Hello Book Bums families!
Language is all around us, on advertisements, street signs, and restaurant menus. We love to pay attention to the words and turns of phrase we encounter out in the world to enrich our reading and writing. If you're a sports fan, try noticing the verbs and metaphors that announcers and sports writers use to describe the action on the field. They can be amazingly creative!
This week in the newsletter we continue thinking about language and how we use it. We have book recommendations, some fun Ohio history, and exciting Book Bums news. Enjoy!
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Word of the Week
oral (or-ul) adjective/describing word - spoken rather than written
The negotiators reached an oral agreement, but no papers were signed yet.
Wordology Workshop
• The Latin root or means mouth.
• You can find it in our Word of the Week, oral, where it indicates speaking; but oral can also simply mean having to do with the mouth. Think oral hygiene lessons from the dentist.
• Or is also in words such as orator, oracle, and orifice.
Literary Calendar
• August 23 is the birthday of Dorothy Parker.
• She was born in New York just before the turn of the twentieth century and became a writer of poetry, plays, and literary criticism.
• Parker is known for her witty and caustic quips about urban life, culture, and herself.
"The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth
and sharpen my tongue."
-Dorothy Parker
From our Bookshelves
I was in a bit of a reading slump for a while there, but I’m back in a good groove.
My favorite Book Bums Book Club hostess shared about a book she thought I should read. I listened to it on Audible because I had so much busy work to do and my podcasts weren’t doing the trick, and I still enjoyed it. I’d begun to believe that books just aren’t as moving when one listens to them. My hypothesis is that I’m not as attentive when I’m listening as I am when I’m reading—and I miss things. But this one was quite good.
Was it life changing? No. Will I hold it to my heart and swoon when I see it on someone’s reading stack? Probably not. Did I thoroughly enjoy it. I did!
In a strange way, The Wedding People reminds me of the book A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I don’t love Phoebe the way I love Ove—not even close, but there’s the development of finding one’s place in the world that I loved in both books.
I can’t help but make a connection, too, with Schitt’s Creek. I mean, who really liked those characters from the start of the sitcom? No one. But by the end of the final episode, didn’t we all love, way down deep inside, each of the characters? Similarly, I didn’t fall in love with the characters in The Wedding People, ever, but I felt each of them changing for good as the story progressed. I began to truly appreciate the shallow people I’d met at the beginning for who they were becoming.
I love that. I love observing the becoming. Maybe that’s why I love working with kids. There’s nothing so gratifying as a good “before” and “after” story to inspire action.
Tips for Families
At Book Bums, we have a basket filled with Dum Dums at the counters where families check out after their sessions, but we actually use Dum Dums in a couple of our lessons. We use them (along with Red Hots and Tic Tacs) to reinforce the short vowel sounds, and we use them in a later lesson to share that when y acts like a vowel it can represent the short i sound like we see in Mystery Flavored Dum Dums.
Did you know that the Mystery Flavor is two flavors mixed together? When they near the end of one batch flavor and switch to a new flavor, there are some lollipops that are a mixture of both flavors!
They actually created a fun way to use what could have been considered garbage. Have we been scammed?
Did you know that Dum Dums are made in Ohio?
It was 101 years ago that the Dum Dum Lollipop was invented by the Akron Candy Co. In 1932 the company made a big promotion of the shipment of ONE MILLION DUM DUMS. It’s thought that the hit song “On the Good Ship Lollipop” by Shirley Temple probably helped boost sales. Shortly after the death of the owner, in 1937, the company moved to Bellevue, Ohio. Then, in 1953, they were bought by the Spangler Candy Company and moved to Bryan, Ohio. Today, Bryan is known as the Lollipop Capital of the World, and 12 million Dum Dums are made each day!
Check out their water tower.
The next time you enjoy a Dum Dum lollipop, drop some knowledge and impress your family and friends.
Tips for Raising Readers and Writers
The words despite and moreover are rarely used in oral language, but when we model using them, we might just see our students’ reading comprehension improve.
Using the word despite implies that something happened or is true even though something could have prevented it.
Despite the predicted rain, we enjoyed having recess outdoors.
Using the word moreover (or furthermore) indicates additional information is provided to support a previous statement.
We enjoyed our dinner at the new restaurant. Moreover, the service was outstanding.
Navigating texts with transition words like these demands a more sophisticated understanding of language structures. With a little effort, we can familiarize our kids with these more complex ways of framing statements.
Practical Grammar
I was in a local business, and I spotted signs that said something like, “No climbing on nor sitting in cubbies.”
Hm. Is that right?
We’re probably pretty good using the words either and or, but using neither and nor can be tricky.
I would prefer either strawberries or raspberries.
The general rule to remember is that nor follows the word neither or not (including when not is a part of a contraction). These words are used together to convey two negative ideas.
I would like neither strawberries nor raspberries.
The strawberries are not ripe nor are they affordable.
So, what do we think about “No climbing on nor sitting in cubbies”?
News from Book Bums
Book Bums was approved for a new space in Monroe, Ohio! We’re really excited about the opportunity to positively impact families from an additional school district—while also being near Wyandott ECS in Lakota.
We’re praying for a firm go ahead, and looking forward to what’s in store for us.
Mr. Mike just closed up shop on the Kids First Book Bums café. The tutoring center is still going strong, but the café is closed for good. It’s been a great ride, but my husband’s ready for something new—like creating another beautiful Book Bums tutoring space!
Tips for Teachers
As you engage with your students this school year, I would challenge you to deliberately notice interesting words together. Whether the words come from a conversation, a book you’re reading aloud, or a video you’ve watched as a class, create a collection of words somewhere in your teaching space.
This bulletin board was my collection space one year when I was teaching second grade. It was the first week of school, and already we’d collected the words scholar, courteous, and kin. You can hardly see it in this image, but below the words, I’ve written a clear, concise meaning for each. I used sentence strip paper (cut into thirds) so my students could observe the way the letters look, when properly formed, using handwriting lines.
As we gathered more and more words, we started organizing them according to their functions in language. Scholar and kin could go with nouns, while courteous went with adjectives. As we gathered more words, we observed other organizational structures (onomatopoeic words, proper nouns, other words for said, portmanteaus, etc.) We even created semantic gradients with words conveying similar to opposite meanings such as frigid, tepid, and fiery.
The primary rule was that we had to discover the words together—in real time. This wasn’t to be a list of random words the teacher generated. We simply addressed words as they arose in our work, including the content areas, and we deliberately noted their meanings and how they were used.
The magical piece was that when I created rubrics for student writing tasks, later in the year, students could earn an extra point for properly using a “stretch word” (a word from our word bank). When we evaluated student work samples as a class, my students identified “stretch words” in their classmates’ writing, and most students loved that challenge.
Just for Fun
Just in case . . .
Etymology is the study of word origins and their changing meanings.
Entomology is the study of bugs.
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