Category: Litropolis

Begin the year immersed in the wonder of impossibility.

 

"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  

               -From Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

 

Celebrate a birthday this month as you begin your year in books. 

on the third J R R Tolkien

on the fourth Jacob Grimm

on the fifth Lynne Cherry

on the twelfth Jack London

on the eighteenth A A Milne

on the thirty-first Rosemary Wells

on the twenty-seventh Lewis Carroll

and on the twenty-eighth Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was first published

on the twenty-ninth Rosemary Wells

on the thirtieth Lloyd Alexander

During the summer of 1768, Captain James Cook sailed from England on H.M.S Endeavor's first voyage to explore the little known southern hemisphere. Eleven-year-old Nicholas Young was a stowaway on this voyage. True story.

Karen Hesse invites us to delve into this pocket of history alongside the stowaway and experience the astonishing adventure alongside Nick.

After reading, encourage your students to recreate the adventure in a meaningful and lasting way. Section 5 in our Literature and Writing Discovery Guide will present opportunities to move beyond mapping out the story details to identify the impact the story had on the heart. 

My youngest son, Søren, spent significant time and effort researching the ship itself and committing his personal reflections to marks burned on wood. Creativity tied to a great story helps the reader retain and apply in ways where the essay falls short.

Captain Cook reminds us sky's the limit, "Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again."

-Kim

Every time you finish reading a book, think tinker.

The word “tinker” comes from the middle English referring to people who engaged in the work of patching worn tin kettles. When I was young, tinkering was a crude, quick fix of any object regardless of the medium, be it tin, wood, brick, or fabric. My great-grandpa Ted was a tinker. I loved exploring the bits and bobble in his shop, creating assemblages of junk while he merrily tinkered. Back then tinkering was not considered an art form, it was something more akin to the household junk drawer. When I was young, tinkering was pretty much DIY before the acronym came to be.

 

Fast forward, I LOVE how the growing maker movement has brought a deeper meaning to this wonderful word. Nowadays, “to tinker” is recognized (rightfully so) as a significant step in the process of making, in the process of bringing shape to ideas.

 

What better way to deeply integrate and apply knowledge gleaned from great stories than to thinker an idea to shape?

So how to begin?

Think wire. Buttons. Tags. Cork. Think ric rac and ribbon. Paint Glue. Hooks and chain.

Think junk drawer and you are moving in the right direction for a tinker project.

 

After reading Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Jac began her tinkering. She decided to explore the theme “overcoming weaknesses” with a self-portrait assemblage of objects on a turntable. She wanted to display her strengths anchored to the base and her weaknesses as distracting creatures tangling her momentum unless she exerted significant effort.

And so she did. Exceptionally well, I might add.

 

So the next time your child reads a book, think tinker.

 

-Kim

Taking notes is a foundational skill that will accompany your student through their entire educational journey and beyond. Even though there is no right way of taking notes, it is important to learn how to extract relevant and pertinent information from a text in a neatly organized, concise manner. This takes practice. As students are encouraged to practice over time the art of capturing the most important details from their reading, they will begin to recognize how the intricacies of a story fit into a larger picture. This is precisely how a Habit of Being is established.

When readers take note of character development, trace a setting, and watch a plot thicken, they are learning more than just the skill of recording facts, they are actually beginning to realize the potential of storytelling. Teaching students to dig into a story, to do the work of reading for meaning, enables them to discover how language has the power to communicate significance. Learning to take notes helps to lay the foundation for rich, clear, and organized writing.

Some might argue, when faced with a classroom of 30 students, or even when faced with one student sitting at a kitchen table stubbornly refusing to write, that teaching from a textbook that tells the student what to learn is an easier method than pulling teeth trying to nurture the independent skill of note taking. We would argue that learning to extract information from a story trains students to do the hard work of, not only attending to the details of reading, but more importantly to develop the skill of integrating knowledge into life outside of the book. As students discover the details and framework that make a story great, they will apply this new-found knowledge to broader academic pursuits in all subject areas.

-Kim

 

 

Nothing fosters the higher-order Critical Creative Thinking that allows students to form ideas and opinions about real life, more than hashing through a story in a discussion circle. What begins as an imagining in the mind of the writer is translated to story, and in turn, transferred to real life through group discussion.

