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One True Sentence

“Before I discovered the miracles of science, magic ruled the world.”

In a single sentence,  the first sentence of chapter one, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William KamKwamba draws us in to the world of his small farming village in Malawi.

One day, William was approached by boys who told him that, while tending the herd animals, they discovered a random sack in the road—a giant sack filled with bubble gum! So begins the drama. The boys shared a handful of gumballs, which William, naturally, devours. When the trader realizes, however, that the bag of gumballs had slipped off his bicycle, he retraced his path. That trader was so upset, he went to the local sing’anga for help. When William got wind of this, he was terrified!

“Now the sweet, lingering memory of it soured into poison on my tongue. I began to sweat; my heart was beating fast. … I began crying so hard I couldn’t move my legs. The tears ran hot down my face, and as they did, the smell of poison filled my nose. It was everywhere inside me. I fled the forest as fast as possible, trying to get away from the giant magic eye. I ran all the way home to where my father sat against the house, plucking a pile of maize. I wanted to throw my body under his, so he could protect me from the devil” (page 4).

What comes next? Well, William’s father to the rescue. He walks 8 kilometers to pay the trader for the entire bag of gumballs which, by the way, amounts to a full week’s pay. No magic involved.

William’s father did not fear magic.

 

The sentence that begins this wonderful true story of how, when William’s family’s crops fail due to drought, William devises a plan—an idea that would not only benefit his village, but would set him on a journey to Dartmouth.

I know this because because the very first wonderful sentence drew me into the story.

“Before I discovered the miracles of science, magic ruled the world.”

 

Let’s unpack the sentence:

Before: Well, this word is a preposition (so is “of” by the way).

So the sentence begins with a complex prepositional phrase: Before I discovered the miracles of science, (which is also a dependent clause because it cannot stand alone as a sentence).

The independent clause, magic ruled the world, could actually stand alone as a sentence, though it would be way less intriguing.

Add the dependent clause, to the independent clause and now you have not only contrasting subjects (magic and science), but you have introduced a character and a significant revelation.

Hemingway reminds us: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

One true sentence. Simple. 

~Kimberly

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Let’s Talk Just Right Readers

 Books for primary readers are categorized into levels of difficulty—Just Right Readers.

Some of these books are categorized by grade level (GRL), some  by a developmental readiness assessment (DRA), and others still are categorized by a Lexile measure. The purpose of these readers is to provide opportunities for children to read as they are mastering the patterns of phonics.

Hatchling Volume 1 for kindergarten and Hatchling Volume 2 for 1st grade, systematically introduce students to phonics for reading and writing. In the Teacher Helps that is tied to both units, we offer information and strategies including this tidbit at the top of page 9:

“Phonics is a method of teaching students to read and write by helping them HEAR.”

 

In the English language, there are 44 sounds that make up every single spoken word.  These sound bites are called phonemes. The 26 letters of the alphabet are combined in various ways to replicate the sounds we hear. These are called graphemes. There are around 250 graphemes to write the 44 phonemes! Phenomenal, right? This is the heart of phonics.

During kindergarten and 1st grade, students using our Hatchling curriculum are introduced to over 150 of these graphemes setting them firmly on their way to reading and writing well. As students are introduced to phonics, it is important to practice both reading and writing. Early on, during kindergarten, students will have limited skills. At first, once the consonant and short vowel sounds are mastered, they will be able to read and write “can” or “fun” or “let” with ease. However, they might write “pepl” for “people” because those are the sounds they have mastered. As more complex graphemes are introduced (consonant blends, digraphs, long vowel patterns and so on), the reading and writing lexicon increases.

This is where Just Right Readers enter the scene.

Amelia Bedelia brought delight to my childhood. I mean, she took every figure of speech and turned it upside down, literally! She made me laugh out loud! “Dress the chicken,” seemed an odd task to Amelia Bedelia. But she obediently got on with the task and suddenly the chicken was dressed in overalls! Once upon a time, back in my day, this series of stories was not a Just Right Reader, but rather a wonderful series of picture books. The first twelve books in the series are written by Peggy Parish. After her death, nephew Herman Parish, continued the series. Since 2009, the stories have been adapted for part of the I Can Read series published by Harper Kids.

Just Right Readers are just right for primary readers. So fill a basket with wonderful stories for your Kindergartener, 1st, or 2nd grader. I promise Amelia Bedelia will make them chuckle! I promise she will stand the test of time.

 

~Kimberly

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Remember to Read Aloud!

Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows, was born on this day in 1859.

I remember taking my four children to Barnes and Noble Story Hour back in the day to listen to this wonderful book being read aloud. They loved a good read aloud. And this book, with its rich language, drew them in for sure:

“Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.”

