Vlog Transcript BelowSlide 1: Hi My name is Kate Narita. I am the author of 100 Bugs! A Counting Book and I’m a fourth grade teacher. Today is day 9 of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge. I will be discussing Midsummer’s Mayhem by Rajani LaRocca.
0 Comments
Vlog Transcript BelowSlide 1 : Hi! My name is Kate Narita. This is day 8 of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge. Today I will be talking about Pie in the Sky.
Slide 4: I’ve been fortunate to live in two foreign countries in my life. I spent ten months living in Chile when I was in college, and then when I was an adult and married I spent five months living in Japan with my family. It’s a really challenging time when one moves to a foreign country because one is not able to understand what’s being said. When I saw this picture I thought my gosh, that’s exactly how I felt! You can see he’s only catching a few words. Mostly it sounds like strange utterances to him, and he’s not able to understand what people are saying. Also, he feels like an alien. He feels like he doesn’t belong. This depiction of him with four eyes really shows just how much of an outsider he feels like at this time. Whenever a book captures exactly how I’ve felt in my life, it always stays close to my heart.
Slide 6: Finally, I always like to include a book for teachers who want to talk to students about a subject but are unable to do so using a novel. Check out Anne Sibley O’Brien’s I’m New Here. It features three different immigrants, one from Guatemala, one from Korea and one from Somalia.
Vlog Transcript BelowSlide 1: Hi! My name is Kate Narita, and this is day 6 of my summer 2019 #Bookaday challenge. Today I will be talking about The Lions of Little Rock. Each spring my students have civil rights book groups.
The Vlog TranscriptSlide 1: Hi! My name is Kate Narita and this is day 5 of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge. Today I'll be talking about Merci Suarez Changes Gears.
The Vlog TranscriptSlide 1: Hi. My name is Kate Narita, and this is day four of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge. Today I will be talking about The Inventors at No. 8 by A.M. Morgen.
The Vlog TranscriptSlide 1: Hi! My name is Kate Narita. Today is day three of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge. Today I'm going to talk to you about a book called Power Forward by Hena Khan. Before I get to the book I want to tell you how I came to have a copy of the book in my hands.
Slide 5: Power Forward will appeal to readers in your classroom if they like books about sports with spare text and if they like books about family. As I said earlier, the plot centers around the main character's ability to play basketball. Also, the text is really spare, it's only about 123 pages (138 actually). There's a lot of white space between the lines and the font is large. This is a great book for reluctant readers who are off put by a thick novel. They'll feel really good about reading this book. It's fun and doesn't talk down to readers. I highly recommend this book for struggling readers. Lastly, this book will appeal to students who like to read about the complexities of families. This is a close, tight-knit family and there are expectations. It does a great job of showing how communication between family members is necessary so that everyone's needs are met. Slide 6: I would like to say that not everyone puts their instrument aside for sports. As I mentioned earlier, my older son started playing the violin when he was four-years-old. He continued on for fourteen years. He switched over to the viola, and he just had his senior recital. I've included the links here in case you enjoy listening to high quality classical music. The Vlog TranscriptSlides 1 and 2: I’m Kate Narita. This is day 2 of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge, and I have a new favorite book--Front Desk by Kelly Yang. The book is tons of fun to read and it’s well-paced. But that’s not all. It’s honest, has my favorite theme of all time-perseverance, and it emphasizes the importance of inclusion of people of all skin tones in a kid-friendly way. I haven’t been this excited about a novel since last fall when I read The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden.
 Slide 4: I will also be using Front Desk in my writer's workshop in various ways. On page 191 the main character of Front Desk talks about revision and says, “It took me two and a half hours and five drafts to write the reference letter.” This is really important because often times kids think they can write something in five minutes and it'll be done or they can just write something once and it'll be done.
Slide 8: But that's not all. You can use the book Front Desk in your writer's workshop to introduce persuasive writing skills because Mia uses her persuasive writing skills to help her friends on pages 190 and 204. So, when we're writing we talk about the importance of an audience, and we can really see here how Mia understands the importance of an audience and who she is writing to, She uses this understanding to make her friends' lives better.
Slide 9: You can also use Front Desk to intorduce small moments. That's a big emphasis in writing today to have kids choose a small moment from their life to write about. On page 219 in the book it's absolutely fantastic because Mia brianstorms a list of small moments that she could write about in her classroom. Slide 10: All in all, Front Desk is a must-have book for upper elementary classrooms. It's fun, well-paced, has a great theme of perseverance, it emphasizes the need to include all people no matter what their skin tone is, and it's an incredible resource to use when you're teaching writing. I was so excited when Mathical Science Research Institute (MSRI) named 100 Bugs! a 2019 Mathical Honor Book. So for the first day of my summer challenge, I figured I should familiarize myself with other titles on their list. Here's a short blurb about each book and a five-minute video about the ones I plan on using in my classroom.
|
Chalk + Ink ChatsWant to hang out with teachers who write and writers who teach? Fill this form to join our Archives
March 2023
Categories |
