Freddie Ramos Springs into Action by Jacqueline Jules, art by Miguel Benitez. Albert Whitman, 2012. Freddie Ramos is a boy superhero. He has purple sneakers with "zapato power". When he is walking they are just like normal sneakers, but when he runs they ZOOM across the playground or down the street in a puff of smoke. The smoke can be a problem when grownups complain about it. The speed can be
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Blog: a wrung sponge (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: chapter books, spanish, Middle grades, Primary grades, race ethnicity, Add a tag
Blog: TWO WRITING TEACHERS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: stereotypes, play, primary grades, early childhood, boys and girls, Peggy Orenstein, cooperative learning opportunities, Add a tag
I recently read Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture (2011) by Peggy Orenstein. While hospitals don’t hand out manuals to parents who leave with a… Read More
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JacketFlap tags: illustrations, video, research, resource, primary grades, Add a tag
Words + pictures have always intrigued me. As a scrapbooker I use words + pictures to document life. As a blogger, I know when an image is included it always impacts me more. (I’ve been thinking of making this a goal — to include more images in my posts.) As a teacher I’m well aware [...]
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I’m super fortunate to be working with a couple of third grade teachers (Hi Sandy & Dan!) who are interested in helping their writers to naturally develop more sophisticated writing processes. Their students are coming off of heavy illustration study in their previous writing experience (in grades k-2), so we are trying to find a [...]
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JacketFlap tags: digital writing, research, non-narrative writing, writing workshop, primary grades, Add a tag
Martha Horn is coming to NE Indiana on October 14, hosted by the All-Write Consortium. I’m super excited to hear her thoughts about teaching our youngest writers. If you are interested in attending, just click here for registration information. Do you know her book, Teaching, Drawing, and Writing? She wrote it along with Mary Ellen [...]
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JacketFlap tags: primary grades, tcrwp, classroom signage, classroom charts, Kristi Mraz, Add a tag
One of the many charts I made, with the help of some wonderful Kindergarten teachers, while I was taking Kristi Mraz’s chart-making class at the July Writing Institute was a scaffold to get Kindergarten students ready to write an all-about book. Betsy Engel, who will be teaching Kindergarten in Manhattan this-coming school year, shared a [...]
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JacketFlap tags: books, poetry, fiction, point of view, publishing, writing process, organization, curriculum, process, reflections, narrative, writer's notebook, genre, plan, character development, mentor texts, writing workshop, lesson plans, mentoring, primary grades, drafting, free verse poetry, lessons learned from students, mentor author, choice, personalization, curriculum planning, focus lesson, reflective practice, Add a tag
I have been in a lot of different writing workshops lately. Just this week I’ve been in 13 writing workshops and have met with 13 different teachers in either reflective practice meetings or planning meetings. Therefore, I have SO MUCH I want to record. Which leads me to my current dilemma: what do I not [...]
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I’m a believer in routine. When writing workshop is predictable everyone is able to work more efficiently. It takes several weeks to build the procedures necessary to create the culture of writing workshop. Over the past two weeks I’ve collected some footage of routines in primary classrooms. One of the important things about developing routines [...]
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No More “I’m Done!” Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades is a new book out this month from Jennifer Jacobson. Since I consult with primary grade teachers, as well as upper elementary teachers, I started reading this book as soon as I received the review copy from Stenhouse. Quite frankly, any elementary school teacher [...]
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JacketFlap tags: Melanie Watt, Read Aloud, mentor texts, primary grades, reading-writing connections, Add a tag
Ruth was shocked when she learned that I had never heard of Scaredy Squirrel Books when we passed the Kids Can Press Booth at the NCTE Conference. Quite frankly, once I started paging Mélanie Watt’s first Scaredy Squirrel Book, which was published four years ago, I, too, was shocked. It was humorous! I found the [...]