Mole, who is friends with Rat (my son, Søren called him “Ratty”), loved adventuring in boats on the river:

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

 

Mole and Rat loved boats, that is, until Mr. Toad introduces them to the horse-drawn carriage! But eventually Mr. Toad quickly loses interest and becomes obsessed with the motorcar! The best thing about this wonderful story? The wild rides of course!

Pick up a copy today and read aloud!

~Kimberly

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The Section 5 Project is a CORE Literacy

Aesthetics is a set of principles that inform the outcome of a work of art. It taps into that part of our being that connects with beauty. At the heart of this concept is imagination, and imagination is where ideas are born.

There is a trend in all sectors of education to not only discount the reading of pure fiction, but to undervalue the  power of the arts to speak in a way where words fail. This is not wise. Arts education is inextricably linked to English Language Arts.

Section 5 provides an opportunity for students to practice communicating an idea in a visual language. Because great stories offer fodder for the imagination, each and every Literature + Writing Discovery Guide (the CORE of our language arts offering) sets aside a full week to create and celebrate.

Don’t wait until week 5 to begin thinking about your Section 5 idea!

Make a plan.

During Section 2, begin brainstorming. Download our free planning worksheet to begin. Write down your ideas and, since your Section 5 will include a visual component, create small sketches demonstrating different ways you imagine your idea might take shape and what materials you might utilize.

During Section 3, choose the idea you like best and make a full-page sketch with labels that will help you prepare.

During Section 4, gather all the materials you will need to complete your project build.

After all this, when Section 5 rolls around, your student will be prepared to focus on creating a meaningful project. A project that your student will surely be proud of for years to come. Check out our Student Project Gallery to be inspired. Send us photos of your completed project so we can add it to the gallery to inspire others.

This past fall, during our Professional Development offering, I walked teachers through the following little project connected to one of my favorite childhood reads—The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. With a cardboard box, some printed images, paint, pencil, markers, a tiny linoleum sample, and a bit of glue… voilà!

This story that has stood the test of time (published in 1967) and is, in my opinion, powerful proof why we all need to read across many genres, read all kinds of stories. Every time I’ve led students through this purely fictional story set in a very real setting—The Metropolitan Museum of Art—they engage at once in the mystery, but also gain an appreciation for visual art as they wander the museum with Claudia and Jaime Kincaid.

This past fall, during our Professional Development offering, I offered some tips and tricks to elevate the Section 5 Project Build. Click through to a recording of the session.

Happy Project Build!

~Kimberly Bredberg

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Getting to the HEART of Literacy

What is meant by Core & Application?

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Our English Language Arts program is built around a simple structure of Core and Application materials.  When it comes to literacy, integrating the act of reading and the art of writing gets students thinking independently. Our unique scaffolding supports students as they gather information from books, both fiction and non-fiction, and challenges them to respond with original, authentic ideas. Our longitudinal Discovery MethodTM motivates students to work through the processes of writing: brainstorming, drafting, re-reading, editing, conferencing, and polishing of the final work. While engaging in our Discovery Method, students will gain, and put into practice, skills that will make their ideas shine.

Both our CORE + APPLICATION materials provide opportunities for students to:

1. Read to discover
2. Write to catalog thoughts and insights
3. Think to spark curiosity, ideas, and imagination

Core

Our Core offering is literature based, but is much more than just a literature program. Core is an integrated literature & writing program that uses great writing to model, inspire, and springboard students into becoming great readers, writers, and thinkers.

Application

Our Application offerings provide focused opportunities to develop the specific tools and skills needed for successful writing—vocabulary development, sentence construction, parts of speech, punctuation, rhetorical device, etc. These skills are explored alongside the specific domains of writing—narrative, persuasive, descriptive, imaginative—within various forms—paragraphs, micro stories, research, essays, poems.

While interleaved instruction is used throughout our materials, our Application offerings fall into two broad categories:

• Application 1: Grammar, Mechanics, Style
• Application 2: Research, Composition, Creative Writing

The following chart gives an overview of the Application 1 & 2 components we suggest at each grade level.

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When applied over time, our Core & Application materials lay solid foundations and build strong students that not only have the ability to read well, write well, and think well, but also have the desire to do so.

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Around the Campfire: Get Published

We are proud to announce our first annual call for entries to Reveal, a published journal of student work—sentences, paragraphs, poems, essays, and research accomplished utilizing our ELA curriculum. Artwork inspired by famous artists plus writing inspired by composers during our Pages online sessions this school year will also be scattered throughout this first volume.

Cover artwork was accomplished by ninth grader Kingsley during Session 1 of Pages online classes. Congratulations!

Tip Number  12.

Get Published!

Details to follow soon!

