My Discover Your World Summer Reading Extravaganza is winding down, but I continue to be amazed at the high-quality and in-depth book reviews my guest posters have come forth with. This week is no exception either as Vicki Arnold from The Library Adventure joins us to share a wonderful book and activity that your family is sure to enjoy. Welcome, Vicki!
A Chair For My Mother was written and illustrated by Vera B. Williams. This picture book is recommended for ages 4-8, but I used it with my 8-11 year olds and my 2 year old. My older children enjoy picture books still and I enjoy the conversation that can arise from the story lines. Experiencing a picture book with kids who can analyze the text and photos is completely different than experiencing it with a toddler or even a younger elementary student.
Vera B. Williams was born in California in 1927. She grew up and currently lives in New York City. At her parents’ encouragement, she studied art in high school and in college. She graduated Black Mountain College in 1949. Before becoming an author/illustrator, she taught in multiple alternative schools from 1953-1970. She then went on to write and illustrate many children’s books, for which she won several awards.
A Chair For My Mother is a 1983 Caldecott Honor Book and rightfully so. The illustrations are colorful and have a whimsical feel to them – childish, but not baby-ish. I particularly enjoyed the city block that illustrated the community coming together to help Rosa’s family.
The basic story line is about Rosa, her mother, and grandmother, though extended family and their community play a part, too. Sometimes after school, Rosa visits her mother at her work. Josephine, her mother’s boss, gives her jobs, too. All the change and half of Rosa’s earnings go into a huge jar.
We then find out that the jar is how the small family is saving money to buy a big, soft chair for mama to rest her feet in at the end of the day because all of their possessions had been destroyed in a fire and they only had the “hard kitchen chairs” to sit in. Ultimately, they save enough money and buy their dream chair.
There are a lot of themes you could pull from to discuss with children. Family is an obvious choice, financial hardships is another option. I chose a third.
In the middle of the book, there is a celebration of how the community comes together to help when the family of three moves into Rosa’s aunt and uncle’s basement apartment. The image of neighbors bringing what they could to give to someone who had lost everything is touching.
A Chair For My Mother Activity
I am all about simplicity. There is a time and place for elaborate crafts and activities, but I’m just not in a season of life for that right now. This activity is simple. We chose to focus on the kindness shown by Rosa’s neighbors. For this activity, you will need:
I also used a clipboard, but that’s optional. 
I labeled our paper with these headings:
- Home
- Family
- Community/Neighbors
- Strangers
- Into the World
What we did next was to focus on ways we could serve or perform random acts of kindness in these areas. I’ll explain each section with a little more detail.
- Home – We discussed ways they could bless the other members of our household. From my experience, this can be both the easiest and the hardest for kids. The easiest because these are the people they are in contact with each day so they have a better idea of what would be a help or blessing to those individuals. The hardest because it can be difficult to want to bless your siblings in certain seasons of life.
- Family – This is where we put acts of service we could do for extended family members like grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.
- Community/Neighbors – Those around our home. The ones that we may or may not know all that well.
- Strangers – We thought of the strangers that cross our paths as we go grocery shopping or run other errands. My kids ideas were simple, but, from experience, they often are met with the most encouraging responses. Things like smiling at strangers, holding open doors, and helping load groceries in cars.
- Into the World – The last area we discussed was how we could have an impact globally. For us, this was pretty easy. Through our church we have knowledge of many ministries that work with many different demographics. We started with some that we already support (Operation Christmas Child) and then made a note to explore more ways we could help other ministries and demographics.
Finally, I challenged my kids to actually DO some of the items we listed or come up with another idea. Either way, I wanted them to actually serve, not just think or talk about serving.
You can find A Chair For My Mother at your local library or on Amazon (that is an affiliate link, you can learn more about them and why I thank you for your support here.)
Vicki Arnold is the happily married, homeschooling mom of four children. She blogs about homeschooling, faith, and books at Simply Vicki. She is also the owner of The Library Adventure, where a great group of writers share their passion for books, literacy, and libraries! You can also find her and The Library Adventure on Pinterest pinning great resources for everyone.
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I first became acquainted with Margo Finke via our Google + circles. There, we shared our love of kid lit, writing, and of course our love of Oregon. Margot, a native of Australia lives in Oregon which is also my home state.
If you only know one thing about Margot Finke let it be that she is a brilliant writer who grabs the readers attention from the first word.
Down Under Calling is a poignant story about Grandma Rose who lives in Australia and her grandson Andy Fraser who lives in Oregon. Reaching out over the miles through letters, Grandma Rose weaves heartfelt stories and memories which create a connection to her grandson so far way.
As the letters go back and forth we learn of Grandma Rose’s attempts to save a joey (kangaroo), of Andy having to move to a small apartment because his father loses his job and of the many childhood memories that Grandma Rose has of Australia.
At the beginning of the story Andy’s mom has to force him to write a letter to his grandmother. But thanks to Grandma Rose’s very entertaining letters, Andy is soon converted into an ardent letter writer himself. Grand Rose inspired Andy to explore nature around him with his friend Kelly and to share his adventures with her.
We greatly enjoyed the very humorous letters between Andy and his grandmother. It brought back memories I shared with my own grandma. Another element we greatly enjoyed in Down Under Calling is learning about Australia. Margot Finke through her character Grandma Rose shares many delightful details and the sheer beauty and diversity of Australia. The natural life, geography, and traditions are all wrapped up in this beautiful story.
