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The Big Top: A Circus Unit

Apr9

Who doesn’t love the circus? There are so many wonderful acts and animals for children and adults to see. If you are feeling that you need a boost to finish out your school year, here is a list of books and some activities that are circus themed.

Books

The Circus Alphabet, Linda Bronson This simple rhyming text and alphabet book is terrific for younger children.

Circus Caps for Sale Esphyr Slobodkina  A lovable hat peddler unwittingly gets involved with a circus, animals and all!

If I Ran the Circus, Dr. Seuss A rhyming text of outrageous characters and antics involving a circus.

Olivia Saves the Circus, Ian Falconer Olivia is an adorable pig who relates her circus experiences that your children will enjoy reading.

The Circus Ship, Chris Van Dusen  This is based on a true story about ship wrecked animals off the coast of Maine.

Language Arts Ideas for the Above Mentioned Books

 The Circus Alphabet

Your circus performer can choose the letters from their name to make their own circus alphabet. Here is an example:

M is for money to buy a ticket for the show.

E is for electricity to pop the popcorn fluffy and light. (All I could think of since elephant  was the obvious choice!)

L is for lion tamer bold and brave.

You can reinforce the ideas from The Circus Alphabet by going to the page, Happy Together,   to make fabric alphabet letters. I think this would be fun to hang on a clothesline like they show since in the back of my mind I can see circus performers hanging their laundry between caravans. This is an especially nice idea for preschoolers and beginning readers.

 Circus Caps for Sale

Help the cap peddler by making an advertisement for his caps.

Act out the story.

You can also read one of my all time favorite books with the same peddler called Caps for Sale

 If I Ran the Circus

Write your own story about how you would run the circus. Illustrate and share your story with someone.

Olivia Saves the Circus

After reading the book discuss fact, fiction.

Read more stories of Olivia the Pig.

The Circus Ship

Draw pictures of the animals that were shipwrecked.

Make up a different tale or poem about what happened to the shipwrecked animals.

Join a Circus (Activities)

Have a parade The circus comes to town with a parade so why not decorate bikes and wagons with streamers and balloons and have a circus parade? The children can dress up as various circus performers such as acrobats, ringmaster, clowns, etc.

Tightrope walking Use the clothesline from the fabric alphabet letters (Happy Together website) to use as a tightrope on the ground. This is a great way to  practice balancing.

Strongest Person in the World Have a contest to see who is the strongest by weight lifting. If you have 1 or 2 pound weights you can see how many times each person can lift them. Extend the contest by making  it a math lesson by graphing the results.

Lion Tamer  The children can take turns being the tamer and the lions. This can be done by setting up an obstacle course that the lions must complete upon command. Your obstacle course could include the following:  green and red construction paper circles, a jump rope, and a hula hoop. These are just a few ideas, if you are creative, don’t stop there!

The lion tamer would give directions and say something like this,

” Lions, jump from the green circle to the red circle.”

“Lions, crawl on the ground until you reach the tightrope.”

” Walk across the tightrope and do a somersault at the end.”

“Jump into the hula hoop. Put your paws in the air and roar as loud as you can!”

Switch and let someone else be the new lion tamer.

You can make the lion act as long as you wish. Several sets of directions can be typed out ahead of time for reading skills or you can let them improvise, depending upon how much you want to put into this. By doing this activity  listening and following directions are employed in a fun way.

Acrobats Do you have a child who enjoys gymnastics? They could create an act by doing cartwheels, backbends, and somersaults.

Clowns  A circus is not complete without clowns! You could make balloon animals and come up with a funny act. Have your clowns wear face paint and pantomime. Let the audience guess what they are pantomiming. Here are some ideas for pantomime:

Eating popcorn, playing instruments (trumpet, trombone, bass drum, flute, etc.), selling concessions through the crowd, giving away flowers, feeding the animals, etc.

Have fun!

Good Reads: Middle School, Junior High

Apr2

I haven’t had a lot of time recently to read many books, but I wanted to pass along a few great titles of books that I have had an opportunity to read. These titles are sure to not only interest middle school and junior high students, but they can be read aloud in the evenings to the entire family.

If you haven’t heard of this series I think you are going to love reading them. It is called the Wilderking Trilogy, which is set in the Middle Ages period. It is a terrific retelling of the story of David, the biblical character. The story of David and Goliath is one that children are told repeatedly in Sunday School, but do they know what happened before or after he fights the giant?  This series is a wonderful compliment to the bible and will lend itself to discussion about being faithful and loyal against all odds. I have just found out that there is a prequel that will be released soon and I am looking forward to reading more about Aidan and the kingdom of Corenwald.

