Alice Ramsey: 100 Years of Driving Later

My class is currently reading a Scott_Foresman selection about Alice Ramsey, the first woman to drive across America. The selection comes from "Coast to Coast With Alice" by Patricia Rusch Hyatt. Her adventurous trip took 59 days to complete. This June marks the 100th anniversary of Alice's journey. Many things have changed in our world in the past 100 years. The use of automobiles to get around is one of the big changes. Children are transported back to a time when automobiles did not "rule" the road and the roads weren't like the roads we have to day.

On "Alice's Drive" a father and a daughter are restoring a 1909 Maxwell, just like Alice's car, in anticipation of driving it across America in an anniversary challenge and celebration. Here is an interesting video of Alice Ramsey, with many pictures of her trip. It includes plans for the anniversary drive and a film.

For just a bit of frivolity and comparison, here is a time-lapse video of a guy driving across the country. It seems they only had one incident when the car wouldn't start!

Going along with the idea of what life was like 100 years ago, I have been reading to my class a wonderful little book called "Listen My Dears" by Annabelle Haven.

She wrote this book for her grandchildren and others in 1994 as she tells about growing up in Nashua, NH. The kids love her reminisces and how she compares and contrasts life long ago with the modern day world. What makes the book special to my students is that Annabelle grew up right in their neighborhoods. She lived on Summer Street and Berkeley Street. Her father had a dentist office at 2 Abbott Street, just a few houses down from the back entrance to our school. They enjoy looking at the old photographs of their neighborhoods. Annabelle's family had one of the first automobiles in Nashua, back when their were only a handful in the city. My class always want to know if Annabelle is still alive. It appears she died last October. It looks like Amazon has only one copy left, if you want to read this fascinating local history book.

"The Treasure of Health and Happiness" A Great Book to Read to Your Class

How do you introduce children to the joys of running? How can you get them to understand the benefits of playful activity, personal fitness, and healthy eating? In today's culture this is a serious concern for parents, teachers, and health experts. Children today are bombarded with amusements that lead to a sedentary lifestyle and they have a mutlitude of unhealthy eating choices that can have them packing on pounds that leave them even more unwilling to "go outside and play".

Carol Goodrow is one person who has made it a mission to help kids learn to be healthy and to enjoy exercise. She is an elementary school teacher as well as the creator of the wonderful website Kidsrunning.com, which is a Runnersworld.com website. Kidsrunning is a website full of programs, activities, advice, interviews, news, and all sorts of information geared towards kids, parents, and teachers. Carol Goodrow is also an author and artist (just look at the whimsical pictures gracing her website) and like on her website and with her teaching she is on a mission to help kids enjoy healthier living.

"The Treasure of Health and Happiness" by Carol Goodrow is a book I recently used as a read-aloud with my fourth grade students. I teach a class of typical fourth graders except I have twice as many boys as I do girls in my class and I wasn't sure exactly how my boys would react to a book that has a girl as a main character as well as a book that seems a bit more "gentle" than the books they typically enjoy.

We started reading anyhow. The story is about a girl named Hannah who is not very healthy or athletic. In fact because she is not good at sports and activities she doesn't feel very good about herself. I noticed my class became empathetic to Hannah because of her feelings of inadequecy. I think many of them have had those same feelings as well. When Hannah receives a puppy for her birthday my kids were quite enthralled. When Hannah started placing signs on her bedroom door to deal with the disobedient puppy the kids giggled with delight! I also noticed that whenever I held up one of the pictures from the book that the kids all tried to get as close as they could to get a good look at all the details and the unique artwork.

A large part of the book involves a dream that Hannah has about a treasure map. As she follows the map she learns skills that she accomplishes such as ball-throwing, riding a bicycle, eating healthy foods, and eventually running. Hannah learns what she has to do to take care of herself and to be a healthier and happpier person. The book is not preachy at all as it involves discoveries by Hannah not choices made for Hannah. I feel this was presented in a way that allows children to think of discoveries (or choices)they can make on their own journeys towards becoming healthier people. Hannah begins her own training towards competing in a "Chipmunk Chase" running race, something she was to afraid to enter at the beginning of the story.

My class enjoyed the story. Boys being boys, the "gentlemen" in my class did say they wanted some "monsters" to chase Hannah during the dream sequence. They also wanted to know more about the toad that Toby, Hannah's dog, picked up in his mouth.

I think this book is excellent for teachers to read and discuss with their classes or for parents to read with their children. My guess is that girls would enjoy reading it on their own. Some of the devices used in the book: treasure maps and treasure chests, jewels,and descriptions of things that sparkle and glitter reminded me of the type of make-believe play that my sisters and their friends often engaged in long ago.

