I think this book is beautiful and I love the idea of being okay with being more open with gender roles, but I'm too chicken to read it to my class. I feel quite strongly about this topic but I don't have enough confidence in that arena to open that can of worms right now in my classroom. I'm proud of the mom in this book though for letting him be creative. Goodreads says: Morris has a great imagination. He paints amazing pictures and he loves his classroom's dress-up center, especially the tangerine dress. It reminds him of tigers, the sun and his mother's hair.
The other children don't understand--dresses, they say, are for girls. And Morris certainly isn't welcome in the spaceship his classmates are building--astronauts, they say, don't wear dresses.
One day Morris has a tummy ache, and his mother lets him stay home from school. He stays in bed reading about elephants, and her dreams about a space adventure with his cat, Moo. Inspired by his dream, Morris paints a fantastic picture, and everything begins to change when he takes it to school.
I've heard a lot about this book and it has been recommended to me many times so I decided it was time to order it and read it. It's targeted to teachers of students older than mine, but I still found it inspiring.
Goodreads says:
"I believe each of my students must craft an individual reading life of challenge, whim, curiosity, and hunger, andI've discovered that it is not too late in high school to lead a non-reader to reading. It's never too late."-Penny Kittle
Penny Kittle wants us to face the hard truths every English teacher fears: too many kids don't read the assigned texts, and some even manage to slip by without having ever read a single book by the time they graduate. As middle and high school reading declines, college professors lament students' inability to comprehend and analyze complex texts, while the rest of us wonder: what do we lose as a society when so many of our high school graduates have no interest in reading anything?In Book Love Penny takes student apathy head on, first by recognizing why students don't read and then showing us that when we give kids books that are right for them, along with time to read and regular response to their thinking, we can create a pathway to satisfying reading that leads to more challenging literature and ultimately, a love of reading. With a clear eye on the reality of today's classrooms, Penny provides practical strategies and advice on:
increasing volume, capacity, and complexity over time creating a balance of independent reading, text study, and novel study helping students deepen their thinking through writing about reading building a classroom library with themes that matter to 21st century kids. Book Love is a call to arms for putting every single kid, no exceptions allowed, on a personal reading journey. But much more than that, it's a powerful reminder of why we became English teachers in the first place: our passion for books. Books matter. Stories heal. The right book in the hands of a kid can change a life forever. We can't wait for anyone else to teach our students a love of books-it's up to us and the time is now. If not you, who? For information about the Book Love Foundation, which provides classroom libraries to deserving teachers and schools, visit booklovefoundation.org.
I'm recommitting to sharing my reading plans for the week every Monday. I learned about IMWAYR from Teach Mentor Texts. Go there for lots of other great links!
My goal this year is 104 books - which should be totally do-able. I hope to smash through that goal.
My TBR stack is getting pretty high right now. I need to add a couple Judy Moody books to this stack too because that is the topic of our grade 3 book club this month. I'm committing to do more book talks with my students, so I will have a lot of J fiction to read and re-read.
Book Love....because Penny Kittle is iconic and I've never read it. Every reading teacher should!
The Gown by Jennifer Robson is her latest book. I can't wait to get into it!
The Book of Negroes by Laurence Hill is one I've read before but my book club is discussing it next month so I need to read it again.
Something Fierce is the book club book for the next month. This one can be put off for a bit.
The Futures is the book I got from my December book club gathering/book exchange.
Better Than Before is what I read every January.
My mom gave me some Nancy Drew books and The Wizard of Oz for Christmas. Haven't read those since I was in elementary school. I'm really looking forward to re-reading them and sharing them with my class.
I read The Fairy Ring, which is the same story, this years ago and just recently came across this picture book. I thought I'd read it to my class because we have been talking about genre and I thought this would be interesting because of the mix of something not real (fairies) and a true story.
Big fail!
Turns out their belief in fairies in strong enough to make this very confusing. At the end, one said, "Mrs. Ackroyd, I can't decide if fairies are real or not now, but I think I am going to still believe they're real."
I dropped the genre discussion.
Goodreads says:
The true story of British cousins who fooled the world for more than 60 years with a remarkable hoax, photographs of “real” fairies. Exquisitely illustrated with art by Eliza Wheeler as well as the original photos taken by the girls.
It was fun to notice the different personalities of the dogs, and connect it to our friendship unit.
Goodreads says:
Beloved storyteller Kate DiCamillo and cartoonist Harry Bliss introduce some delightfully doggy dogs in a warm, funny tale of a timid pup who needs a friend.
Rosie is a good dog and a faithful companion to her owner, George. She likes taking walks with George and looking at the clouds together, but the closest she comes to another dog is when she encounters her reflection in her empty dog bowl, and sometimes that makes Rosie feel lonely. One day George takes Rosie to the dog park, but the park is full of dogs that Rosie doesn’t know, which makes her feel lonelier than ever. When big, loud Maurice and small, yippy Fifi bound over and want to play, Rosie’s not sure how to respond. Is there a trick to making friends? And if so, can they all figure it out together?
