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Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Wonder by R.J. Palacio

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Sofia is an 8-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. On select Saturdays, Sofia will share her favorite books with kids! She is one of the most well-read elementary schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Wonder
Author: R. J. Palacio
Published: February 14th 2012 by Alfred A. Knopf

Hi!

It’s Sofia Martinez again. Today I will review Wonder by R.J. Palacio. It is recommended for ages 8-12. Wonder is a long chapter book. Chapters are sections of a book. This book also has a thing that most books don’t have: parts. Parts have several chapters in them and in this case each part is written from a different perspective.

Wonder is a funny but also sad book. It is about a kid named August that looks different and because he looks different people aren’t always kind to him. His nickname is Auggie. Auggie had many surgeries so his mom had to homeschool him. Now that everybody his age was moving to middle school, his mom thought that Auggie should go, too.

Like all new kids, Auggie faces difficulties. Auggie still makes friends though. One of them is Summer. When she realizes how her friends are being mean to him, she goes over to his table during lunch to give him company and they end up becoming friends.

I really like Wonder because of its different points of view. You usually don’t get to see the same situation described by different characters and know how they experienced it. I also like Wonder because you don’t know what’s going to happen next. You just can’t put the book down until it is finished. 

Once I saw that three copies of Wonder were available at our library, I borrowed them all so I could have a book club with my mom and grandma. We finished at the same time! We also came up with discussion questions. Here are some of them: 

  • Why do you think there are so many parts where Auggie tells the story again from his perspective? How does that help the story? 
  • How do you feel about Via describing her brother Auggie? What do you think about their relationship?
  • Are there any parts of the story that made you sad?

We also watched the movie after reading the book. The movie is very good. It is a bit different from the book but not much. I was surprised how some of the characters looked, for example Summer.

If you want a book that will change the way you look at things, Wonder is perfect for that. Have fun reading it!

If you enjoy Wonder, you might also enjoy the sequel: Auggie and Me by R.J. Palacio. 

**Thank you, Sofia, for your continued brilliance. You inspire us!**

Best Learning’s iPoster My WORLD Interactive Map

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Best Learning’s iPoster My WORLD Interactive Map is a “beautifully illustrated large floor map for kids, great for interactive lessons in school or at home. Explore and discover the world with your fingertips!

The smartest way to learn the world which includes 92 countries, capital cities, flag, population, languages spoken, important landmarks, fun facts with 4 challenging quiz modes.

Learn over 1,000 facts about the world we live in!

Capital & Country – Learn about each country and its capital cities with quiz.

Flag – Learn about each country’s flag with quiz.

Population – Learn about the population of each country.

Language – Learn about the languages spoken in each country.

Landmark – Learn about the important landmark or monument of each country with quiz.

Fun Fact – Learn a fun fact of each country with quiz.

  • Family Choice, Mom’s Choice Gold Metal & Tillywig Brain Child Award Winner 2018! The most valuable interactive touch activated talking map.
  • Learning has never been so much easy and fun. Hang on a wall, play on the floor or use as a colorful play mat.
  • Learn capital cities, countries with their flags, population, languages spoken in each country, important landmarks, fun facts with volume control.
  • Skills learned include concentration, earth science, memory, problem solving, geography and environment.
  • Requires 3 AAA batteries (included); intended for Preschoolers and early learners of ages 5 and up.”

Ricki’s Review: We received this map a few weeks ago, and my kids take it out to explore again and again. I love how it isn’t just a simple, straightforward map with just countries. The different settings allow kids to explore more about our world. For instance, my older son seems to gravitate towards learning the country names, capital cities, and landmarks, yet my younger son is fascinated with the flags, and he regularly puts the map on the flag mode.

When we first opened the map, all three boys were interested. They learned to take turns learning about the countries. The baby is only included in this picture because as you see, he prefers to push everything at once.

Here, my oldest son clicks on the flags to learn about the countries they come from.

And here, the kids take turns trying to identify the correct country in a fun quiz.

We plan to move the map to the wall this week, and we are happy that it will be something that the kids can keep referring to. I can’t count the number of times that one of them asks something like, “Where is XXXX country, city, or monument?” The map will offer a fun way to not only identify the location but to also learn more about the countries as they pop up in teachable moments.