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Katie Wood Ray, Matt Glover, and Isoke Titilayo Nia hosted a session entitled “Independence in the Primary Writing Workshop,” which Ruth and I attended yesterday morning. Ray, Glover, and Nia provided information about the ways to increase young children’s independence within the context of a Writing Workshop. Here are my notes from the session, which [...]
Add a CommentBlog: a wrung sponge (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: books, folklore, Preschool Kindergarten, SPICES, Middle grades, Primary grades, Add a tag
A Chinese Folktale adapted by Caryn Yacowitz, illustrated by Ju-Hong Chen. Pelican Publishing Company, 2005. (first published by Holiday House, 1992) In the back of this picture book is a word from the author Caryn Yacowitz. She explains that the story was heard by a merchant named A. L. Gump on a trip to Beijing in 1917. He told the story to his son Richard, who put it in a book titled Jade,
Blog: a wrung sponge (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Triviza. This is a "fractured fairytale" reversing the story of the three little pigs. "Once upon a time, there were three cuddly little wolves with soft fur and fluffy tails who lived with their mother." She sends them into the world to build a house for themselves. Unfortunately the Big Bad Pig comes prowling around and destroys their houses one after another.
Blog: a wrung sponge (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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by Marie-Helene Delval, illustrated by Arno. Eerdmans, 2008. First published in France in 2003. The book of Psalms in the Bible is one of the poetry sections. Every human emotion and experience can be found expressed in these 149 songs written by King David and other ancient Hebrew poets. Psalms for Young Children is a collection of 40 paraphrased Psalms written in simple, direct language
Blog: a wrung sponge (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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by Patricia Polacco This is a story from Polacco's childhood. As a girl she and her neighbors Winston and Stewart want to raise enough money to buy the boy's grandmother a new Easter bonnet that she has been admiring. Patricia is over their house for chicken dinner every Sunday and she considers Miss Eula her grandmother too. When they go to try to get a job at the hat shop they are mistaken for
Blog: a wrung sponge (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee, illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy. Charlesbridge, 2005. March is National Woman's History Month. This book is a nice overview of the lives of 26 woman who made significant contributions to the world. At the publisher Charlesbridge's website for the book Cynthia Chin-Lee states, "I wanted the women I chose to be easy to identify
Blog: Judy's Place (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's poetry, conference, publishers, SCBWI-FL, Kristin Daly, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Lee Bennett Hopkins, SCBWI-FL, Kristin Daly, Add a tag
Yesterday I went to the SCBWI-FL conference in Orlando, and followed the poetry track, where we spent the whole day with Lee Bennett Hopkins, who has done numerous anthologies for children, and Kristin Daly from Harper Collins, who aquires poetry, picture books, and a few other things.
A couple things I learned about writing poetry:
1. Make every word count...there is no room for fillers.NO 'empty calories' allowed. That means do not use the words JUST, BUT, AND, THE, QUITE. Each syllable of a poem must move it to action.
2.Watch out for uneven or forced meter...do not give the editors an excuse for dumping your poem.
3. Don't be afraid to stand out from the pack. Use themes based on basic childhood experiences...with a new twist.
There are three types of poetry books:
1. Original poetry...your own collection
2. General anthology...a conglomeration of poems with little or no connection
3. Specific anthology...theme-based books. These sell the best.
Poetry-friendly magazines:
Babybug, Boy's Quest, Cicada, Cricket, Hopscotch, Iguana (must be originally written in Spanish), Odyssey.
Poetry-friendly publishing houses:
Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin
Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
Greenwillow Books
Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon and Schuster
Wordsong/Boyds Mills
And, I would say, Harper Collins.
At the end we had 'Poetry Idol.' Our assignment was to write a poem about something that began with the same letter as our last name. I won.It was a great day...and has inspired me to get writing on poetry again...
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Thank you for your lovely review of my book The Jade Stone!I also appreciate the Quaker values you suggest it teaches.Best regards,Caryn Yacowitz