I do know that my kids were very much engaged by the story and I believe it left some seeds in their own minds about how they can maintain or seek after a more healthy lifestyle.

Here are a few brief comments that some students in my class wrote about the book.

"I liked the book. I think people will eat better and exercise more if they read "The Treasure of Health and Happiness.""

"I liked the German Shepard. That is my favorite kind of dog. I liked when Toby had a toad in his mouth. It was cool when Hannah made a leash out of a stick and a string. The book inspired me to eat healthy and stay fit."

"I like the book and how she started out as a girl who was unhealthy. Then she got healty and started to run. That got me thinking about doing cross-country."

"I liked the book very much. My favorite part was her dream. I liked the parts where she runs a mile and goes fishing."

You can order the book at Kidsrunning.com as well as download some free printables for the classroom.

You can also find a couple of interviews from a few years back of me on Kidrunning.com.

Imagine Teaching a Full Day of School and THEN Running the Boston Marathon

Teacher Runner Jim Hansen Finishes Boston Marathon last, but he is the winner in his schoolchildren's eyes

A Simple Way to Play with Words

PicLits.com is a fun and simple website that can be a wonderful resource and tool for teachers to use with their students to enable them to not only play with words but increase their vocabulary. "Inspired Picture Writing" is what it calls its goal. Students can choose from many intriguing and beautiful pictures and then use words to create sentences, poetry, or just descriptive writings. Here is an example of a quick PicLit that I made,

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

After choosing a picture, students can drag and drop words onto it to create a mini-poster. Words can be chosen from a preselected list of words that are arranged into categories of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, or universal words. Many of the word choices for each picture are unique to that picture and are wonderful vocabulary words. Students can create their own work through their own choices and they do not have to type the words so their is more time to play and arrange the words in different ways.

There is also a freestyle choice where you can just type and create your own writing. The website also offers mini-lessons. "Write It" gives you tips on basic uses of words, writing simple captions, compound sentences, and writing paragraphs. "Rhyme It" gives some advice on writing raps, writing similes, and poetry writing. "Master It' has more advanced lesson plans.

This is a fun site for all people to try. I see many and various uses for it in a classroom and I think that it will definitely stimulate creativity and expression as well as captivate your student's attention. The pictures can be saved, shared, and e-mailed.

DogoNews: A Website for Inquisitive Minds

DOGONews is a website for kids with curious minds who are interested in the world around them (shouldn't that be all kids?). "DOGO" is a word that means young or small in Swahili. DOGONews is geared towards elementary school children, aged 5-10.

According to their web site:

"DOGONews (www.dogonews.com) - This section is a fun and educational alternative to sites like Time for Kids, National Geographic and Science Daily. With hundreds of archived articles and new content added daily, the section is chockfull of fun and inspiring news from all around the world.

The content is written in a simple, easy to understand format and kept relatively short, in order to keep young children focused and interested. Videos are added whenever available. There is also an integrated dictionary for challenging words and a map mash-up to provide a geographical context. The main aim of the site is for kids to read and learn about world events in a fun and interactive and safe environment."

There is a search section and News is also linked under various topics such as Latest, General, Science, Entertainment, Sports, International, Amazing, Social Studies, Did You Know, Fun, Green, and Video. The site is visually interesting and easy to follow. The articles are interesting to read and easily capture one's attention.

You will also find two other sections on the website: DOGOSites and DOGOEarth.

DOGOSites (www.dogonews.com/sites) - a directory of fun educational kids sites. A great resource for teachers, kids and parents. Each site is carefully vetted prior to inclusion.

DOGOEarth (www.dogonews.com/earth) - news headlines geo-tagged on a 3D globe to provide younger readers an interactive way to read the headlines.

DOGOEarth shows a large view of planet earth that is darkened or lightened depending on the time of the day. Cities are lit up and articles related to certain places on the earth pop-up as you look over our planet. This is a fun and interesting way to visualize where on our planet these events are happening and it is certainly an eye-catching page.

Simply an Amazing Book: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Last week I finished reading a book to my class that very much fascinated my fourth grade students. It was the first time that I have read "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" to a class even though I enjoyed reading it myself over a year ago. The Author, Brian Selznick, is also an illustrator and although this book looks daunting at over 500 pages, it is not a difficult read because the story is often told through the wonderful drawings that can sometimes go on, page after page.

