustrated by Lauren Castillo, creator of over 10 books for children and winner of a Caldecott Honor this year for her book, Nana in the City.

I won't do the retelling of Yard Sale justice, so here's the description from Lauren Castillo's web page, "Almost everything Callie’s family owns is spread out in their front yard—their furniture, their potted flowers, even Callie’s bike. They can’t stay in this house, so they’re moving to an apartment in the city. The new place is "small but nice," Mom says, and most of their things won’t fit, so today they are having a yard sale. But it’s kind of hard to watch people buy your stuff, even if you understand why it has to happen. With sensitivity and grace, Eve Bunting and Lauren Castillo portray an event at once familiar and difficult, making clear that a home isn’t about what you have, but whom you hold close."

Lauren's illustrations allow the reader to enter Callie's world and begin to understand her experience. There are many points to connect with during this story, such as: when a women at the yard sale wants to pay less for the bed on which Callie has carefully marked the number of times she read Goodnight Moon; the point when Callie and her friend are trying to understand why the family has to move; and the moment when Callie realizes that family is all that matters. This last point really resonated with my students who had a long discussion about wants versus needs.  I chose the moment when Callie sees her beloved bicycle being loaded into a truck to offer students an opportunity to share a time when they had to give away or sell a beloved item. (If they had not had that experience, I offered that they could think about an item that would be very hard to part with.)

I think this image really resonated with me because we still have the bike that my now twenty-year-old son learned to ride as a two-wheeler when he was four.  He has not wanted us to give it away, so there it hangs in our garage. I also told the students about my experience selling the baby items that my children had outgrown and how hard it was, but that the money allowed me to buy things they needed as they had grown. 

Here's what they had to say about their own experiences with special items:

Learn more about Lauren and her work:

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

It's Monday, and I am reading, Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, written by Kate DiCamillo and illustrated by K.G. Campbell.

Wait, let me rephrase that, I am rereading and rereading, Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures.

~~Rereading, Part the First~~

I am reading and rereading it because I need to keep interrupting the people around me to read aloud to them from 

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures.

This book begs to be read aloud.  

This book begs to be shared.  

Kate DiCamillo, with the help of K.G. Campbell's illustrations and graphic interludes, has created an engagingly quirky novel that speaks to the reader, literally and figuratively. If Flora sees her words hanging above her head, I hear the words echoing through my head, words like malfeasance and cynic or phrases like extended hallucinations, temporary blindness induced by trauma, or holy unanticipated consequences. They beg to be read aloud.

I want to walk around my school reading aloud, especially this part that refers to a contract Flora has signed, she promises to "work to turn her face away from the idiotic high jinks of comics and toward the bright light of true literature." This little bit is funny and brilliant and timely. 

How can I not share the wisdom of an almost eleven year old, especially one who has gained most of her insight from reading The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto!and it's bonus comic, 
Terrible Things Can Happen to You!  

Wisdom such as: 

Do not hope. Only Observe. 

I love the things Flora thinks. "There is just no predicting what kind of sentences you might say, thought Flora. For instance, who would ever think you would shout, "You're going to vacuum up that squirrel!"?

This book is full of magical thinking, words of wisdom, and wonderful characters. This book is full of poetry and love. This book is full of words and ideas that need to be said out loud and pondered and shared. 

I love a whole lotta things:

I love that this book does not fit neatly into any genre category. I love the graphic elements.

I love the characters' names.

I love that Kate DiCamillo addresses some pretty heavy themes in this book, but does so in a way that makes them accessible and understandable.

I love how a lamp can become so symbolic.

I love that all the heroes and heroines wear glasses.

I love that Flora is a A Surprisingly Helpful Cynic. 

I love that simple acts are heroic. 

I love Ulysses. I love his passion. I love his superpowers.  In an article for Publisher's Weekly, Kate shares that “Those are the two big superpowers to me,” DiCamillo says. “Poetry and love.”

I love the respect that Kate DiCamillo has for her for readers. The language is rich and the humor is wry.  

Want to know the real scoop?  Listen to this MPR interview with Kate DiCamillo.

Want to see some good author fun? Check out Barbara O'Connor's message to Kate DiCamillo.

~~Rereading, Part the Second~~

I am reading this book for the second time because the first time was way back in once upon a time time, or April, which just feels that way.   

I was first introduced to Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures at the Candlewick

fall preview where...

Kate read from 
Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures,

which she described as "girl meets squirrel."

She had a room full of book lovers and readers laughing, gasping, and calling out, 
oh wait, maybe that was only me calling out...

Wow. 

I love Kate's books, 

my children love Kate's books, 

and my students love Kate's books, 

but now I more than love them because of meeting her. 

What an engaging, personable, and fun individual!

~~~~~~~~

#IMWAYR

Jen Vincent of Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, started the It's Monday What Are You Reading meme for children's literature.  You can follow the #IMWAYR  hashtag on Twitter or go to Jen's Webpage, Teach Mentor Texts to see which blogs have linked up.