Blackbird & Company literature guides have discussion questions built into every section, providing the framework for weekly interaction between you and your students. These questions are designed to spark student’s memories, trigger their interpretations, and get them thinking beyond the page about how a story can relate to their actual lives. Add to this the opportunity to cultivate a cozy book-minded community and share original ideas during the fifth week of culminating projects and you will have a crafted a literary tradition. In time, students who celebrate books regularly will become excited and amazed about the potential of the written word.

Consider the following when putting a group together:

COMFORT & SIZE
Gathering in a comfortable area, whether in chairs or sitting on the floor, helps set discussion time aside as special and relaxed. Groups of 6-8 work best for allowing everyone to participate.

READING ABILITY
Clustering students with similar reading skills alows the group to coalesce. As students begin to feel comfortable with their group even reluctant speakers will share what’s on their mind.

CONSISTENCY
Having a regular scheduled time each week helps students pace through their reading and builds anticipation.

DIRECTION
Be inspired by student responses and guide the discussion where it wants to go naturally. Don’t worry if things get a little off track as long as students are thinking creatively.

FLEXIBILTY
Feel free to use the questions creatively. For example, assign each question to a different student for presentation to the group; allow two groups to take sides and debate the pros and cons of a particular question; use the questions as writing prompts for paragraphs or essays; allow students to role play their response to a question. Use your imagination. The possibilities are endless.

 

-Kim

 

I must admit that I am not an animal lover.  To all of my friends whose families are complete because of their furry friends – please don’t misunderstand me.  While I love our family bunny (sweetly named Comfy Cozy by my youngest son), I believe it is quite a different relationship than is shared by people who are dog-lovers.

In the heartwarming yet complex story of Opal and her dog Winn-Dixie, I was drawn into the relationship between these two characters – a girl and her dog – and their parallel desire to feel loved and needed, in spite of their histories of abandonment and loss, and the surprising opportunities for redemption through such difficult experiences.

Each week, our group of fifth and sixth graders would gather to share their insights into this young girl’s life.  I was concerned about some of the life themes that my 11-year-old would be exposed to through this story, but what I realized is this was an opportunity for my daughter to: empathize with others’ pain, find meaning in some of her own painful experiences, and have a safe place to discuss and explore these difficult life circumstances that are sometimes easier to shelter her from.

Because of Winn-Dixie, our cooperative homeschool Guild (comprised of four wonderful families with eleven children between us) decided that we would throw a party – not just any  party, but a potluck lunch.  And not just any potluck, but an array of food specially chosen to mimic the one specially planned by Opal.

Dump punch, dump cake, and a jar of pickles are only a few of the fancy items we put out for our big event.  But we didn’t stop there.  The TV room was specially decorated with pink twisted crepe paper in preparation for our great party, and we all watched this movie with grand anticipation. It was the great culminating experience after having walked through the story hand-in-hand together.

I’m still not an animal lover.  But this sweet dog helped tell a story of unexpected redemption and hope in a way that speaks to all—children and adults alike.

 

-Christian

Now go read this book and have your own celebration – and please don’t forget to share your potluck pictures with us!

Readers really love sharing their culminating thoughts about great stories in creative ways. Some of the fondest memories for Sara and me are the projects our children created inspired by great stories. There was the blue-striped papier-mâché dragon after reading My Father’s Dragon, the claymation stop action video after Perloo the Bold, handcrafted bonnets and stacked pancakes after reading Farmer Boy, and the spaceship constructed from empty soup cans, cardboard, and foil after The Wonderful Flight to Mushroom Planet.

During the fifth week, Section 5 of our Blackbird & Company Literature Discovery Guides, children are encouraged to reflect and respond creatively to the great story they read. They are provided with a variety of project options to spark ideas. Children not only have a chance to demonstrate their originality, organization, clarity of purpose, and critical thinking skills, more importantly this culminating endeavor will allow them to show off what they have learned in their own, uniquely creative way.

This week, as Sara and I sat around the table constructing multiple twin Lolly Dolls for a matching game (thanks Tea Wagon Tales for the adorable idea), Sara looked at our fashionista girls lined up on the table and exclaimed, “How cute would these be for a project tied to The Hundred Dresses?”

“So cute? Right?”

