When I moved to the middle school I was sure I would never teach elementary again... WRONG! Here I am preparing for the new year at Hassan Elementary. All of the books that I have collected over the years, I gave a way to the other art teachers of my district. Bad choice. Oh well... I guess I start the collection again. I have bought a couple of books for the classroom this year. The Day the Crayons Quit, was one of them. Cute book. The drawings were so innocent. Being a lover of student art, I was impressed with how 'kid' the book looked. It's a book written from the crayons persecutive. I could see this being used in the classroom for a great collaborative project between language arts and visual arts. Maybe 4th or 5th grades are going to take an art object and write a letter from it's perspective. It could be illustrated in the same manner as the book. It's a bit wordy for our K's. I can see them spinning around as I read though the clever notes from each crayon. I think I will use this book for my upper levels... They might giggle when I pull out a children's book to have it read to them, but even when I did this with my middle schoolers, in the act of reading the book, the class is silent, they are engaged. Books are powerful!
Is there lessons out there that you have tried in conjunction with this book? I would love to hear about them.
OMG You are teaching elementary again? :/ Deep breath. Well I benefit because at least we can bounce ideas off of one another. I wish I was closer and could swap books with you!
ReplyDeleteI actually did a loooong unit on creating children's books with 5th grade students last year. Before beginning the actual creating of the book, I read a number of children's illustrated books and "dissected" them along with the groups. This was one of the books. My 5th graders enjoyed it and it was great for getting the points across for what we would be looking to do as the books progressed. I will be teaching the unit again, although in a much amended style, it took the full year for the project last year and some books were never completed. With that said, the 5th graders really seemed to enjoy the project despite the fact they were never completed. Since it was a more independent work students were really able to take ownership of the work they were doing. It also connected with writing which was a huge plus for my principal. Every student completed the writing portion of their book and many of their illustrations.
ReplyDeleteOh, Thanks K! Do you have a link to some project samples? I love the idea!!
Deletelove that book! I think I like the Red Crayon page best! :)
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