Kellee’s Review: This map is endless entertainment and information! For those of us who have inquiry-driven kids, the freedom of the map and plethora of information just lends to their natural curiousity. So often I would get questions about a setting of a book or movie or just a random country that he heard somewhere, and now we can visit the map to find the country and learn all about it.

Trent is a fan of landmarks. He can tell you where the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Pyramids of Giza, etc. are, so he immediately gravitates towards learning about them with the map. And he just adores quizzes and will relisten to information and retake quizzes until he knows things by heart and will randomly share information with strangers. He says that this is his favorite part: “I love that the map tells you what the place is and tells you everything about the place.” It is all of the interesting information that keeps him gravitating towards it.

While Ricki loves that it isn’t just a simple map, I understand what she means, but I love that in the end it is still a map. Although there are some graphics, it isn’t overwhelming, and we can still use the map as a map also. I love that something that Trent goes back to over and over is fun and educational!

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: This map would be a beautiful addition to classroom walls. It offers so much more than a simple, paper map, and it allows kids to learn more about our world. We would recommend using velcro strips to hang this map on classroom walls to allow kids to pull the map off of the wall and bring it to their seats for further investigation.

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**Thank you to Best Learning for providing maps for review!**

Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History by Walter Dean Myers

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Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History
Author: Walter Dean Myers
Illustrator: Floyd Cooper
Publication Date: January 24, 2017 by HarperCollins

Summary: In this picture book biography, the late New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers and acclaimed artist Floyd Cooper take readers on an inspiring journey through the life of Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass was a self-educated slave in the South who grew up to become an icon. He was a leader of the abolitionist movement, a celebrated writer, an esteemed speaker, and a social reformer, proving that, as he said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

The story of one of America’s most revered figures is brought to life by the text of award-winning author Walter Dean Myers and the sweeping, lush illustrations of artist Floyd Cooper.

Review: We bought this book in 2017 when it first came out, and we read it again and again and again. My kids love to listen and learn about one of the most brilliant people to have ever lived. His story is incredibly inspiring. Even as a young boy, Douglass defied the world and never took no as an answer. The details of his story within this book show children (and adults) that they must push for what is right and commit to changing the world for the better. This book belongs in every classroom (and not just relegated to the classroom library). It should be shared collectively and purposefully with kids.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: There are endless uses for this book. One suggestion is that it could serve as a read-aloud and close reading at the start of a research or biography unit. Kids might look at the use of pictures and the pacing of the story to write their own nonfiction picture book.

Discussion Questions: 

  • How does Douglass regularly display strength and resolve throughout his life?
  • How is the book paced to reveal key moments of Douglass’ life?
  • What other famous figures related to issues of equity showed this kind of resolve? How do their stories connect to Douglass’ story?

Flagged Passage: 

Read This If You Love: Nonfiction picture books, Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, Schomburg: The Man Who Built the Library by Carole Boston Weatherford, Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe, Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra by Andrea Davis Pinkney, We March by Shane W. Evans, Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills by Renee Watson, Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford

Recommended For: 

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Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Smile by Raina Telgemeier

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We at Unleashing Readers would like to introduce you to Sofia, an 8-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. Sofia will be writing a new column called Sofia’s Kids’ Corner. On select Saturdays, Sofia will share her favorite books with kids! She is one of the most well-read elementary schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Smile
Author: Raina Telgemeier
Published: February 1, 2010 by Scholastic/Graphix

Dear readers,

Hi, my name is Sofia Martinez. I am 8 years old and love to read. I would like to introduce you to some of my favorite books. Today I will start with one of my favorite graphic novels: Smile by Raina Telgemeier.

If you do not know what a graphic novel is, it is basically a comic but not just superhero stuff. Have a look at the picture down below, a page from Smile.

The story is about Raina dealing with dental drama and other problems like bullies, boys and family. The book starts with Raina falling and knocking out her two front teeth after a girl scout meeting when she was in sixth grade. The reader follows her story all the way up to high school. Before I read this book I did not know there were so many types of dentists: orthodontist, endodontist and periodontist.

Smile can make you laugh or cry. The reason I like this book is because it is the kind of book that you want to read again and again. I feel like I have read Smile a thousand times already. I also like that Raina makes her drawings look realistic. Smile has about 200 pages, but you can read it faster than most books because it is mostly filled with pictures. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot of words and action. The author, Raina Telgemeier, says Smile is a graphic memoir (memoir means it is a true story about the author’s life). This book is recommended for ages 8-12. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did!

