Little Mae was a dreamer. She dreamed of dancing in space, surrounded by billions of sparkling stars.✨ Encouraged by her parents' words, Mae dug in and began the work of making it happen. "If you can dream it, if you believe it and work hard for it, anything is possible," they said. Mae became NASA's first African American female astronaut. And on September 12, 1992, she became the first African … [Read more...]
Teaching Point of View to Build Strong Communities
Teaching point of view to children is not only a standard, but a really important life skill. This is one of my favorite picture books for introducing the concept, but gracious ... right now it sort of reminds me of my news feed: "Duck!" "Rabbit!" "No, it's a duck!" "No! It's a rabbit!" 🦆! 🐇! 🦆! 🐇! 🦆! 🐇! Insert different words and it sounds like a political conversation. But … [Read more...]
Big Ideas from The Other Side
I read The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson at the start of each school year. It's perfect for introducing sophisticated topics to young children, such as exclusion and racial tension. The story deals with big ideas in kid-friendly ways, helping us have conversations about kindness in an effort to build healthy relationships and communities. The author explains how she hopes the story of Clover … [Read more...]
Room on the Broom (On Netflix)
NETFLIX has brought another one of my favorite children's books to life ... and it's perfect for your October lesson plans. (Rated G / 25 minutes) Read the story by Julia Donaldson, watch the show, and then incorporate literacy standards by discussing: • problem / solution • cause / effect • character traits / relationships • setting • mood • theme, plot, or main … [Read more...]
A Must Have Text for K-1 Writing Teachers
I'm always on the lookout for those must have texts. I recently ordered four new picture books for writing workshop, sight unseen, and I ended up only liking one of them. (I have to stop buying books I haven't actually looked through.) But lucking out on this one book made up for the other three. And actually, I don't just like this book... I LOVE IT! It's not even new. But I just discovered … [Read more...]