And, by the way, if you haven’t read The Hundred Dresses with your children, please read it soon! This is a terrific story to begin the school year. No spoiler alerts, but Wanda’s courage has been a topic of discussion in our home for years.

So with fall, fast approaching, make the most of Section 5. Remember that imagination connects to books.

Linda has two little boys, has always dreamed of
homeschooling but she’s brand new to the Guild Method. So she flew to
California this summer so that Sara and I could help her shape her the lessons.
Her oldest son, Zach, was ripe for Kindergarten and so was she!

Back home, when school days arrived, she was ready and so
pictures of little boys water coloring apple trees, little fingers writing
words in salt, little paint brushes encoding CVC words in tempera on butcher
paper in the bright sunshine, and little minds constructing giant floor puzzles
delighted my email inbox. SO cute! Sure, there were tiny kinks to adjust here and there, but
the transition to school days was a beautiful thing in Linda’s little Ohio Guild.

But we all know what’s coming, right? The very first one of those
best-laid-plans days. So here we are,
nearing October. And a different kind of email was grimacing in my inbox, “…it
turned out to be a super frustrating experience…Grrr.” It seems Zach recognized
that he was face-to-face with a pencil-to-paper challenge and he took an about
face.

I smiled, “There it is…!”

 Linda was super excited to begin our Fall Discovery Guide with her son. I still am. I am super excited for
her rocky beginning because it tells her precisely where Zach is strong and
where Zach is weak. Now the trick is to slowly strengthen him so he sees the
uphill climb as an adventure.

Our Earlybird Discovery Guides are recommended for a range
of Kindergarten and lower level primary (grades 1 and 2) children who are in
the process of acquiring foundational decoding and encoding skills, but not yet
reading and writing independently. What this means is that the material must be
approached with the child’s ability in mind. The important thing at this stage
of academic development is to challenge the child to press into work that
requires discipline without crushing the marvelous innate passion for learning.

Here are the tips I
offered Linda—Easy as 1, 2, 3:

1. Pace important work over 5 days.

Tackle the writing in
15-minute increments. Shrink some of the responsibility for writing, but not
the problem solving and idea making.

Monday

Read the story.

Have Zach draw the characters and to describe their
personality traits—how they think, act, feel. Capture three “trait” words from
his stream of communication and write them out so he can copy them into his
guide. Give him 15 minutes to do the copy work. 

Tuesday

Work on the vocabulary matching exercises together. Then,
read the sentences with the missing words and have Zach choose between two of
the vocabulary words to complete the sentences. Write the words that complete
each sentence for Zach to copy during his 15-minute “Important Work” time.

Wednesday

Read the story again, this time stopping periodically for
Zach to tell you what is about to happen.

Work with Zach to complete the comprehension sentences from
the Word Bank. Write the words that complete each sentence for Zach to copy
during his 15-minute “Important Work” time. 

Thursday

No reading today… unless, that is, Zach asks you to read the
story again!

Today, for the sentences in the Comprehension section that
are to be completed with original phrases—dependent clauses—let Zach dictate
while you inscribe. That’s right, NO writing for Zach! As you complete each
sentence, write slowly, and say each word aloud as if you are sounding out
letter that forms the word. In doing so you will be modeling the art of
encoding language.

Friday

Have Zach re-tell the story in his own words. Then, read the
creative writing prompt for the Writing Exercise. Pass the Earlybird Guide to
Zach and let him “draw” his story with colored pencils. When he is done
drawing, let him dictate a two or three sentence to you. Inscribe his ideas…NO writing
for Zach!   

2. Think Longitude.

As Zach becomes more comfortable with writing—and this
will take time, think longitude—allow him to take over bits and pieces of the
writing you are doing for him.

3. Reach for the Stars!

Create a Star Chart and a prize box filled with
dollar-store trinkets. For every ten stars, Zach gets to go shopping. Here,
Linda came up with the terrific idea to use beans in a jar, clink clink clink,
what boy would not love this noise? Thanks Linda!

 

There’s a phrase I’ve learned to grip tightly over the
years. Recently, my dear friend, Christian, added a quirky little “whoa,
horsie” sass to the phrase. This made me chuckle, “Yes!” The phrase is
“stagger, tortoise.” Now you try it. That’s right. Now, say it again, only
louder, “S-t-a-g-g-e-r, tortoise!” 

–Kim