In Room 17 we listen to a lot of music while we work. We write about it, talk about it, and even dance to it. I have been thrilled that this year's group of second graders has proved quite enthusiastic about listening to classical music--I would say, more so than any other year I've taught. I first noticed it sometime at the beginning of the school year. I had set my iPod one morning during math time to one of my favorite albums, "Voice of the Violin," which features the incomparable violinist, Joshua Bell. I have played this album for my students in years past without them making a single comment. Imagine my delight and surprise when several students started shushing others who were talking and saying, "Ssshh!! Quiet, I want to hear the music!" A few others asked me, "Ms. Long, what is that music? I really like it!" My students have fallen in love with one piece in this album in particular - Dvorak's "Song to the Moon" from the opera Rusalka. Who'd have thought, in a youth world of Beyoncé and Bieber? The kids keep asking me to play this track on my iPod over and over during worktime. I don't mind in the least, I love it too (as well as the violinist!) (-; Spurred on by my students' interest in classical music, I began to think of
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The month of October begins one of my favorite stretches of teaching in the school year. All the festivities that we associate with the upcoming holidays in the fall and winter enliven our classroom with lessons and activities that get me and the students fired up to learn. At the beginning of this month, I began reading spooky tales. One that is always wildly popular, hands-down, is the old favorite, Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark, a collection of traditional folklore and short stories retold by Alvin Schwartz. Whenever we visit the school library, my students race to be the first ones to check out this book--unless, of course, it has already been checked out by someone from another class. These are awesome stories--simple, riveting, dramatic, and perfect for transitions or short breaks between lessons. They are even better when one turns off the lights and reads them only by the glow of a flashlight! Another book in my storytelling toolbox for Halloween is Scared Witless, a collection of spooky stories by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss. This one has a more lighthearted, humorous feel than Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. To throw in a bit more fun with a different cultural experience, I also read a few short chapters from a French children's chapter book called Les Portes Tordues, or The Twisted Doors. It is a bilingual French/English book that actually is designed in a very clever way to teach French grammar and vocabulary within the narrative frame of a girl lost in a haunted house. I don't exactly read it to teach my students French, and unfortunately there is never enough time to read the entire book, but I read it as a brief opportunity for the children to hear another language (I do read both the French and English translations to help their comprehension). In some years when I taught classes with many second language learners, I also used it as an opportunity to teach those who are native English speakers to ask themselves, "What would it be like going to school in another country where I didn't know the language?" My new discovery this year was a book by the hilariously original and witty Dav Pilkey, who wrote The Hallo-wiener. It's about a dachshund named Oscar who is teased by the other dogs because of his short stature. On Halloween he takes more ridicule than ever in his hot-dog costume, but one brave act makes him a hero. It was a nice tie-in with our Treasures unit on "Community Heroes," and also allowed me to allude (perhaps all too briefly) to the fact that this month happens to be National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. So there you have it, my list of Halloween-related literature for the classroom. I certainly welcome any other book recommendations you may have.
With the emphasis on the Common Core Standards coming down the pipeline, I've been on the lookout for good nonfiction to use for read aloud time, as well as literature that can be used across the disciplines. Here are a few I've read to the class in recent weeks that specifically address social studies:
And here are the children's learnings we charted after reading: A third book that made quite an impression on the class this month was Jane Yolen's Encounter, a retelling of Christopher Columbus's landing in the Americas told from the perspective of one of the natives. I first showed the class a cute, brief video that rehashed the general details that everyone is familiar with in terms of the historical context of Columbus Day. Then as we settled down to read Encounter, I made a point of explaining to my students that the way we view events in history depends a lot on a person's point of view. In this case, the young native boy who tells the story about Europeans coming and taking away his people's land and culture tells his side of the story in a very tragic way. The story is quite poignant, told in a lyrical style, and great for teaching students the literary concept of point of view. As one of the boys in my class declared after we had finished and were heading out to P.E., "Ms. Long, that story was sooo sad!" (After this comment, I did make a mental note to read something humorous the next day.)
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