 

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Around the Campfire: Inspired by Vivaldi

Encouragement for  Friday:

 

“Writing about music ties the languages together through translation.”

                                                                ~Pages Master Teacher, Taylor

The 5-week class format for our online Pages Music classes do not require reading, but do require learning to listen to, appreciate music. After a five-week exploration of The Four Seasons by Vivaldi, 9th grader, Kingsley, translated her observations of the music to haiku.

Be inspired!

And, please be sure to join the creativity during Session 5 and Session 6.

Spring

Movement 1:

Birds chirp melodies,
Bees swarm, dancing with the wind,
Flowers bloom softly.

Movement 2:

Snow melts, sun rises,
Bunny hops out of its burrow, swarm,
Stretching in the warmth.

Movement 3:

Chilling winds whisper,
Snow melting in a warming light,
Nature’s song takes flight.

Summer

Movement 1:

They dread in the heat,
Aggression fuels their play,
Burning sun above.

Movement 2:

Heat stifles movements,
Unquenched thirst with every step,
Beneath the blazing sun.

Movement 3:

Bounding through the fields,
Friends laughing and running wild,
Sunshine and laughter.

Winter

Movement 1:

Frost brushes the glass,
Blizzard painting the landscape ,
Snow dances wildly. s

Movement 2:

Candles twinkle bright,
Their warm light dances with joy ,
Soft snowflakes drifting.

 

Movement 3:

Slipping fast on ice,
Annoyed steps betray my grace,
Snow piles up high, vast.

Autumn

Movement 1:

Chatter fills the air,
Autumn’s vibrant twirl,
Yawning with tired eyes.

Movement 2:

Soft sounds fill the air,
Floorboards hum the lullaby,
A royal banquet.

Movement 3:

Feasting with old friends,
Laughter echoes through the halls,
A royal banquet.

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Around the Campfire: The Superhero Suit

Tip Number 11.

Encourage your student to BE the superhero!

Back in 2010, in the throws of educating my four alongside at least two dozen other children, I constantly doubted the path I was forging.  Doubting, that is, until being invited by a friend to the newly released film, Waiting for Superman.

The film’s title comes from a powerful memory recounted by education reformer Geoffrey Canada:  “...one of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me ‘Superman’ did not exist…she thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real. I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us.

This resonated.

When I first saw the trailer, Sherman Alexie’s essay, “Superman and Me” came to mind. After viewing the film, a solid connection emerged. Where Waiting for Superman reminds us that an overwhelming majority of children are “not accepted” to successful public schools and leaves our hope dashed, “Superman and Me” picks up the pieces reminding us that the system cannot stop the individual from picking up a book and doing the work of developing a habit of being. What I wrote back then bears repeating:

This movie brilliantly reminds us that reform within the public system is happening in pockets all over our nation and leaves me grateful for those reformers. But it also leaves me with an image of all the children who will shrivel because they do not have Bingo Ball 78 glowing in the palm of their little hand.

The reality is that there are wide-open plains outside of the system waiting for Lewis and Clark—perhaps the sequel?

Reform Lewis and Clark style?

A voyage of discovery?

Yes, please!

As an educator, I for one, realized a long time ago I couldn’t wait for Superman any longer. I encourage my students to slip on the Superman suit before they begin each day, reminding them Alexie style: “The suit will save your life!” Geoffrey Canada’s mother may be right, Superman is not real, but every child has talents equal to Superman’s power—the gift of numbers, the gift of humor, the gift of words, the gift of song, the gift of compassion… an endless list.

Art is never finished, only abandoned,” according to the Renaissance sage Leonardo da Vinci

So what has art to do with a movie about the state of education in America?

Absolutely everything.

One thing this film fails to examine is the need to move beyond the workforce preparation model of education by addressing the deeper individual needs that are ignored in mass education. How can we provide opportunities for our children to develop literacy, not to mention creative thinking, if we starve individuality?

Leonardo da Vinci left us tremendous insight into his work habits. He knew first hand that, “it is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end,” still he painstakingly collected thousands of his ideas in sketchbooks, most of which would never be fully realized. But I will venture to say there is not one who would dare call him a slacker. There are academic skills that do not fall under the Three Rs umbrella—think rigor, resourcefulness, responsibility.

When my daughter Hannah was 10 she began working at Debussy’s Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum on the piano. One afternoon while I was scrubbing pots and pans in the kitchen, listening as she delicately worked through each new section, I called out, “Is that the Debussy?”

“No this is mine.”

I dropped the pot back into sudsy water, quickly wiped my hands, and walked to the piano, “Your piece?”

“Yes.”

“Play it for me…” and she did, jubilantly, without hesitation. Hannah was composing.

