Hello Book Bums families!
Welcome to October and buckeye season! This week in the newsletter we are focusing on the state tree of Ohio and its famous nut. We're sharing books, crafts, recipes, capitalization tips, and more.
Read on and enjoy!
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Word of the Week
debut (day-byou) noun/person, place, or thing - a first appearance
We were all excited to see the debut of new lead in the musical.
Literacy Calendar
- On October 2, 1950, The Peanuts comic strip made its debut in seven U.S. newspapers.
- Charlie Brown appeared in the first strip, while Snoopy made his first appearance two days later.
From our Bookshelves
I LOVED this book. If you haven’t read Mad Mabel yet, grab a copy and you can thank me later. In this book, Sally Hepworth (whom I’d never read previously) absolutely made me laugh out loud—and that rarely happens with me! Mad Mabel was my bedtime book, and I always looked forward to lying down at the end of the day to learn what good ol’ Mabel was up to. In this story, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is 81 and prickly. She’s the very definition of curmudgeon. She’s sarcastic—even to kids, and I absolutely adored her.
If you like books about found family, this one will melt your heart.
Tips for Families
It’s buckeye season, so I thought I’d share some good buckeye tree information with you. I’m also sharing more buckeye information in this video where I bet you’ll learn something you didn’t know before.
Though the information shared in these videos may be too dense for younger kids, you can print this document to observe a buckeye tree and then see if you can find one together at a park. At Book Bums, I’ll have some buckeyes from my tree if you want to stop in and grab some! There’s just something about them that keeps me eagerly searching for them with my grandkids. We’re saying, “Whoa. Here’s a gorgeous one,” or “Hey! There are two in this one!” or “That one’s a beauty!” They just feel so good in your hand, don’t they?
I found a cute buckeye ornament you can make with older kids for THE Ohio State Buckeye fans. Just grab one of those inexpensive Christmas ornaments with goldish/brownish sparkles, paint a tan colored splotch, and then add eyes, brows, a nose, and a mouth with marker pens. Finally, add a cute red bow.
O-H - I-O!
Here’s a buckeye candies recipe that’s so easy, the kids can help!
2 cups creamy peanut butter
½ cup softened butter
1 ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ¼ cups powdered sugar
Mix well until creamy. Make into balls. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Melt:
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon coconut oil or vegetable shortening
Using toothpicks, dip peanut butter balls into melted chocolate and allow to cool.
We’ve got a gorgeous backyard with lots of woods and a creek, and I’m planning to create one of these balances for when the kids come over this weekend. I’m sharing it with you in case you’ve got some kids who’d enjoy experimenting with a balance scale using things from nature. We, of course, are going to have buckeyes in our supply basket
Tips for Raising Readers and Writers
I know buckeyes just look like a buck’s eyes, but it might be fun to explore with kids the question: “What if you had animal eyes?” For nonfiction-loving kids or kids who love learning facts about the world around them, check out the book What If You Had Animal Eyes by Sandra Markle. It’s a good one!
If we had a buck’s eyes, we would have a highly specialized tracking system designed for our survival.
We’d have horizontal, slit-shaped pupils—not round ones.
Our eyes would be on the sides of our heads and they’d stick out a bit so we’d be able to see almost completely around us without turning our heads.
We’d have “glow” night vision that would shine in light, and we’d have great low-light vision.
We’d be able to instantly notice even the slightest movements because our visual processing speed would be four times faster than a human’s.
My students used to gasp when we did this because they see their partners’ pupils change size right in front of their eyes!
Wordology Workshop
- The Latin roots vid and vis mean to see, look at, or observe.
- You can find them in many common English words including video, visual, visor, television, revise, and provider.
- How many more vis and vid words can you think of?
Practical Grammar
If your kids struggle with when to use capital letters, grab some mints and teach them this mnemonic device.
Okay. You may use the M.I.N.T. S. acronym to remembe which words require capitalization, but when do we capitalize words having to do with buckeyes?
Buckeye Capitalization Rules
Common nouns require no capitalization.
We gathered several buckeyes from under the tree to share with our friends, and then we ate homemade buckeyes for dessert.
Proper nouns do require capitalization.
The Buckeyes won the game last night.
Typically, “the” is a lowercase article, however, in the context of THE Ohio State Buckeyes, capitalizing “the” functions as a deliberate declaration of school identity, so it’s correctly written:
THE Ohio State University.
News from Book Bums
I wanted to show off this gorgeous shelf made from 100-year-old wood that my husband made for my office at our Monroe Book Bums. Mr. Mike is the unsung hero at Book Bums. He does it all, from making furniture, to forever replacing ceiling tiles at our West Chester location. He cuts word cards, makes our students giggle, and is a wonderful encouragement to me. My husband of 42 years is the very best. He makes Book Bums and me better.
If you have one of the good ones, too, you might like this song by Gabby Barret.
Tips for Teachers
Teaching about homophones I, eye, and aye
Most kids know that the word I is used in place of their own names. It’s a pronoun that is always written with an uppercase Ietter. Phonetically, the vowel says its name because it’s an open vowel or open syllable.
At Book Bums we say, “When we have a really short word with a vowel at the end, the vowel usually says its name. Think: a, we, I, go, flu
Note: If we close those vowels in by adding a consonant to the ends of the words, the vowel goes back to its short sound. Think: at, wet, it, got, flut-ter
When it comes to the part of our bodies we use to see, we teach kids to recall this irregularly spelled word by sharing a plastic ring (as shown) and noticing how the eyes look a bit like e’s and the y looks a bit like a nose.
In truth, we don’t discuss the word aye in our tutoring sessions, but if we did, I might share that it means always yes, (for)ever.
I’d review the spellings and meanings of these words by inviting the kids to read the word I and point to themselves, read the word eye and point to their eyes, and read the word aye and give a salute like they’re saying, “Yes, captain.”
If you’re really digging the buckeye theme and you have yet to read Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, I’d check it out. The story takes place in Ohio and is about two families who share a truly devastating secret. The content warning for this one is long, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading every page.
Ann Patchett recommended it to me, and now I’m recommending it to you.
The New York Times described Buckeye as an “omniscient, sweeping, almost defiantly sentimental” story of mid-century American life.
Just for Fun
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