Stormbreaker

Over the past few months I have been tutoring a middle school boy. Now, really I am more of a beginning reader expert, but lately I've had to brush up on my middle grade reading. Fortunately there are many great books for middle school readers. In fact, some of my favorite chapter books are young adult fiction. Perhaps it's because that was the time in my life where my love for reading really grew or maybe I'm just drawn to coming of age stories. Whatever the reason, I'm kind of liking catching up on some non picture book reads.

Recently I came back across a series I read as a result of a children's literature class I took about 8 years ago. The Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz. The story begins with Stormbreaker, the story fourteen year old Alex Rider who's Uncle Ian recently died in an unfortunate accident. Upon further investigation Alex discovered that Ian was really a spy for a British agency called M16, who wants Alex to go undercover at Sayle Enterprises to figure out what Ian Rider had learned about the upcoming release of the new Stormbreaker gaming system. Information that had gotten Ian Rider killed.

Written on a seventh grade reading level, Stormbreaker is action packed and entertaining for children ages 12** and up. Your middle school reader is sure to get hooked on this series.


**(I say 12 and up because it is a little violent, but I caution that I am a mother of an almost five year old and 2 year old, and teacher of kindergarteners so what I think is violent, might not actually be that violent).

Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten

I almost can't believe it, but tomorrow marks the end of another school year. My eleven year in the classroom to be exact, fourth in kindergarten. Each year, I begin the year with Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten and tomorrow I'll bring it to a close with Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten. Each year brings a new group of bright smiling faces, eager learners and new challenges. We learn the alphabet, how to read and write, a little math, and celebrate Johnny Appleseed's Birthday, the 100th Day of School and visit the farm. This book by Joseph Slate is the perfect end to a memorable year. So tomorrow in my classroom, instead of Miss Bindergarten, it'll be Mrs. Fields Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten. Happy Summer Vacation!

You're A Grand Old Flag

The end of the school year is one of my favorite and least favorite times of Kindergarten. I love it first and foremost because it means 8 full weeks of just being a Mommy and hanging out with my kids 24/7, but also because it's a time of reflection and growth. Completing those end of the year assessments, reviewing goals from the beginning of the year, and seeing just how much my students have grown always brings me a sense of pride and accomplishment. And no matter how excited I am to finish up a school year and send another group of budding young kiddos onto first grade, I always feel a little tug of sadness as those cuties move on.

However, with all of the excitement and upcoming relaxation also comes a mountain of paperwork, organizing and stress that only a teacher (or former teacher) can fully understand. EVERYTHING has to be assessed, recorded, organized, and put away for the next year. Add to that packing up my entire classroom so that the carpet can be torn up, tile placed on the floor and walls painted; all the while planning an end of the year party, Kindergarten graduation, and a 6 hour weekend trip for my Grandmommy's 80th birthday party....I can feel the anxiety rising. It will all be worth it one week from today, when I am lounging on the couch with a good book in my hand, while my kids snooze after a long day at the playground or the pool. Ahhh...

Okay, what does that have to do with the American Flag? Well, every year, I end school with a unit of study on American symbols. Usually my flag study is kicked off by Memorial Day (I was a little late this year). But American symbols can also be taught for Flag Day, June 14th or Independence Day, July 4th. I feel like summer is a very patriotic time of year; outdoor BBQs, corn on the cob, watermelon, and fireworks. With our study of American symbols, one of my favorite classroom activities is making a torn paper American Flag. I haven't made one with my son yet, but it will definitely be on our summer agenda as we prepare for the 4th of July.

First, you will need: one piece of white construction paper, one piece of red construction paper, one quarter piece of blue construction paper, one quarter piece of white construction paper and a glue stick (not pictured).

Next, have your child tear 7 strips of red construction paper long-ways. We had a brief discussion about the stripes on the American flag and how there are 13 for the 13 original colonies, 7 of which are red and 6 of which are white.

Please excuse my very, very dry hands. I wash them frequently and don't use lotion as much as I should. I also clean and do dishes without wearing gloves. Since we did this at school, I didn't want to use my students in a photograph without parent permission, so you get to see my very, very dry hands.

Before gluing the red stripes to the white paper, I have my students tear all 7 stripes and space them out semi-evenly on the white construction paper.

Then, take the blue quarter of construction paper and barely tear the tiniest bit around each straight-edge to keep the torn paper feel of the project. You can leave it whole, but I feel like it takes away from the raggedy edges of the rest of the flag. We had a nice little discussion about where the blue should be glued onto our flag (the top left corner) and how we could tell which corner was the top left (the hand that the index finger and thumb make an 'L' with).

The last step is taking the additional white quarter of construction paper and tearing little bits to look like stars. We discussed how there are 50 stars on the American flag for the 50 states in our country, but that we didn't need to tear 50 pieces of paper, because we would probably be gluing into summer vacation. Their instructions were to fill most of the blue space with 'stars'.

This project is so cute and it really can't be messed up, unless the stripes are glued the wrong way or something, but that rarely happens and then you just call it creative. Happy end of school! May your summer be relaxing, fun and a little patriotic.

Eating the Alphabet

For all of you children's book savants out there, Eating the Alphabet is actually a picture book by Lois Ehlert about fruits and vegetables that begin with each letter of the alphabet. Although, I do own copy of the book and have read it to my children on several occasions, this post actually has nothing to do with fruits and vegetables starting with letters of the alphabet and everything to do with a snack that involves eating the alphabet.

My children are snackers (is that a word?) by nature and would rather snack all day than be tied to three main meals. Which is a little curious because after 32 years of training, I am fully engrained in three larger meals and rarely fit in snacks between them. Maybe that's because I'm always so crazy busy that I never have time for snacking, so when I eat a meal I have to eat a larger portion because I'm famished? Who knows?

What I do know is that I'm always on the lookout for snack-foods and the healthier the better, but educational snacks are always on my radar too. So you can imagine my delight when I was looking in the snack aisle of the grocery store (for something other than goldfish) and came across Scrabble Jr. Cheez-its.

Okay, so they're not the healthiest, but with an alphabet letter printed onto each cheese cracker square, they definitely fit into the educational category. And as an added bonus you won't have to tell your kids to stop playing with their food; you'll actually encourage it! My four year old son and two year old daughter really enjoyed "playing" with this snack.

First, I poured out some of the cheesy crackers onto a paper plate.

Next, I had my son find the letters of the alphabet in order to practice sequencing the alphabet. He knows all of the letters of the alphabet and actually scored really well on his end of Pre-K testing, but still has to sing the alphabet song sometimes to get the sequence right.

Each time, he had to re-sing the song, I made him point to the letters in the song as he sang them. After he finished putting them all in order we sang and pointed to the letters again. We also sing and point to the alphabet often at the beginning of kindergarten when we are completing alphabet puzzles and putting letters tiles or foam letters in the correct alphabet sequence.

These alphabet crackers are also great for practicing spelling. There is actually a Scrabble Jr. board on the back of the Cheez-It box that could be used for children who are able to spell words. My four-year old son isn't even close to the independent spelling stage, but I did pull down a couple sight words off the pantry door so that he could practice matching the cracker letters to build the sight words.

This part of the activity not only gave him practice spelling the word, but it was also an exercise in matching lower and uppercase letters (something else we do in the beginning of kindergarten).

My four-year old son also knows many letter sounds, so I thought that next time we pull this snack out, we could try to sound out and spell simple three letter words such as 'cat' or 'dog' using beginning, middle and ending sounds. But that could very easily lead into a whole other post. Let's keep it simple for now. Munching the alphabet can be lots of fun and maybe a little learning will soak into those little brains too!