Hello Book Bums families!
Happy Thanksgiving! Of course you know that turkey is the traditional main course of this holiday. Have you ever noticed the English idioms (expressions that are understood, but not taken literally) that have to do with turkey? When you want to get right to the point you can talk turkey. If you have to quit a bad habit, you might go cold turkey. And no matter what day it is, if you're really full you might say you're stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey.
Enjoy this week's newsletter!
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Word of the Week
laden (lay-den) adjective/describing word - heavily or abundantly loaded
The Thanksgiving table was laden with delicious dishes from salads to sweet potatoes, cranberries to turkey legs.
Literary Calendar
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- On November 23, 1936, the first issue of Life magazine was published.
- The cover featured a photograph of the building of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana.
- You can explore the Life Picture Collection to see thousands of photos from their archive capturing people and events from American history and culture.
From our Bookshelves
Last week we had some fox-themed fun, and this week, in The Frozen River, there is a silver fox symbolizing the strength of the main character, a woman, and her place in her patriarchal town in Maine.
I began reading The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhorn, last week when everything was covered with snow and temperatures dropped below freezing in Ohio. It just felt right.
I learned that, in 1991, author Laural Thatcher Ulrich wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning biography about Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife who delivered more than one thousand babies without a single maternal death.
In 2023 Lawhorn created this work of historical fiction where she incorporated details from Martha Ballard’s diary entries. The author shared that approximately 75% of what she wrote actually happened.
I particularly enjoyed the depiction of the relationship between Martha and her husband, Ephraim. Martha is a strong and independent female character who is well-supported by her adoring (but not submissive) husband. I thoroughly enjoyed reading how Ephraim taught Martha to read and write after they were married. He used the book of the Bible, Song of Solomon, and that made me giggle.
No, it’s not the perfect story, but it’s a good one; and I will certainly share my copy with my friends.
One Amazon reviewer said that if you enjoyed Outlander’s Claire Fraser, you’ll enjoy this book.
*Please check out the content warnings before ordering this book.
Wordology Workshop
- Remember that the Latin root pater means father.
- You find it in words like paternal, paternity, and and paternalistic.
- Sometimes it's spelled patr, without the e.
- In this form you'll see it in words like patriarchy, patriotism, patron, and patronize.
- Can you see how each word connects to the concept of father? How many more pater/patr words can you think of?
Tips for Families
I’ve shared this before, but I thought it might just be a blessing for your family this Thanksgiving season, so I’m sharing it again. To enjoy The Gratitude Game, grab one fun-size bag of M&Ms for everyone at the table. Print the attached form and staple a copy to each bag of M&Ms.
After dinner, distribute the candies and code, one per person. Go around the table and, one at a time, have each person draw out an M&M. That person will observe the color of the candy and share something they’re grateful for according to the code. You can do one candy/share per meal across a few days if you’d like—maybe across the whole Thanksgiving break. This could be a wonderful way to connect with those you love the most.
You may even choose to do this activity at your formal Thanksgiving meal with the whole family.
Tips for Raising Readers and Writers
You’ll have a few days, I hope, to relax after Thanksgiving; so I thought I’d share a fun activity you can do with your little ones to encourage some book-making fun. If you don’t have time to do it now, at least print out the form so you’ll have it to use over winter break. Having something engaging to do with the kids is always key when trying to making the most of your downtime.
You’ll need a copy of Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.
You’ll also want to have some animal cookies.
You’ll also need:
- one printed Dear Zoo booklet per child
- rectangles of various colors of construction paper- 4” x 4” or so (for making flaps for kids to lift in their books)
- crayons (to draw and color animals)
- glue (to affix the folding flaps/doors covering or partially covering colored animals)
- a pencil (for writing the adjective- He was too ____________.)
- a pair of scissors (to make doors)
Give your children their own copies of the printed booklet we created—inspired by Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo. Tell them they are going to make their own animals and flaps/animal containers for their books.
Ask the students to use a pointer finger to read the words in their booklets. Encourage them to make the sounds they see. When the students get to the place where the first animal and a characteristic must be generated, give him/her a bag of animal cookies to help with ideas and with drawing. What writer doesn’t need a little motivation? 😉 The children will color a picture of their selected animal in the center of the page.
Next, support the students as they write a descriptive word for the animal. Coach them to use the rules they know from our Foundations for Literacy lessons. They should make each sound, one by one, as they stretch out the sounds and write the corresponding letter/s. Please ensure they spell each word accurately.
Then, they’ll use construction paper rectangles to construct flaps/doors that will cover, or at least partially cover, the animal and will be lifted to reveal it in its entirely. Kids can decorate these and even add signs like Rod Campbell did in his book.
For every page, the students will read the text and finish the sentence using their own ideas.
You may challenge older kids to use one animal from each of the five classes of vertebrates: a mammal, a reptile, a bird, an amphibian, and a fish.
This activity could end up being a great opportunity to discuss when to use the article a versus the article an. In Rod Campbell’s book, notice together that he uses the word an preceding the word elephant. Share that when the item begins with a short vowel sound* (not necessarily a vowel), we use the article an. When the item begins with a consonant sound, we use the article a.
*an honest answer, a unicorn
TIP: Make sure the students save the animals they want to keep for the final page!
Practical Grammar
gaffe, gaff, and gaffer
A gaffe is an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment.
She realized her gaffe when she checked the Thanksgiving turkey only to find it was still raw.
A gaff is a long-handled hook used for fishing and catching turtles.
In The Frozen River, Martha used a long tool like a fisherman’s gaff, to permanently injure the despicable Mr. North.
A gaffer is a chief lighting/electrical technician on a film crew or for television.
The gaffers set the stage for the desired lighting effect and carefully secured the wires ensuring no one would trip.
News from Book Bums
Everyone at Book Bums is wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving with those you treasure most!
Tips for Teachers
When students use working memory to try to figure out what words say, they’re using head space that would be available for understanding the text. This means that when kids cannot efficiently access the words on the page, they will certainly experience comprehension difficulty.
Sure, phonics instruction is not everything when it comes to the “science of reading.” It’s just the foundation upon which everything else is built.
At Book Bums, we promote kids’ comprehension by 1) growing their background knowledge through book reading, 2) using less-familiar words to practice decoding to deliberately grow students’ vocabularies, and 3) engaging in teacher-student conversations to quickly clarify meanings and/or pronunciations; however the primary way we promote comprehension is by 4) equipping kids to accurately decode most every word on the pages of the texts they’re reading.
Just for Fun
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