I can't wait to share this one with my class. They love trading cards and in this book children trade monster cards for stink sap. It would be a great read aloud.
I think they will also love how the school is organized: There were three classrooms in the Academy. Classroom One was for the younger squidges. Classroom Two was for squidges who are old enough to know better. Classroom Three was for squidges who thought they knew better than everyone else but really didn’t. Totally logical!
Goodreads says: Hugo is a young Sasquatch who longs for adventure. Boone is young boy who longs to see a Sasquatch. When their worlds collide, they become the unlikeliest pair of best friends. At the Academy for Curious Squidges, Hugo learns all manner of Sneaking—after all, the most important part of being a Sasquatch is staying hidden from humans. But Hugo dreams of roaming free in the Big Wide World rather than staying cooped up in caves. When he has an unexpected run-in with a young human boy, Hugo seizes the opportunity for a grand adventure. Soon, the two team up to search high and low for mythical beasts, like Ogopogos and Snoot-Nosed Gints. Through discovering these new creatures, together, Big Foot and Little Foot explore the ins and outs of each other’s very different worlds but learn that, deep down, maybe they’re not so different after all.
This is another one of those books I would have never read if it weren't for Book Club, however, I'm glad I read it.
Truthfully, I found it hard to follow. The dialogue made it especially difficult and I found myself needing to read it aloud to even come close to understanding it. I'm not patient enough to read and re-read lines to try to figure it out. The accept though was really reminiscent of how my husband talks about Nova Scotia from the time he spent there on his mission.
Apparently, when the book was written, people from the area were angry about it because they felt like they were portrayed negatively. I can see why they'd feel that way. The superstition, the lack of education and survival mentality is heavy. I did love the parts about the teacher coming to the island and David wanting to learn to read. I'm not sure he was really successful though.
The Maritimes is a harsh and unforgiving place. Interestingly, it continues. This was a news article from today:
records show Newfoundland was literally shaking from wind and waves
"
Seismic records show Newfoundland was literally shaking from wind and waves
Seismometer in St. John's shows how intense Thursday's winds were
CBC News ·
Heavy seas crash into the land at the Drook, a spot on the road to Cape Race. (Submitted by Clifford Doran)
The waves crashing into the rugged shoreline of Newfoundland and Labrador this week led to waves of a different kind.
The squiggly black lines produced by a Natural Resources Canada seismometer show the seismic activity of a vicious windstorm that whipped across the province on Wednesday and Thursday.
The wind and waves were so strong, the island was shaking.
"What we saw over the past 48 hours was quite a dramatic change in [activity]," said John Cassidy, an earthquake seismologist with Natural Resources Canada.
"It was very noticeable and in our seismic data, our plots, it just jumped off the page. You could just see that shaking."
The federal government has seismometers — tools that measure earth movements — all across the country.
Cassidy said each year, a handful of storms will produce winds and waves strong enough to record seismic activity on the east and west coast.
And over time, as these weather events impact older infrastructure, it just breaks down.- Randy Oram, Karwood Homes
With winds gusting between 100 and 140 km/h, the conditions were just right to get the Rock rocking.
"It's that combination of the wind, that incredible wind, and the waves that were hitting the island," Cassidy said.
"Both of those, the waves and the wind, gets trees shaking, rocks shaking ... And all of that can be recorded by our seismometers on the island."
Homebuilders association reacts
Randy Oram, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, said people have to prepare for these earth-quivering storms to be the new normal.
There was damage reported to home and businesses across the province, but Oram said his company, Karwood Homes, has yet to receive any reports of damage.
When asked why some homes suffer damage and others go unscathed, Oram said it has to do with location and age.
"With these weather events, some of the extremes can be localized," he said. "And over time, as these weather events impact older infrastructure, it just breaks down."
Oram said the industry is changing as the weather worsens, and contractors need to keep up with the standards.
"You look at shingles we were using 15 years ago, they were rated for 97 km/h winds. What we're using nowadays, 210 kilometres is what they're rated for. As climate change happens, building products advance."
It was very noticeable and in our seismic data, our plots, it just jumped off the page. You could just see that shaking.- Seismologist John Cassidy
Randy Oram, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, said standards are changing to meet climate change. (Paula Gale/CBC)
Part of the industry is regulated by Natural Resources Canada, which is currently working on a five-year project on adaptations to home building for climate change.
Where it used to study historical weather events, Natural Resources Canada is now trying to model future storms and set standards based on what is expected to happen, Oram said.
"They're actually looking at where the weather is going in the future, and testing new products and codes for the future."