The Bark of the Bog Owl, Jonathan Rogers

The Secret of the Swamp King, Jonathan Rogers

The Way of the Wilderking, Jonathan Rogers

As a follow-up to the books, you will want to check out Jonathan Rogers’ Feechie Film Festival. Funny tales are found here of whether people believe in these wild creatures [or not].

Strange Journey Back, Paul McCusker [Focus on the Family’s Adventures in Odyssey].  If you are familiar with the  audio series of the Adventures in Odyssey, this is the printed format. My sons loved the audio series that Focus on the Family produced and listened to them daily on the radio.

Happy reading! 🙂

Helping Young Readers: Book Resources

Mar19

One of the most rewarding events that has occurred in teaching my own children and others is when letters and sounds letters go from just symbols on a page to actual words that have meaning. I think it is as exciting as the first steps a child takes when they begin walking. The world opens up and there is no stopping a reader after that!

The process of reading can be arduous for all involved. 😦  I like to find books that will help you and your child as you go through the reading process and help provide reading independence. You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You is a series that you and your young reader share together. You read one portion of a short story and  your child reads the other portion. There are even times where you read parts of the book together. This is known as choral reading and is one language arts standard that is covered in primary grades. I think this is important since reading takes a lot of “brain power” and can be overwhelming, plus it’s fun!

This series can be used in several ways. You can have two of your children take turns reading aloud; a child and an adult take turns; or an advanced and beginner reader alternate reading the text. The selections are not for the student who is just beginning to read, but rather for a student who is ready for  more than simple sentences such as, “See Spot Run.” These books are a bridge to chapter books for students in grades 2-3 with a collection of poems and 2 page stories that include rhythm, rhyming, and repetition; all techniques that give young readers confidence they need to succeed. I have only featured three books in this series so if you like what you see there are several more to enjoy. Another bonus is that I picked them up at the library and  some of them are American Library Notable books they should be easy to find at your library. Happy reading!

You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Stories to Read  Together, by Mary Ann Hoberman are modern-day nursery rhymes that have catchy phrases and fun pictures.

You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You:Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together, by Mary Ann Hoberman include tales of Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and the Little Red Hen with some surprise plot twists and endings.

You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Fables to Read Together, by Mary Ann Hoberman is a retelling of the classic Aesop’s fables that you and your reader are sure to enjoy.

** I have been “field testing” these books for the past 3 weeks and the girls I am tutoring love these books!

Reading Hide and Seek

Feb27

I just began tutoring for a fantastic family who has a beginning reader.  I love what I saw the mom doing with her son in reinforcing concepts. She writes words they are studying on a small whiteboard that is a “master list”. (You could use any large piece of paper as a master list if you don’t have a small whiteboard.) She places flashcards of these individual words throughout the downstairs and her son must find the card, match it with the word on the whiteboard, and say it aloud. She also is doing this with addition problems. He must find the addition problems on flashcards throughout the house, add them together, and match the sum on the whiteboard. This is such a great way to get children involved in the memorizing of facts, as well as give them an opportunity to burn off some energy. I think this can be applied in almost any area of academics. Here are some more ideas:

Science– terms on flashcard, definitions on the whiteboard

Money– pictures of coins on the cards, values on the board

Time– faces of clocks on the cards, analog time on the board

Numbers– match items on the cards to numerals on the whiteboard

Colors– a color swatch on the flashcards, color word on the board

Health– pictures of food on cards, food groups or servings on the board

Geography– capitals on flashcards, states or countries on the board

Do you have any ideas to add? I’d love to hear about them.

Get Set for Kindergarten: a book series

Feb13

I saw this trio of books at the library the other day and thought they would be a valuable resource to anyone with children who are preschool/kindergarten age. Rosemary Wells is one of my favorite author/ illustrators and I hope you enjoy them. You can read the book without doing the suggested extension activities, but these would be great for a student who is ready for “The Next Step” as the book has stated. I have only listed three, but there are more books in the series to enjoy.

In The World Around Us children learn about communities, community helpers, holidays, and maps.

Adding it Up introduces the concepts of addition, money, simple fractions, graphs, and patterns.

Letters and Sounds introduces not only the alphabet, but also rhyming words and syllabication.