Tag Archives: Children

Dad’s Camera-a mini book review: SOLC 2019 Day 26

Tonight I asked my students to write about a book they have read recently for their entry in their Learning at Home (LAH) notebooks. I asked them to tell a bit about what the book is about, include big ideas and concepts the book brings up, and make a recommendation about whether or not their classmates (or me) should read the book.

So…I think I’ll take that same writing invitation. I’ve been carrying a book around in my teaching bag that I plan to use with my students one of these days. Dad’s Camera by Ross Watkins grabbed my attention a year or so ago, before it was available here in the United States. I’m always interested in books about photography, so when this one became available, I was quick to purchase it.

While this book is a children’s picture book, it is not really a book for children. This book tackles the heavy topic of Alzheimer’s disease and the confusion and devastation that families face as they deal with it. The author describes this book as a tool for opening up conversations with children…and with adults to talk about Alzheimer’s.

I love the idea of photography as activism. In this case, the book uses photographs as a way to talk about memories and memory loss. The dad photographs ordinary things, things most people don’t photograph. “Dad took photos of the things he didn’t want to forget.” What he didn’t take photos of were his family, much to the frustration of the mom in the story.

Disease, memory loss, confusion, and frustration are all strong themes in this book. Communication breaks down and the dad does things the mom and kid don’t understand. The dad’s deteriorating memory makes it hard for him to explain the whys behind his actions. And while the book does not tie up in a neat package, the ending is satisfying. (No spoilers here!)

Although this is not a typical children’s book, it is one I plan to use in my classroom. I want to use it along with some other books about photographers, including Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange who both used photography as a ways to shed light on issues they were passionate about. How can we use our own passions and art, like photography, to make the world a better place…in ways big and small? I think I’ll have more to say about this book and what happens in my classroom once I take this ideas from seed to implementation!

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Tiny Snails and Butterflies: SOLC 2019 Day 12

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Kids have a way of seeing the smallest of details in the world. While they often miss some big picture items, they never miss the puncture mark in the shared eraser, the cloud shaped like a volcano erupting, or the perfect rock that most of us would never give a second look.

We had another unexpected rainy morning today, pushing me back upstairs to change from my suede booties to my cowboy boots before heading out the door for work. By the time I was out on the blacktop for before school recess duty, the rain had stopped, but the ground was still wet and shiny. The time change has kids straggling in later than usual, giving me plenty of time for mental meanderings as I watched the few early kids play on the blacktop.

After recess duty, I spent a few minutes back in the classroom chatting with a few of my third graders, listening to their stories of the previous evening. When the bell rang, we headed out together to pick up the other students where we line up on the blacktop. We barely made it out the door when one my students noticed an incredibly tiny snail on the sidewalk in front of our classroom. Smaller than the fingernail on my pinkie, this snail was a perfect miniature model of those pesky snails often found in the garden. We all knelt low, noticing its perfect features, spiral shell, and gooey slime on the wet sidewalk. After taking a few photos, one of the students offered to carefully “save” it and move it from the sidewalk where it risked getting stepped on by the many students who would walk that hallway to a safer location on the nearby dirt. Carefully picking it up by holding the shell, the snail was relocated without incident.

Later in the day, the sun shone brightly and most students had shed their jackets to bask in the warmth of the almost spring sun. During lunch the kids had noticed that our school seemed to be in the flight path of a butterfly migration. Monarchs are familiar friends to our schoolyard where milkweed grows tall, so the kids thought the smaller butterflies they were seeing were baby monarchs. We walked out to the pollinator garden to see if we could get a closer look, but butterflies flittered by in twos or threes, staying above our heads rather than alighting on any plants. I’m pretty sure these were actually painted ladies…the same butterflies I had just seen in profusion in the desert over the weekend.

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It always surprises me that these same students who never miss a tiny snail or the beauty of butterflies migrating overhead don’t seem to notice that they are standing on a classmate’s jacket with muddy shoes or that they just jumped in front of ten other children patiently waiting for supplies for a project.

They are perfectly self-centered and exquisitely altruistic, obnoxious and incredibly kind, thoughtful and infuriatingly rude…all rolled into one. Tiny snails and butterflies remind me to look closely and find those sometimes hidden endearing qualities rather than focusing on what so often is the most obvious to notice in the classroom. And I’m lucky, those same confounding small humans are also the reason I find myself paying attention to the smallest of details, appreciating the world through the eyes of children.

10 Picture Books on August 10th

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I’ve done a couple of recent posts about mentor texts I use in my classroom and recently I noticed a challenge by some other teachers about a Picture Book 10 for 10 Challenge. #pb10for10 Their invitation is to share ten picture books you can’t live without on August 10th. So today is August 10th…and my picture books are all in my classroom.

I had almost abandoned the idea of sharing my picture book favorites since I don’t have easy access to them today. But then I spent the morning with my SDAWP colleagues at UCSD thinking about complex texts–both reading and writing–which led me to think about the ways I use texts in combination in the classroom. So I started thinking about some of favorite picture books for the classroom…and how I often layer books to create more complexity and deeper meaning with my students. These books come from the top of head (with the help of the web to sort out the actual titles and authors)…you don’t get pictures or excerpts…just what I can remember!

I’ll start with a few that I used with my students to examine abstract concepts. Most of them use the idea of color in different and interesting ways.

1. The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor: This book is a gem (like most of the others by this author). I love the way she describes colors using senses other than sight. I wish I had my book handy to include an excerpt! Read it — you won’t be disappointed!

2. The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin: This book, all in black in white, is gorgeous! The use of texture and Braille add a fresh dimension to this book…and reinforces the need to use powerful sensory language in descriptions.

3. The Sound of Colors by Jimmy Liao: This book describes the experience of a blind girl as she travels in the New York subway system. Imagination takes the girl on a powerful journey. What do you experience when you aren’t able to see?

4. The Colors of Us by Karen Katz: This books offers way to describe the colors of our skin in beautiful and appreciative ways.

5. What Does Peace Feel Like? by Vladimir Rudunsky: This book is a collection of similes and metaphors from students describing peace–helping to bring some concreteness to this big and abstract concept.

6. If… by Sarah Perry: This books takes a fanciful journey into the imagination and invites students to imagine if worms had wheels and other fanciful and surrealistic ideas.

And I also love books that are about math and nature. Two more favorites that I used this past year to support my students’ understanding of the Fibonacci sequence and its appearance in the natural world.

7. Wild Fibonacci: Nature’s Secret Code Revealed by Joy N. Hulme: This book explores the appearance of Fibonacci numbers in the natural world–mostly focusing on the spiral.

8. Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman: This book is another look at Fibonacci’s sequence and spirals using spectacular illustrations.

And to round out my ten, two other books I purchased this summer and intend to use with students this year.

9. One Hen by Katie Smith Milway: A book about micro loans and how small investments can make a huge difference in someone’s life.

And one more math and science focused book

10. Dave’s Down-to-Earth Rock Shop by Stuart J. Murphy; This book combines geology and classification as the characters devise new ways to sort and display their rock collection.

I look forward to seeing what picture books other people love. I’m always looking for new books to inspire my students’ thinking and to help them understand complex concepts. I’m especially interested in those hidden treasures that somehow don’t get the attention of the large bookstore chains…and yet have wonderful content, language, and illustrations. What picture books do you love?