A Poem for the Classroom

Back when I was in the sixth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Grimes, required the entire class to memorize a poem each month and then write it out from memory.


I  don't know whether today's teachers would want to require their students to do this but I do have a very good poem for them to share with their classes: I, Too, Am America by Langston Hughes; illustrated by Bryan Collier.

Here is a sample: "I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother."

Planet Hunter

With the start of school, it's time to think about  astronomy, the science of searching for other planets. Many amateur astronomers like to observe the night skys looking for constellations.




This week's selection, Planet Hunter: Geoff Marcy and the Search for Other Earths by Vicki Oransky Wittenstein introduces readers to Geoff Marcy, an astronomer working at the W.M.  Keck Observatory, located on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Astronomy has progressed beyond the telescope. Here's a sample:

"Astronomers like Marcy no longer look directly through a telescope eyepiece. Instead, a device similar to a digital camera records the image in the telescope. The image is transmitted to computers for analysis."

Although this book tells Geoff's story, readers are introduced to other astronomers as well. At 48 pages, it is a good choice for grades 3 to 5.

Justin Bieber

This week's selection has only a tangential connection to swimming. The Olympic medalist Missy Franklin is a fan of the subject of this book:
Justin Bieber by Lynn Peppas.

 With  32 pages, a glossary and an index this title should be a draw for fans of his who are reluctant readers.

For me, the interesting fact about Justin Bieber is his use of YouTube to build his career. This is a business model for sure.

Birdwatching

Dedicated birdwatchers (also known as birders) are familiar with Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds.  Young readers  can learn all about him in For The Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson by Peggy Thomas. This  40-page picturebook chronicles how Roger's first love was  observing birds and how he experimented with different forms of capturing their images, by photography and painting.

Here's a sample: "Roger knew that watching a bird in the field meant you had just a second or two to remember its shape, color, and size before it flew out of sight. So Roger painted only the memorable bits....Simple outlines against a light background showed a bird's shape, and Roger added arrows to point out the most important field markings that distinguished one bird from another."

The color illustrations done by Laura Jacques enhance this book.

Roger's own collection of illustrations are housed at  the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, Jamestown, New York. I saw them a few years ago and they are worth a visit.

Here's an activity for birdwatching grandparents and their grandchildren.
While grandparents are watching birds through binoculars, their grandchildren can draw birds using Roger's tips: 1. outline the bird's shape.
2. Show distinctive features of the bird through the use of arrows or other marks.

Looking at sculpture

Parents, do you have a house of bored kids but it's not a pool or beach day?
Do I have an idea for you! Look! Look! Look! At Sculpture by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace and Linda K. Friedlaender have combined some fictional mice with a real-life sculptor  in this picturebook.

The three mice, Kiki,  Kat and Alexander find an invitation  to a viewing  of an sculpture called Four Rectangles with Four Oblique Circles by Barbara Hepworth. So they hitch a ride to the museum and find the sculpture that was on the invitation.

 Here's a sample: "They clasped their hands behind their backs and did a museum walk around the sculpture. They looked at the sides. They looked at the back. They looked at the front."

Then they sketched what they saw and made clay sculptures.

This book has an activity: how to create  a sculpture out of paper. Do you have creative kids? Maybe they'd like to give it a try.

My adventures with Nellie Cashman

I just had an adventure with Nellie Cashman without leaving home. Nellie has a chapter in Women Explorers by Julie Cummins.  Nellie's  explorations
took her from Ireland to Boston and out to the American West. She worked as a cook in Nevada while she learned how to prospect for gold. Then she went to the Canadian North and staked a claim there. When she heard that men in a mining camp were starving, she and some fellow prospectors
went to their rescue. Nellie nursed the sick men back to health.  Next she  moved to Tombstone, Arizona and opened a restaurant. Although the book says Nellie Cashman's Restaurant is still open, it closed a couple of years ago. Cafe Margarita is at that site now.

 This book has chapters on other women explorers readers will enjoy learning about.

The Scooping Method For Swimming

On a recent visit to my pool, I saw a grandmother coach her small grandson. She performed a basic freestyle stroke with her arms while standing  in the pool while she kept saying "scoop, scoop." I commented to her that I liked what she was doing. "It is very good for boys," she said. "Because they perform the same movement when they play in the sandbox."
Sounds like it might be good for girls too.


Read Cork & Fuzz: the Swimming Lesson by Dori Chaconas. This easy-reader level 3 title shows what happens when Cork, a muskrat, teaches his friend, Fuzz, a possum, how to swim.

Here's a sample  as it appears on page 28: "Fuzz!" Cork yelled again. "Paddle!" Fuzz paddled. "Kick!" Cork yelled. Fuzz kicked. Paddle! Kick! Paddle! Kick!

The context of this passage is that Fuzz accidentally fell into the water and  is afraid of it. Parents of children who are afraid of water could use this passage as a discussion point.