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" is a magical book that transports the reader to Paris in the early part of the 20th century. We meet a boy named Hugo who lives in the walls of a Paris train station. Hugo has many secrets as he tends to the job of keeping the clocks in the train station accurate. His biggest secret is a mysterious machine (an automaton) that he is trying to fix. He steals toy parts from a toy store to fix his machine and is caught by the cranky owner. He also meets a young girl that he has a hard time trusting. This mysteries in this story that need to be solved and how the characters are connected and blend together in a wonderful way captured my classes attention so much that they did not like it when I paused in my reading each day.

In a world where our children are enamored by technology, they are brought back to a similar time in history, when technology was in the process of producing amazing magic. Without giving away too much of the story it does involve a type of sophisticated machine called an automaton. The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia has one such automaton and you can view it here:



The book also has a "real" historic character in it: Georges Melies, a very early filmmaker. Upon reading the book, children learn a little bit about the history and the magic of filmmaking. Here is a video of Georges Melies "A Trip to the Moon" a movie that plays an important role in the book.



You can find many more of Georges Milies' videos on Youtube.

Here is an entertaining video that explains about Georges Milies and his use of special effects in making his films. It also explains how you can do your own special effects with a video camera. While we are dazzled by today's special effects that can make just about anything possible and real, it is interesting to see how this technology started.



Here author Brian Selznick explains his book:



This is a great book and my students continue to enjoy it as they love toting such a big book around after taking it out of the library. Kids will only do this with books that they really love. Otherwise, they would be carrying dictionaries everywhere!

Some intreresting discussion questions for the book can be found at One-Minute Book Reviews.

Simply a Superb Sequel: "Hate That Cat" by Sharon Creech

While strolling through Barnes and Noble this weekend, I was thrilled to see that Sharon Creech has written a sequel to my favorite children's book, "Love That Dog".

The new book, "Hate That Cat" is just as wonderful as her first book. I love these simple books as they bring together animals, poetry, teaching, and the struggles of boyhood in a very readable and entertaining way.

In "Hate That Cat" we have the same setup as the first book, we find that Miss Stretchberry moves up a grade so that she is still Jack's teacher. They still communicate through a poetry journal and Miss Stretchberry continues to use great poetry and poets (T. S. Eliot, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Edgar Allan Poe) to inspire her class.

The class learns about the sounds of poetry in this book through devices like alliteration and onomatopoeia. I was tickled to see that "The Bells" by Edgar Allen Poe was one of the featured poems. I used this poem for many years with my own class as a beginning point for writing "sound" poems and it is always fun to say the word "tintinnabulation". Seeing that it is the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's birth this month, I will have to revisit this poem in my class. Another featured poem in this story that I always use in my class is "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams, as well as a return to his other wonderful poem "The Red Wheelbarrow". Although Walter Dean Myers doesn't return to visit the class, he does send letters to Jack and Jack learns that Walter Dean Myers' son, Christopher, is also a notable poet.

It is sounds that permeate this story. Besides the poetry, we are introduced to Jack's mother in this volume, and we learn about her inability to hear sounds and that becomes an important component to the story. That, and cats! The book may be titled "Hate That Cat" but Jack has his reasons. In the end the hated cat plays an important role and of course Jack falls in love with his own little kitten.

"Love That Dog" remains my favorite children's book, but "Love That Cat" will take a place right next to it on my bookshelf. I can't wait to share it with my class, and I know that I will see students rereading the book again and again just like they do after I read them "Love That Dog". I am simply thrilled that Sharon Creech wrote this second book!

Here is a teacher's guide to both books.

Here is just the first verse of:

The Bells
by Edgar Allan Poe

Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Listen to "The Bells"

	Edgar Allen Poe - The Bells
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

This is a strange and "Poe"ishly nightmarish version of "The Bells"

	Edgar Allen Poe/Symphologic - The bells
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

If you want a great book for children to introduce them to Edgar Allen Poe then get a copy of "Poetry for Young People: Edgar Allen Poe". It has an interesting mini-biography as well as his poems and in his case poetic pieces based on some of his stories. It has short introductions to each poem, pictures, and lots of definitions for the difficult vocabulary words. There are other similar books by the publisher about other poets that I have in my classroom covering poets such as: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and William Shakespeare . I still have to purchase the poetry books of William Blake, Carl Sandburg, Lewis Carrol, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes. These books are a great resource for both students and teachers.

A Simple and Fun Way to Teach Vocabulary

I love to teach vocabulary in my classroom. I know my students enjoy learning and using interesting words. I use the Elements of Reading vocabulary program that was developed by Isabel Beck with great success.

Here is another website that has a word story for every day of the year and introduces students to interesting words, usages, and etymology. The Year of Vocabulary-Just for the Kids website is from Susan Ohanian, the author of "The Great Word Catalogue".