Category Archives: Art

Peace

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Peace by Wendy Anderson HalperinIt has been twelve years since the terror attacks on 9/11. Most of the students in elementary classrooms today weren’t even born yet in 2001, so how do we commemorate that day with kids? The kindest way I can think of to honor the lives that were lost is to promote peace, and the most beautiful book I know about peace is this one.

Peace by Wendy Anderson Halperin combines art, poetry, and quotes to help answer the question “how do we make a peaceful world?” The book is quiet and thoughtful, with detailed pictures your students will want to spend time examining close up. You can read aloud the main thread of the poem, which begins with

“For there to be peace in the world…/ …there must be peace in nations./ For there to be peace in nations, there must be peace in cities.”

and then take time to read all the beautiful quotes threaded throughout.

“It’s not so much the journey that’s important, as the way we treat those we encounter and those around us, along the way.” – Jeremy Aldana

Wendy Anderson Halperin has a beautiful website that extends the book: drawingchildrenintopeace.com. She has cool videos where she teaches kids how to draw different peace symbols and she talks about conflict resolution. You can even browse through a gallery of art where kids have drawn and written what peace means to them.

I hope you share Peace with your students. I hope you take time to discuss some of the beautiful quotes, not just because it works for Range of Reading and Craft & Structure, but because they may plant hopeful seeds in your students. If your students choose a quote to illustrate, or write a peace quote of their own and add pictures, you can send it to Wendy Halperin, and send it to me, too. I am all about sharing peace.

For more information about the author/illustrator, please visit wendyhalperin.com.

Rosie Revere, Engineer

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Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts

I have the best of reasons for posting late this week: I’ve been on Mackinac Island at the Michigan Reading Association conference, being inspired by dedicated educators and loving the slower pace of an island with no automobiles. Now I’m sitting in a white wicker rocking chair with a cup of coffee and my laptop, dear husband at my side, watching sailboats glide by. The only thing that could make this any better would be a great book, and luckily, I have one.

Rosie Revere, Engineer written by the marvelously talented Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts is one of the rare rhyming book gems: the story is as solid as the meter and the language isn’t dumbed down in order to make a rhyme. Rosie Revere is the kind of girl most creative people will relate to: joyfully inventive, but so fearful of failure and ridicule that she hides her inventions away. The “gadgets and gizmos” she creates are fantastic, and I love Roberts’ whimsical and yet credible drawings of them. (I myself would love a pair of Rosie’s helium pants.) Rosie’s desire to help her great-great-aunt Rose fulfill her lifelong dream of flying gives Rosie the courage to test one of her inventions.
“The heli-o-cheese-copter sputtered and twitched.
It floated a moment and whirled round and round,
then froze for a heartbeat and crashed to the ground.”
Rosie is devastated by the failure, and by her great-great-aunt’s laughter, until she hears,
“‘Your brilliant first flop was a raging success!
Come on, let’s get busy and on to the next!’“

So not only is the message of this book one that every creative person with perfectionist tendencies needs to hear (I’m keeping it by my bedside table as a reminder) but it has historical notes in it about Amelia Earhart and E. Lillian Todd (the first woman to design airplanes) and Rosie the Riveter and other strong women whose names and deeds should be known. For a social studies lesson, you could easily springboard from this book into studying awesome women inventors. For math-science-art, get graph paper and a bunch of doodads and thing-a-ma-bobs for students to plan, design, build, test, and refine their own inventions. If you ask people to donate old, broken electronic gadgets to your class and bring in small tools, your students can take apart old radios and remote controls to disassemble and use. Build those Phonological Awareness skills by focusing on the rhyme, then discuss the interesting word choices for a Craft & Structure lesson. To keep rocking those Core Standards in Reading, you can easily work in Integrating Knowledge & Ideas by comparing Rosie Revere, Engineer to Iggy Peck, Architect by the same power duo. 

So share this book with absolutely everyone you know, and get busy taking creative risks, because
“Life might have its failures, but this was not it.
The only true failure can come if you quit.”

For more information on the author, please visit andreabeaty.com.
For more information on the illustrator, please visit davidrobertsillustration.com.

Iggy Peck, Architect

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iggy-peck-architect-coverLong have I loved Andrea Beaty’s picture book series about a bear named Ted (grab Doctor Ted, Firefighter Ted, and Artist Ted from your local library and prepare to be charmed.) Then, I saw sitting on the shelf by the Ted books this gem, just waiting to tie in perfectly with science, math, and phonological awareness lessons.

Iggy Peck, Architect written by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts will grab young readers on page 1:

“Young Iggy Peck is an architect
and has been since he was two,
when he built a great tower – in only an hour –
with nothing but diapers and glue.”

The story about a young boy who loves to build and saves the day with his architectural skills is told in fantastic rhyme. (Hello, Common Core Standard of Phonological Awareness!) But the beauty of this book is that after you’ve used it in reading lesson, it inspires all kinds of science, art, and math extensions.

