Diverse Strong Girl/Strong Women Books

I Will Be Fierce written by Bea Birdsong and illustrated by Nidhi Chanani, tells the story of a young girl setting off on a quest. The quest is to conquer her day and take on feats such as "solving mysteries of the unknown," through reading books at the library. It's a simple book told with colorful pictures, a few poignant sentences and characters of varying backgrounds, without ascribing to any particular culture or background.

Books About Emotions

 The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh is a inclusive way to teach feelings in relation to colors, while diversifying reading for children.
A young Indian boy moves to the United States and wears a patka, a style of Sikh turban. Each day he wears a specific color that depicts his mood.

A follow up activity could be to have students draw themselves wearing a special piece of clothing and write about a feeling.

Teaching the History of North American-Slavery

Such a difficult topic to teach well, thoughtfully, and accurately.  Lately there have been some picture books and young adult literature that describe and depict slavery in a lens that shows the inhumanity, interactions and repercussions behind slavery.

Triangular Trade Route:
Ted-Ed talk overview by Anthony Hazard.  A five minute overview, told with creative and beautiful artwork. Dense but comprehensive.

 

Read Alouds:

Picture Books:

Henry's Freedom Box

Chapter Books:

Sophia's War

Chains

Resources:

Teaching Tolerance: Lies My Bookshelf Told Me: Slavery in Children's Literature- an article that discusses the topic and slavery represented in children's literature.  A good read before planning a unit.

Books to Celebrate Ramadan

This year, in the United States, Ramadan begins on the evening of Sunday, May 5 and ends the evening of Tuesday, June 4.

Some books that teach and depict Ramadan, for elementary school students, include:

Lailah's Lunchbox which tells the story of a young girl from Abu Dhabi who is fasting for the first time and has recently moved to the United States.

Under the Ramadan Moon a beautifully illustrated book that describes a family celebrating during Ramadan.

Hena Khan writes the favorite character of Curious George into a board book for younger children, where George celebrates with his friend Kareem. It's Ramadan Curious George

Another popular author for younger children, Karen Katz, wrote a board book titled My First Ramadan which introduces toddlers to the holiday.

Scholastic members might like this lower level non fiction book with colorful photos from around the world. Ramadan

Websites

Some free websites that I find useful with my students are:

Reading:
 For beginning reading skills  Reading Bear is a resource that approaches reading phonetically and begins at a very basic level, with letter sounds.


StoryWeaver allows children to hear books in both English and other languages.  Text levels are not very challenging, so it's better for younger students or beginning readers.

Math:
 To work on specific lessons and skills, Splash Math allows some free accounts for teacher's to tailor and assign tasks.

Videos & Lessons:

 Khan Academy gives lessons on a multitude of topics.

 TeacherTube gives students the advantage of watching a video of a teacher teaching lessons and is searchable by content.

Bilingual Kidspot has a variety of poetry, nursery rhymes, and videos in different languages for kids to interact with.

Castle Unit and Read Alouds

(A work in progress)


Using castles to thematically teach in reading and writing:

References for kids:  

I Wonder Why Castles Had Moats- Philip Steele

Castles- David Macaulay



Read alouds:

A Brave Princess- Beatrice Masini
  to discuss characters

Tumble Tower- Anne Tyler


Math related:

Sir Cumference and the Round Table
 - draw and measure the perimeter or circumference of tables and/or moats
Other Sir Cumference Books

How Big is a Foot?


Writing:  

- Describe a castle in detail- project a photo on the board and brainstorm whole group descriptive words
- Write about the adventure of a knight

 

Wordless Books

One unit that I like to do each year with my ELL students, is to work with wordless picture books.  Sometimes we sit in a small group in a read aloud format and talk through the book together, with me doing most of the talking.  At other times we each think of a line to the story as we page through the book.  Some books are available on Kindle, through local library sites, or on YouTube, so that they can be projected and charted or written the board. 

Later, I have students write their own versions of the story, and if they have time they can redraw the illustrations and make a book.

Wordless books are so great for integrating a number of lessons, from using strong adjectives, to story telling, writing stories, increasing vocabulary, etc.

Here are some of our favorites:

David Wiesner has a number of wordless books, most all with fantasy elements. 

Tuesday is a very popular choice among the kids, but Flotsam, and Sector 7 are also fun and beautifully illustrated. 

A children's librarian would have a better idea of what is locally available, but another new book that is lovely is Here I Am.  Which illustrates the arrival of an immigrant child in a large city and his experience as he becomes more familiar with his surroundings.

 A very cool book is Journey, by Aaron Becker.  This dreamy story transports the main character through a fantasy adventure. 

Pancakes for Breakfast, by Tomie DePaola, walks through the process of a grandmotherly type lady making pancakes one winter morning, beginning with collecting eggs at dawn.  It embodies the humor typical of Tomie DePaola, with friendly animals. 

Other titles include:  The Wave by Suzy Lee, Unspoken by Henry Cole (a story of the Underground Railroad), The Flower Book by Mark Ludy, and The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Prett.