Craft Lesson 10

Harold and the Purple Crayon

By Crockett Johnson

Creative Adventures

Resource Materials:

Johnson, Crockett, Harold and the Purple Crayon: Harper Collins Publishers, 1955

Discussion:

Harold and the Purple Crayon is a book about a young boy who has his own adventures by making up creative adventures by himself. The only items that he has are his imagination and a purple crayon. The purple crayon is used to draw whatever adventure he can think up, and the extra adventures that come along as a result of the original adventure.

How to teach it:

A way to teach creative adventures to young children is to give each student a large pad of paper and their favorite color of crayon. Explain to the class what you would like them to do, by maybe drawing your own adventure and explain each step of your adventure to the class. After you have completed your explanation have each student come up with their own adventure. Have each student present their illustrated adventure to the class.

Read aloud Journal

Read aloud Journal.

For my read aloud journal I choose to read Dr. Seuss’s Mr. Brown can Moo! Can You? to the 6 year old son of a friend of mine. I decided to use this book because my friend said that she used to read this book to him, but it had been almost a year since last time they had read the book. I was hoped that he would be able to remember parts of the book and might be able to read along with me. I was pleasantly surprised when he was able to recite most of the book as I read it to him. He also loved to make all of the animal sounds that accompanied the story.

Craft Lesson 9

Zoom

By Istvan Banyai

Observation Skills

Resource Materials:

Banyai, Istvan. Zoom. New York, NY: Puffin Books, 1998.

Discussion:

Within Zoom the reader is trying to figure out what picture is coming up next on the next page, or to remember where it came from on the previous page. This is a good book for children to build upon their observation skills and memory.

How to teach it:

A good way to teach observation skills is to have the class review the book and explain to them what is happening on each of the pages. Discussion should take place on how the picture keeps zooming out until it finally shows the whole Earth. What I would do is replicate the book on a much smaller scale by taking close-up pictures of something in the classroom and then expanding out for 3-4 pictures to see if the class can guess what is coming up in the next frame. After they have accomplished the classroom photograph, we would move to another project that involves the school as a whole.

Zoom

Banyai, Istvan. Zoom. New York, NY: Puffin Books, 1998.

I very much enjoyed flipping through the pages of Zoom. This was the first time for me to read a picture book that the picture on every page keeps expanding on to the next page. This is a great book to use for teaching students to use their imagination and trying to get the students to think ahead of what might be coming up on the next page. The only problem that I might see in this book is that there is almost too much going on in the story with having to flip back to try and figure out where the picture came from on the previous page, but this can also be part of the adventure.

Craft Lesson 8

Babymouse: Our Hero

By Jennifer Holm

Troubled Readers

Resource Materials:

Holm, Jennifer & Holm, Matthew. Babymouse: Our Hero. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 2005.

Discussion:

There is always a chance that as teachers we are going to encounter a student who does not want to read the required reading. And as a teacher you must try every option that you have to get that student to read. One option is to use a book like Babymouse: Our Hero. With its comic book styling, the material can be delivered to a non-reader in a user-friendly format.

How to teach it:

Once students are introduced to Babymouse: Our Hero, then you can introduce them to the rest of the Babymouse series of books. While they are reading the book you can have a daily check up to see how they like the book, and to see if they noticed that by reading comic books it is actually helping them become better readers. After they have read the series it should make it easier for the student to bridge into chapter books.

Children's Literature Briefly Chapter 17

Tunnell, Michael O. and James S. Jacobs. Children's Literature, Briefly. 4e. Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall, 2008.

After reading Chapter 17 about Motivating Students to Read I believe that I will be able to be a better teacher in getting children motivated to read more books. One way that I thought was very interesting to use was to always have books that are accessible for the children to read, to look at and to be able to handle them. Another idea that I believe will be very useful is to always make sure that you make time for books, and always make sure that you create an atmosphere for reading in your classroom.

Children's Literature Briefly Chapter 16

Tunnell, Michael O. and James S. Jacobs. Children's Literature, Briefly. 4e. Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall, 2008.

While reading Chapter 16 about Controversial books it made think of history classes that I have taken that discussed book burnings of the 1960’s. It still amazes me that people can be so passionate about a book that would rather burn it then to try and learn from the book. Without these controversial books we would not be the society that we are now. We need some form of controversy in books so reading is more interesting. Also, some of the stories that are controversial are relevant to readers.