We were sad to see this book end. It left us wanting to go to Australia but more importantly it had us looking for people to write letters to. This is a page turner of a read which is not to be missed. Margot also offers up great teacher resources and a “fun facts” for kids page based on all of her wonderful books.
Something To Do
Let’s write some letters. You can choose a favorite relative and/or choose a pen pal who lives somewhere else on the planet. Here are a couple of safe kid pen pal sites.
Students of the World
Friendship By Mail
To know more about pen pals and how to make sure your children are safe, here’s a great blog post from Kid World Citizen. It has some amazing ideas and insights on how to keep your children safe while connecting with the world through mail.
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Can you believe school is DONE?!!? Ack! Now everyone is kicking into “summer reading gear” and Jump Into a Book is no different.
This year I decided to “mix it up” a bit and invite some of the many amazing bloggers and reading/play advocates that I know to stop by and share their knowledge and creativity with the JIAB readers. PLUS it will offer kids and parents some cool new reading ideas and activities for summer.
Summer reading programs are abundant after school ends. It’s our goal to not only create an ongoing summer reading booklist with activities option for parents, but also work to keep the focus on helping our young readers be Global Citizens. We would like to focus on books that will help our kiddos explore their world and keep our initiative of multicultural books for kids in the forefront of people’s minds too. To acheive this, I created the Discover Your World Summer Reading Extravaganza.
This fun summer reading and activity event will run from June 1 to Sept 1 and we encourage your to keep stopping by Jump Into a Book during this time to view all of the booklists, book reviews, crafts, recipes and activities my guest bloggers will be sharing! Here is our first guest for the Discover Your World Summer Reading Extravaganza, Shannon Medisky of SCIKite.com
Dancing Differently 101
By Shannon Medisky
Maybe it’s the teacher in me. Yeah, I left the classroom, but my desire to make everything a learning opportunity certainly hasn’t gone poof! Summer provides the perfect opportunity for me to share this with my kids, and Giles Andreae’s book called Giraffes Can’t Dance provided the perfect platform for a new kind of lesson: how to dance differently than everyone else.
In the book, Gerald, a tall and clumsy giraffe, is an outsider. Surrounded by a wide variety of different jungle animals, everyone can dance beautifully-everyone, that is, except for Gerald. The ending of the book is no surprise: Gerald learns to dance in his own unique way.
But what is a surprise is just how enjoyable is to read this book aloud! Andreae is clearly adept at writing in rhyming prose, something that’s not easily done. And, as a result, this book is just as fun to read as it is to listen to. The words of the story literally glide off the tongue as kids are genuinely sucked into poor Gerald’s plight. Mid-way through the book, a tiny cricket speaks softly to Gerald at his lowest point. He
encourages Gerald to block out the negative words of all the other bullying animals, and instead listen to his own “different” song. In the end, this process enables Gerald to dance beautifully but differently as he embraces his own moves, his own way, instead of trying to copy everyone else. This is definitely a skill and a truth I want to impress upon my own kids, and fortunately I was able to create a number of fun activities to do just that. Though Gerald has an awful time at the annual “Jungle Dance,” it provides a perfect opportunity to get kids up and active while exposing them to a wide variety of different styles of music! I found 5 different pieces of music: a waltz, a rock and roll song, a tango, a cha-cha and a Scottish reel. And after we read the book aloud together, we listened-and danced-to the different styles of music. As both boys got caught up in the fun, they began to realize there was no “right” or “wrong” way to dance to the different types of music. Instead, they were too caught up in having fun with each other. Just like Gerald at the end of the book, my boys were realizing that everyone really can dance when they find music-their own music-that they love.
Like I shared earlier, once a teacher, always a teacher and so I couldn’t let this activity stop without bringing it to a thoughtful and thought-provoking close, too. I invited my now exhausted kiddos to take a seat and close their eyes, just like Gerald did in the story. I asked them to remember something that they struggled to do, something that was hard for them or something that they did differently than everyone else. Next, with their eyes still closed, I asked them to practice doing that same thing right now inside their head, only this time focus on
enjoying doing it and doing it their way.
Then, I had them continue to sit quietly, eyes still closed and listen to the sounds-the music-that was all around them right in that moment. It was a way to practice positive thinking, visualization and mindful relaxation, but only after I’d
physically worn them out first!
Shannon Medisky is on a mission to inspire innovative thought in kids while simultaneously igniting a passion for science. In short, Shannon seeks to make science go BOOM! So children’s futures can take off, too.
A former classroom teacher and current writer, Shannon presents science concepts in fun, easy-to-understand ways, helping kids to understand that science isn’t just a “what” but “how” also. Additionally, she challenges kids to think critically, creatively and differently, encouraging an entrepreneurial approach to learning and failure along the way. The result is true education reform one child at a time, empowering kids to affect positive change in their own lives now while simultaneously equipping them for what lies ahead.
Her articles have been featured in many prominent magazines such as Exceptional Parents, Adoptive Families, Hybrid Mom, Mothering and Focus on the Family’s Thriving Family.
To learn more about Shannon, visit ShannonMedisky.com or connect with her on Facebook.
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