If you enjoy Smile you might want to check out the other graphic novels by Raina Telgemeier. For example, Guts, Sisters, Ghosts, and Drama.

**Thank you, Sofia, for your brilliance. You inspire us!**

Book Reader Animal Kingdom from Best Learning

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Book Reader Animal Kingdom is an interactive book reader for children to learn about 12 animals through 27 book pages about their appearance, behaviors, habitats and much more! Filled with playful melodies, friendly voices, and interesting sounds of animals and nature! Also comes with Quiz mode for those up for a challenge to keep them enthusiastic and learning at the same time!

  • Family Choice & Tillywig Parents’ Favorite Products Award Winner 2018! An interactive book reader for children to teach 12 animals about their appearance, behaviors, habitats and much more!
  • Simply press the paw down against the page as it reads aloud the contents.
  • Comes with a true and false quiz mode for those up for a challenge to keep them enthusiastic and learning at the same time.
  • Skills learned include animals, memory, dexterity, motor functions, concentration and problem solving.
  • Requires 3 AAA batteries (included); intended for preschoolers and early learners of ages 3 years and up.

Ricki’s Review: About twenty minutes after my 3-year-old started playing with this book, I messaged Kellee because I had to share about it. I wrote, “The Animal Kingdom book is SO COOL. He’s been playing with it for twenty minutes and hasn’t let his older brother have a turn. It would be so good for classrooms, too. It teaches reading comprehension really well!” Within about five minutes, Kellee had ordered one for her son, too. Although I was supposed to be reviewing this book alone, Kellee is joining me because she loved it just as much.

(This is how my 3yo started the book—he immediately placed it on the ground to start reading.)

This is a book (and product) worth sharing about. As you can see in the video above, the pages offer fascinating facts about animals, and the reader is clear and easy to understand. My kids listen intently to the reading, and they are always excited to take the true/false quiz to test their listening skills. Soon, my six-year-old will be able to easily follow along as she reads aloud. My three-year-old typically guesses the answers to the quiz (the concept of true/false is still a bit confusing for him), and my six-year-old is able to practice his listening and reading comprehension skills independently. The both love this product equally, despite their different reading abilities. Even my one-year-old gets a kick out of pushing down the reader to get her talking!

(20 minutes later…)

(I kid you not, 20 minutes after that…)

My three-year-old spent almost an hour with this book and even moved to a comfier spot. It is a favorite in our toy room (they consider it to be a toy!). We’ll be gifting this book to friends. (And I plan to write an email begging Best Learning to produce more of these books.)

Kellee’s Review: Like Ricki said, she shared with me how informative and engaging this book was, so I immediately jumped on and bought one for Trent. Trent adores animals but is more interested in watching documentaries and shows about them than reading about them (he is a fiction loving reader), but this book defies his normal interests, and he loves learning everything he can about each of the animals in the book. He’ll re-listen to pages, redo the quiz, and look back at the images over and over. This book is a hit in our household (it is in the living room because he keeps grabbing it to bring out here as a choice activity), and I, like Ricki, look forward to sharing as a gift and hoping for Best Learning to make more readers like this.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: ELA teachers focus on reading, writing, speaking, and listening (among the obvious other things like thinking). This is a beautiful example of a book that teaches listening. It would be a great learning tool to place at an independent or group station for reading comprehension. Alternatively, it could also be used for fast finishers. Even adults will find joy in this book.

Additionally, it would be a great mentor text for early education animal research projects. Students can emulate the format of a spread about an aimal of their choice.

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**Thank you to Best Learning for providing a copy of Animal Kingdom for review!**

This is My America by Kim Johnson

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This is My America
Author: Kim Johnson
Published: February 28, 2017 by Balzer + Bray

GoodReads Summary: Dear Martin meets Just Mercy in this unflinching yet uplifting YA novel that explores the racist injustices in the American justice system.

Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time—her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town’s racist history that still haunt the present?

Fans of Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds won’t want to miss this provocative and gripping debut.