When his class is stranded on a small island, Iggy teaches his classmates how to construct a suspension bridge from “boots, tree roots and strings, fruit roll-ups and things”. After sharing Iggy Peck, Architect, pull out Bridges by Seymour Simon to learn more about suspension bridges and how they work (and pat yourself on the back for Integrating Knowledge and Ideas, you Core Standard wizard.) You may choose to forgo tree roots and boots, but challenge your students to plan and construct a suspension bridge, perhaps between two tables, with materials like string, paper, straws, etc. Students can use graph paper like David Roberts did when they draw up their plans, measuring actual distances and then scaling the distances down on paper before they build. Your students will be measuring, counting, drawing, predicting, and revising as they work. Keep architecture books like Bridges! Amazing Structures to Design, Build, and Test by Carol A. Johmann  and Elizabeth J. Rieth, or the wonderful David Macaulay books on hand for those inspired by Iggy Peck. As Miss Lila Greer, the teacher in Iggy Peck, Architect realizes:

“There are worse things to do when you’re in grade two
than to spend your time building a dream.”

For more information about the author, go to andreabeaty.com.

For more information about the illustrator, go to davidrobertsillustration.com.

A Ball for Daisy and the Power of Wordless Books

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ballfordaisyI am super-geeked that I am a guest blogger for Nerdy Book Club. Nerdy Book Club is a great resource, especially for those readers who are hard to match with just the right book. I like their Top Ten lists, like Top Ten Middle Grade Novels featuring Homeschoolers  and Top Ten Books featuring Autism Spectrum Disorders. My list of Top Ten Wordless Picture Books will post on March 30.

In honor of my Nerdy Book Club debut, I’m sharing with you a wordless book that did not make my Top Ten. It’s the Caldecott winner A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka. (Why not in my Top Ten? Check out my post on Nerdy Book Club to see which of my favorites nudged this one out!) Daisy loves her red ball. She loves it so much, she even sleeps with it. One day, she and her owner take the red ball to the park to play. Daisy and her owner are playing fetch when another dog chases – and pops! – the red ball. Daisy is heartbroken. But the next day at the park, the other dog’s owner presents Daisy with a new, blue ball. Now Daisy has a new ball to love, and a new friend.

One element of the Common Core Standard of Key Ideas and Details is “retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson”. A Ball for Daisy has such a simple plot that this is easy to do. If you’re working on problem/solution, this book works. If you’re working on first/next/last, this book works. And, if you’re looking for ways to build vocabulary, this book works. (How do wordless books build vocabulary? Read my article on ReaderKidZ.) As you “read” this story to your class, use those rich, expressive words. “Daisy looks distraught over the loss of her ball. She is so sad, she is practically inconsolable.” Your students will develop their listening vocabulary and may even use your Scrabble-worthy adjectives themselves as they retell the story.

A Ball for Daisy would be a great Storybox. Put the book along with two dog puppets and two balls in a Storybox and let students act out their retelling. Your students will have a ball!

Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel

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ellieIt’s officially the first day of spring, and yes, we have snow in Michigan. *sigh* I need a good book to lift my spirits, and I’ve found the perfect one: Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel written and illustrated by Ruth McNally Barshaw.

Usually I blog about picture books to use with students in preschool through third grade. This book is different; it’s what I call a “highly illustrated novel”, ideal for your second and third graders (also appropriate for those first grade super readers). If you’ve had kids clamoring for Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, give them Ellie. The Wimpy Kid is in middle school, and he’s not a particularly great role model (part of his appeal to the older crowd). Ellie McDoodle has all the cool doodles throughout the book like the Wimpy Kid books, but Ellie is an awesome chick. She’s into nature and drawing so she appeals to boys and girls, and she’s a good kid. This first book in the Ellie McDoodle series has Ellie off on a camping trip with her cousins and her little brother, Ben-Ben. She journals the ups and downs of it all in this book.

We just had Ruth McNally Barshaw come talk to 200 fifth graders who’d studied this book as part of our Battle of the Books. Ruth was phenomenal. Our fifth graders cheered like they were meeting a rock star! They loved this book and are quickly gobbling up the next three books in the series (Ellie McDoodle: New Girl in School, Ellie McDoodle: Best Friends Fur-Ever, Ellie McDoodle: Most Valuable Player – books 5 and 6 are in the works).

So share Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel with your students, especially the author’s note at the end where Ruth describes how to keep a sketch journal. Talking about the information found in the illustrations and how it supports the text is a way to hit the Common Core State Standard of Integrating Knowledge & Ideas. Give the kids paper to make their own mini-journals, and encourage them to doodle, write, and record events from their lives. Even reluctant writers and artists will be drawn in by Ruth’s fun doodle tips also found at the back of the book.

For more information about Ruth McNally Barshaw, please visit: ruthexpress.com.