Hello Book Bums families!
Happy Summer!
If you are looking for fun and enrichment for your kids this summer, look no further. This week in the newsletter we have suggestions from incorporating math into snack time to family letter writing. We share poems about baseball, nostalgic music, and your chance to help us build a rockin' reader reptile.
Have ideas of your own to share? You can always reach us by replying to this email. We love to hear from you!
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Word of the Week
obfuscate (ob-fyoos-kayt) verb/action word - to make obscure, unclear, or unintelligible
In answering the reporters' questions, the politician obfuscated his true position with flattery and redirection.
Literary Calendar
• On June 3, 1888, The San Francisco Examiner published Ernest Thayer's poem, "Casey at the Bat."
• This narrative poem tells the story of a fateful final inning of baseball.
• Read the poem here, or enjoy a short video of the poem being read here.
From our Bookshelves
I cannot believe it took me so long to read this book! For most of my life, I have said that Phil Collins is one of my top five musicians. If I could play one instrument, it’d be the drums—because of him.
In the spring of 1981, I was a junior at Lakota High School.
One afternoon, I skipped class to drive my dodgy 1976 Dodge Colt (Don’t see any of those babies on the road anymore, do you?) from the original Lakota High School on Tylersville Road. I turned south on 747 and drove all the way to the Tri-County Mall in Springdale, Ohio. I made my way to the Record Bar and asked, “Do you know the song . . . I think it might be called, ‘Hold On?’” After a few minutes and a couple of employees later, one guy said, “It’s called ‘In the Air Tonight’ and it’s by Phil Collins.”
He handed me the Face Value cassette tape, and I listened to it all the way back to school.
Note: Kids today simply cannot appreciate the patience required—the whir of tape rewinding within a cassette—to play a song again and again back in those days.
That day began my long-lasting love for all things Phil Collins and Genesis. When Collins came to Cincinnati Gardens on January 30th, 1983, I was there.
Recently, I downloaded a book on Audible and was offered a second download for free. Phil Collins; Not Dead Yet was one of the offerings. I promptly forgot all about the book I’d sought out originally and dove right into this one. And I loved it!
The very best part about smart phones is listening to a book written by a beloved musician and asking Siri to play the songs as they’re mentioned within the text. Oh, how I enjoyed my iPhone and AirPods last week!
If you saw me with a serene smile, sauntering through the aisles at Kroger, I was listening to “You Know What I Mean” on repeat. The song is one of heartbreak; but it’s gorgeous, and it makes my heart sing.
The story within Phil Collins; Not Dead Yet story is a predictable one. It’s the too familiar story of life and loves and losses of too many A-listers. As I listened to songs as they’re mentioned within the text, though, I experienced other times and places, and it was just wonderful.
Did you know that there are folks who begin playing “In the Air Tonight” at 11:56 p.m. on December 31st so they can launch into the new year with Collins’s famous drum solo?
Tips for Families
Most parents are not professional educators, but they most certainly are teachers.
Parents, your kids learn so much from you; and when you step into that role with just a bit of intention, your impact is multiplied.
The trick is . . . you don’t want to sound teacher-y.
This week, I want to challenge you to notice fractions with your kids.
Pizza for dinner? Note how many slices in all, the fraction given to your child, and the fraction of remaining slices. (Now you have one out of eight slices of pizza or one eighth of the pizza. There are seven slices left or seven eighths.)
Fruit snacks for a treat? Count the total number. Divide the snacks into piles according to their shapes. (There are nine snacks in the bag. Four of them are sharks. That’s four out of nine or four ninths.)
Another great way to bring fractions into real life is to provide a measuring tape to your kids.
I purchased these measuring tapes and gave them as stocking stuffers for adults and kids alike last Christmas. This is a ten pack for just under $8. The measuring tape stretches to 60” long and the tape shows centimeters as well. The best part is that these tape measures are retractable. Kids love that!
When measuring very small things, it’s important to equip kids to measure to the 16th of an inch. Note with your kids that an inch can be divided into two parts/halves, four parts/fourths, eight parts/eighths, and sixteen parts/sixteenths.
Provide a variety of small items for your kids to measure and challenge them to be as accurate as possible in their measurements (to the sixteenth of an inch, as needed).
Keep these teachings short and revisit them often. The provision of one small toy can inspire a lot of learning!
Wordology Workshop
• The Latin root fract means to break.
• You can find it in the word fraction which means to break into parts.
• Fract appears in other common English words such as infraction, refract, fracture, and fractal.
• Challenge your family to explain how each word has to do with breaking.
Tips for Raising Readers and Writers
As your kids begin new summer routines, strive to incorporate reading and writing opportunities into each day—at least in some small way. One idea is to purchase some stamps your kids will like. I found these on discountforeverstamps.com. They’re only 19.99 for 100 stamps. You can find lots of designs on the website.
Gather up some pencils, crayons, paper, stationery, envelopes and maybe some photos of the kids. Write some dear family members’ names and addresses on blank index cards and encourage your kids to write loved ones at least once a week.
For added impact, arrange for those family members to write back to your kids adding a dollar bill, a stick of gum, stickers, temporary tattoos, or anything else interesting that could be tucked inside an envelope and sent in the mail.
Writing friendly letters is the perfect thing for kids to do when it’s too early to go outside and play.
Remember, inviting kids to do this work on their own might be a task too great for beginning writers. It will be better if you sit alongside your kids while they’re writing so you can coach them as needed. Sit down to write a letter of appreciation to someone you love as well, and just be available should your kids need your support.
If you see an error in spelling, say, “I see why you wrote love with an l-u-v. That makes perfect sense. But, when we see the word love in a book, it’s spelled l-o-v-e. It’s a tricky spelling. I’ll write it for you here, and if you’d like to adjust yours, great. If not, anyone would know that you’re trying to say love. Leave it if you’d like, but now you know that love is spelled l-o-v-e.”
Practical Grammar
I saw an ad for a roofing company with the word roofs. I thought, “Well, that looks funny.”
I knew rooves didn’t look right, but I wondered what the reasoning is for this strange spelling.
There is a rule stating that when words end with the letter f or f-e we change the f to v and add e-s. Think: elf/elves & life/lives. So, what’s up with roofs? Hooves follows the rule. Why not roofs? I didn’t find much. Just that the word roofs has a more modernized spelling. Interestingly, I learned that hoofs is also an accepted spelling for the plural of hoof, though it is rarely used.
News from Book Bums
This image gave me an idea! Would you help us build a reading rock reptile at Book Bums? With each chapter book your kids read (or you read to them), invite them to paint a rock to bring to Book Bums to add to our rockin’ readers’ reptile.
Tips for Teachers
This week’s teacher tip is a simple one. If you want to be a good teacher of reading and writing, be a reader and a writer.
Whether it’s writing friendly letters to loved ones or persuasive letters to your elected representatives—whether it’s recording memories in a scrapbook or maintaining a gratitude journal, no matter what it looks like for you, write.
Stretch into reading something that challenges you. Dedicate some time to reading beyond your typical genres. Mix it up. No matter what you’re reading, read.
As you grow yourself as a learner, you’re becoming a better teacher.
When you say, “When I was reading a really challenging book this summer, I found it helpful to . . .” your students will hear you better.
Just for Fun
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