Review: This is a book that will stick with me forever. The characters are powerfully written, and the plot unfolds itself beautifully. It tackles complex themes that offer excellent fodder for classroom discussion. Some of these include implicit and explicit racism, the ripple effects of White supremacy and racism, White privilege, and injustices in the judicial system. I could go on. This book is truly exceptional, and I envision it winning some big awards this year. There is so much to unpack and so much to admire in Johnson’s writing. It’s absolutely brilliant. If you buy no other book this summer, buy this one. It will make you think deeply about equity and justice.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: I highlighted so many passages of this book while I was reading it. There are so many sections that would make phenomenal close readings in the classroom. I highly recommend pairing this text with portions or all of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

Discussion Questions: What are some of the injustices in this text?; How can we, as a society, work to change these injustices?; How do the injustices have a ripple effect on other characters?; How does Johnson layer the plot to elevate the reading and message of the text?

Flagged Passage: “Corinne never held that memory [of Daddy getting arrested], but I know she feels it in everything we breathe. It’s in the polite nods across the street we have to make, the way our family turns down our music when there are others around. Say yes ma’am and no sir. Leave our jackets and backpacks in the car when we go shopping.

It’s in the way I carry myself that tells our story now. I can’t risk being accused of anything. Because if something goes wrong or missing, I know it’s in the back of someone’s mind that maybe I had something to do with it. And it’s in the way that the voice of the strongest woman I know stumbles when saying, ‘Hello, Officer’ as she walks through the visitation gates to see Daddy.”

Read This If You Loved: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson; The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely; X by Ilyassah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon; The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon; How it Went Down by Kekla Magoon; Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles;

Recommended For:

 litcirclesbuttonsmall closereadinganalysisbuttonsmall classroomlibrarybuttonsmall

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Lessons Learned from Teaching My Kindergartener Stop Animation (Ricki)

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At 11pm, I had the idea to teach my 6-year-old stop animation. I watched countless YouTube videos and tried to tailor them to his skill level. The next day went fairly well, but I learned some things along the way that I thought I’d share with other caregivers or educators embarking on this adventure.

  1. Create a Model, Show Examples/How-To Videos.

It is exceptionally hard to explain stop animation to a kindergartener. Thus, I showed many, many examples and then showed him my own example. I recommend pre-watching your examples because I found many inappropriate models that I was glad I ruled out in advance. I also found how-to videos that were way too intense for my kid. They would overwhelm him.

The first video I showed him was a LEGO animation (which I learned is called a brickfilm). The video I post below is very easy to follow and shows how it works:

Next, I showed a claymation, which is the clay form of stop animation. I watched many and found this one to be pretty clear:

And finally, I created my own (quick) model using clay. I left the clay model out, so I could explain how I did it. This was the quick model I made:

2. Use the “Stop Motion” App.

I learned (after watching many tutorials) that this app was not only very user-friendly but also very capable of advanced work (which we were not doing. The key to using the app is to avoid having to push the photo button. Every time you take a picture and touch the tablet/phone, it jiggles the camera a tiny bit. For the model above, I stacked five textbooks and hung the camera part of the tablet over the edge of the top book. This allowed me to set the automatic timer on the app and avoid touching the screen. I did everything flat on my table, as you will notice in the model.

Essentially, you set a timer for a certain length of time (I did five seconds for my model, but I set it to 15 seconds for my son.) In that time, you move your design slightly. If you miss the timer and don’t make the move, it is extremely easy to delete any of the frames in between.

My son chose to do a brick film with his legos, so I set up the tablet to lean against a chair leg. I had to remind him not to touch the chair, and I set the automatic timer. After that, he pretty much worked independently for an hour on his film.

3. Other Lessons Learned

There’s something that Stop Animators call “light flicker.” If you are close to a window, the changes in the sun (e.g. it goes behind a cloud) will make the light of your video flicker in each shot. Pros (my son and I not included), recommend doing your stop animation in a room with no sunlight or windows. You use two headlamps—one to put in front of your creation and one to put behind it for shadows. To remove the shine on the lego pieces, I learned that pros cover the front headlamp with parchment paper. This was way above our skill level. The pros also use professional cameras and not tablets/phones.

Stop animation takes time, but it takes far less time with this app. It is instantly rewarding to kids (at least, relatively to taking a lot of solo framed photos). It occupied my son for a good hour, and he got to play with his lego, so it was a fun time for him.

Don’t forget to add music. I got a bit lazy with mine, and I clicked the audio record option (which allows people to record their voices), and I just played a song through my cell phone to get it in the background. You can upload a song if you want better quality than mine.

Those are the basics. Kindergarteners are very capable of beginning stop animation films. My son’s ended up being a tray of his favorite minifigures. They appeared one-by-one, and then they disappeared one-by-one. It was a great first start for him!