Belmont Hills Media Center Blog

In honor of the EXCITING political events taking place this November, our November Book of the Month is Duck for President. While we are reading the book, we will discuss democracy and the election process. When we complete the book, we will use the CPS devices to answer some questions about the story. We hope you will sign your class up to hear Duck for President. Plan to sign up for a 45-minute block of time so your students will have plenty of time to hear the story, complete the activity, and check out books.

About the book:
“Our fellow Americans: It is our pleasure, our honor, our duty as citizens to present to you Duck for President. Here is a duck who began in a humble pond. Who worked his way to farmer. To governor. And now, perhaps, to the highest office in the land.

“Some say, if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he is a duck.

“We say, if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he will be the next president of the United States of America.”

Related extension activities: (from www.scholastic.com)
To extend students’ understanding of the story, try these activities in your classroom. Or talk to Mrs. Launey about collaborating on one of these fun activities!

• I Need Your Vote: Pretend you are Duck running for head of the farm. Give a short speech telling the other animals why they should vote for you.
• Sketch It Out: With your students help, list on the board ten major events in the story. Then create a large storyboard with ten frames. Have volunteers draw each of the events in the correct frame and add a speech bubble to show what the main character is saying. Retell the story using the finished storyboard.
• Read Other Books: Read aloud to the class an appropriate grade-level biography of a former president. Talk about the accomplishments and disappointments that president had on the job.
• Make it Real: Ask students to find pictures in newspapers and magazines showing candidates electioneering. Which of these strategies are similar to those in Duck for President?
• Go to the Polls: Create a poster encouraging people to get out and vote in the next presidential election. Talk about the elements that make a good poster. Display the posters in the classroom or corridor.
• Do the Research: To run for president of the United States, a person must meet certain requirements to hold office (be a natural citizen of the U.S.; be 35 years old; be a resident of the country). Read aloud a book that explains these and talk it over.
• Vote for Me!: Hold an election for class president and vice president. First discuss the duties and responsibilities of the job, and its duration. Accept nominations, do some electioneering, and hold the election itself. Later, have the elected officials write about the pros and cons of the job. Invite classmates to write about their view of the officials performances.

The literary world was saddened this September to learn that Colleen Salley, author of the Epossumondas books, had passed away. In honor of Ms. Salley and her wonderful contribution to children’s literature, this month we will be featuring Epossumondas as our Book of the Month. We hope you will sign your class up to hear Epossumondas and complete the accompanying organization activity. Plan to sign up for a 45-minute block of time so your students will have plenty of time to hear the story, complete the activity, and check out books.

About the book:
“Who’s Epossumondas? Why, he’s his mama’s and his auntie’s sweet little patootie, that’s who. He’s also the silliest, most lovable, most muddleheaded possum south of the Mason Dixon line!

“Better choose your words wisely when he’s around, ’cause otherwise you never know WHAT you’ll get. Epossumondas just might bring you a fist full of crumbs — or a soaking wet puppy — or a scruffy wad of bread — oh, you just wouldn’t believe it!

“Renowned storyteller Colleen Salley and Caldecott Honor illustrator Janet Stevens team up for this outrageous twist on the Southern story of the noodlehead who takes everything WAY too literally. (Or is that just Epossumondas just pulling his mama’s leg?)”

Organization activity: Help poor Epossumondas!
Let’s rewrite the story and help Epossumondas do everything RIGHT this time!

On the Promethean board, we will write down each item that auntie gave Epossumondas:
• A piece of rich gold cake
• Freshly churned butter
• A sweet little puppy
• A freshly baked loaf of bread

We will also record each of mama’s directions to Epossumondas:
• The way to carry cake is to put the cake on your head, put a hat on your head, and come along home.

• The way to carry butter is to wrap it up in some leaves and carry it down to the brook, and you cool it in the water … and then you take it up carefully in your hands and come along home.

• The way to carry a puppy is to put the puppy on the ground, tie a piece of string around the puppy dog’s neck, and take the piece of string and come along home.

This time, we will put the story in the right order by putting the directions BEFORE the items so that Epossumondas doesn’t make so many mistakes and all the goodies get home safely!

September’s Book of the Month, Bad Day at Riverbend, encourages student response to literature and expression of ideas in creative and artistic formats and genres. We hope you will sign your class up to hear Bad Day at Riverbend and complete the visualization activity that accompanies it. Plan to sign up for a one-hour block of time so that your students will have plenty of time to hear the story, complete the activity, and check out books.

About the book:
“Welcome to Riverbend, a sleepy Western outpost where nothing ever happens and, it seems, nothing ever will. But one fateful day the stagecoach rolls into town, its team of horses covered with an unidentifiable substance. As the strange stuff spreads into devastation, the terrified townspeople turn to their leader. Whatever this evil is, Sheriff Ned Hardy aims to put an end to it. He mounts his horse and leads a posse to hunt down the source of the curse, but just as they close in on their suspect, the cowboys are frozen in a mysterious light that suddenly fills the sky.”

Visualizing:
After introducing Chris Van Allsburg and some pictures of his work, we will read the story and show the pictures up to a certain point in the story. After that point, students will only hear the narrative. Then each student will receive a blank piece of paper and crayons. Students will be asked to create an illustration that shows what they are personally visualizing based on the narrative. (Students in grades 2-5 will be asked to record the words or quote that prompted the visualization and describe the picture they’ve drawn.)

At the end of the lesson, students will share their illustrations with the whole class or in small groups. Finally, we will read the end of the story and shown the illustrations.

April is National Poetry Month, and we encourage you to celebrate by reading poetry to your students and encouraging them to explore the world of poetry themselves. Hey You! C’mere: A Poetry Slam is a collection of honest, silly poems that will get your students thinking about words and the way they combine to make a poem. After reading the book with your class, you might want to consider some of the following activities and host your own poetry slam in your classroom.

About the book:
One summer morning in the sizzling city, seven kids gather on a street corner to share the power of poetry. As they move through the neighborhood, the kids transform their experiences — standing up to a tough kid, slurping spaghetti and ice cream, a good “hiccup cough sniff” cry — into a poetry slam celebrating the strength and energy of their own unique voices. Elizabeth Swado’s wonderfully aural work is given visual dimension by Joe Cepeda’s colorful, character-ful paintings. So come along and heed the call: Hey you! C’MERE!

Visualizing/pre-writing:
Use this activity as a pre-writing exercise to explore the importance of language and rhythm in a poem. Give each student a piece of paper and crayons. Without showing the students the pictures, read one or more of the poems to the class and ask each student to draw what he or she hears.

Brainstorming/writing:
After reading the poems in this book, get your students started working on their own poems by using some of the brainstorming activities below (from www.scholastic.com):

1. Word Play: Pick a word, any word, and think of all the words that rhyme with that word.

2. Object Observations: Pick an object — a pencil, a brick wall, a clock, a tomato — anything. Then write down everything you notice about that object.

3. Synonym Silliness: Think of an adjective, such as happy, soft, tall, or sleepy. Then write down all the words you can think of that have the same meaning as that adjective. This list will help a lot when you’re trying to describe things.

Now have your students write their own poems around the objects they selected, using their rhyming words and sentences to create their poem. Then invite your students to take part in a classroom poetry slam, sharing their creative ideas and images with each other!