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Summer Reads

Posted by on June 11, 2012 3 Comments

One of the great things about summer is staying up late with a bowl of popcorn and a great book that you’re reading as a family. Nothing’s better than seeing wide eyes hanging on your every word and hearing little voices begging for “just one more chapter!”

And although we do read-alouds year around, there’s something magical about the open expanse of possibilities waiting for kids in June, July, and August. It seems the days will stretch on forever and that bedtimes are made to be broken. And I love it!

In the spirit of non-scheduled days of freedom and fun, we’ve amassed a pile of books to read aloud as a family this summer. The only criteria? They must be Newbery Award Winners, because I feel that those books are classic pieces of literature rather than simply published stories. On the docket:

  • The Twenty-One Balloons (we’re almost done with this one!)
  • The Indian in the Cupboard
  • Out of the Dust
  • Bud, Not Buddy
  • Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

What will you be reading with your kids this summer? Or what are some of your favorites that you can recommend?

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Exploring Setting

Posted by on May 10, 2012 3 Comments

For reasons which I shall not divulge, this week the kids and I spent an *entire* day together away from school, reading and doing  things that usually stay on my “if only” list.

I highly recommend it; the list came to life, and it was glorious.

One of the things we did was some work on our current family read-aloud, The Twenty-One Balloons
I’ve loved the creativity and imagination of this book since I first taught it to my elementary class so many years ago. Opening the pages to my own children this spring has been a special treat.

For those of you unfamiliar with this Newbery Winner, the main character, William Waterman Sherman, attempts to fly around the world in a hot air balloon but ends up on the island of Krakatoa. Krakatoa is a real island between the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean, and is actually the volcano that the book purports it to be. After “the world’s biggest volcanic eruption” in 1883, diamonds were found on the island and the money they brought transformed the lives of the island’s inhabitants.

This income allowed the islanders to build creative homes with secret entryways and trap doors, convertible roofs and chairs that could travel the house and automatically deliver you to your desired destination. I can’t wait to see my childrens’ faces light up when they imagine these homes!

But before we moved on, I thought this book offered the perfect moment to study the setting of the book. Why not try it with the next book you read together? Whether you’re reading about central Minnesota through the eyes of Laura Ingalls Wilder or Texas through the pages of Old Yeller, taking a look at setting will enrich your reading.

poster in progress...

A few tips:

  • Get out your largest world or U.S. map (or head to Barnes & Noble to buy one!)
  • Spend time locating the region mentioned in the book. Settings are generally unveiled right away, so this is a great way to get kids hooked on your story in the first chapter.
  • Use Wikipedia or another resource to read more about the area if it’s unfamiliar to you (as Krakatoa was to us)
  • Have your kids draw their own map, including surrounding areas for reference. Make sure to label bodies of water.
  • Ask each child to write down 3 facts about this location. These may include weather/climate trends, natural resources, or famous landmarks. At the very least, have your kids make statements of geographical reference (i.e., “This island is south of China.”).
  • Teach your children how to use Google Earth to locate your book’s setting. When we found Krakatoa we got to see real photos which our kids loved! We then zoomed above our own home and down to Rockafeller Center in NYC. So fun!
  • Make predictions about how the landscape might play into the story. Sometimes, as in western expansion stories, the setting is nearly a character in the plotline.
  • Actually travel to the book’s location! An expensive venture, but one they’ll never forget! One of the reasons I still love the West so much!
  • Create a “visitor’s guide” for this location! Even if you can’t really go, your kids can guide you on a “virtual” adventure! Use Keynote for a digital guide, Pages or Publisher for the graphic kid, or your video camera for the budding newscaster!

How have you explored setting with your kids? Have you ever traveled to a book’s setting as a family?

Filed Under: Drawing Activities, Imagination, Read-Aloud Books, Teaching Geography, Teaching Literary/English Terms | Tagged: Tagged With: , , , ,

Holes, by Louis Sachar

Posted by on January 4, 2012 4 Comments

Over Christmas vacation we finished our latest family read aloud, Holes, by Louis Sachar. Whenever possible we try to choose Newbery Award Winners rather than random chapter books, and this was just the latest in a line of terrific evening reads. Holes was so compelling, in fact, that our two oldest kids went to their school library before break and checked out their own copies to read ahead!

In the book, Sachar paints a vivid account of Stanley Yelnats, a young teen who is wrongly convicted of theft and ends up at a “reformatory” camp for boys, digging holes under the unforgiving Texas sun. After days of relentless digging, Stanley figures out that perhaps the warden isn’t as concerned with “building character” as previously thought–perhaps there is another motive altogether, and the crew of teens merely provide the sweaty hands to get there.

Woven throughout Holes is a parallel historical tale of Stanley’s great-great-grandfather, whom his family believes was not only cursed, but is still to blame for every misfortune they encounter. While at first this these accounts seem completely irrelevant and even silly, Sachar brilliantly ties everything together in the end. My husband and I even stayed up after putting the kids to bed to figure it out!!  We were really amazed at the author’s ability to seamlessly connect dots we hadn’t even bothered looking at. I think you will be, too.

ASIDE: If you’re interested in an extension activity, Holes is available as a movie with prominent Hollywood actors, released in 2003. It is a fairly good representation of the book, but gets a PG rating for one or two profanities which I don’t remember in the book. We watched the movie together after reading the book and then enjoyed a great compare/contrast discussion–instigated by our fourth grader!

I can’t recommend Holes enough for your middle-to-upper elementary-aged kids to read with you. I picked up our copy at a thrift store for 50¢, but would value our reading experience as priceless!

What have you been reading with your kids lately?

 

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