When Hannah turned 13 things began to change. She began to depend on notes more than her ear. Simultaneous to her sight-reading ability moving into the bilingual realm, she became insecure with her creative voice. No amount of coaxing would console the teenage composer to come out of hiding. She wanted to create, but in her mind her ideas never sounded just right. Hannah became paralyzed by all the things we humans become paralyzed by.

Over the course of the next few years I presented opportunities and encouraged her to engage in the process of creating. I reminded her that creating something happens with little steps that begin with an idea, “Remember Da Vinci…’Art is never finished only abandoned’.”

Later, sixteen years ago now, an 18-year-old Hannah courageously took that tiny piece of music she imagined when she was 10 and pressed into the work of making it bloom. This process of polishing, which involved collaborating, led to more tears and more hugs than hands on the keys, pencil to staff paper, or time recording. The fact that the project was to be submitted for a competition made the work real but ultimately Hannah’s prize was persevering through the process of art making.

I will never forget her beaming smile the day we played back the final mixed recording of “Empty Halls.” The composition didn’t win a prize in the competition that year, but did receive encouraging notes back from the adjudicators. “Empty Halls” continues to whisper: “YOU, Hannah, and your beautiful ideas matter!” And it gives this educator—this mother—hope.

Empty Halls

So I’ll ask again, “What has art to do with education in America?”

Absolutely everything!

This said, we are proud to announce that late this spring we will be releasing an arts research unit focused on the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci!

Stay tuned for details!

 

~Kimberly

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Around the Campfire: The Arts are NOT Extracurricular

Tip Number 10.

Make Good Art!

You might ask: How is a language arts connected to music and visual art?

Visual art via the craft of graphic design exists in the world everywhere we go. Music, too, is often in the background of our daily world, whether in a store or on TV.  Because both influence our daily lives, we should have a more active understanding of these two significant languages.

That’s right music and art are language!

Because music and visual art are significant branches of literacy., learning about music and art will not only help us understand, but also help us help us appreciate the arts we see on a daily basis. Learning the history of both disciplines can help us understand what we see and hear.

Our music classes concentrating on the history of music—especially in the classical and jazz era—to help students develop listening skills, an appreciation for appreciation. The historical background offers insight that, no matter the era, music brings community together. It can be daunting for a student to listen to music for half an hour that has no words. But the goal according to teacher extraordinaire, Taylor, is “to have my students enjoy music and know what they are listening too.” Our classes have a required writing element but this is always tailored developmentally. Writing about music ties the languages together through translation. The class format will not require reading, but it will require listening to music inside and outside of class.

Anyone familiar with Blackbird and Company curriculum and our philosophy, know that we promote the pencil work of handwriting from Kindergarten forward. Master teacher, Taylor, points out out that writing is a core to English, and that the the rules of phonics, for example, are presented to our students starting day one. Art on the other hand is not considered a core subject (though it should be) and most people want a free form class, want fun with crayons! Taylor agrees that free form art is important for play, but insists we need to teach skills of art-making, “We don’t just set a child down with high quality art supplies and watch them create amazing art.”

When students have a creative idea but lack the skills to bring shape to that idea, a state of frustration blankets the student.

There is a mechanics to art—a way to hold the pencil and how much pressure to apply. We are taught small finger movements to handwrite. In art we are taught to use the arm to assist in drawing a line as opposed to fingers. Wrist and arm movements can assist in making bigger lines. Learning the mechanics of art is skill learning.

Ultimately, writing is art making and so, what better pairing for an ELA curriculum than a study of music and visual art?

This year our Pages students have been learning art skills and techniques, settling down into the basic elements of art.

Students have had beautiful ideas inspired by the listening  skills and appreciation of music. They’ve gained the confidence to make beautiful, important work, that is authentically theirs.

Notice the connection between writing music and art?

Think s l o w i n g  down, actively observing, doing less but better, doing it well. Writing and music appreciation and art making—this all takes time.

It’s all important.

It’s individual work.

it’s your student’s IDEA.

The possibilities are endless.

Work from Pages online classes:

Story inspired by Vivaldi’s Winter movement:

Frosty silver snowflakes were drifting down from the skies. I was thrilled because we hardly ever have snow days in California. Everyone was super cold. Our teeth were chattering and our bodies were shivering, but we ran in excitement towards the small hill behind our houses. When we got to the top of the hill, we all fell on our backs in the snow and began to make snow angels. We moved our arms and legs side to side, while opening our mouths to taste the fresh falling snowflakes. After that, we decided to slide down the hill in our newly built sleds. There was a lot of laughter in the air.

Painting inspired by a five-week study of Paul Cézanne and engaging in the slow work of observation:

There are two more sessions of Pages online this school year.

Join the fun!

Make good art!