Classroom Applications

Circle Dogs

Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes is a great way to introduce students to different shapes. This book would be a beneficial read-aloud during a mathematics classroom because it shows various basic shapes. This book allows children to see real-world objects that are different shapes. While reading the book, I would have students point out the different shapes they see. After reading this book and discussing the shapes from the book, the teacher could begin a discussion about other real-world shapes students can think of. The students and teacher can create a list of examples where shapes are seen in the real world, where they draw and write the object. This book gives examples such as, a square house, circle dogs, circle dog food bowl, triangles, and rectangles. After discussing these real-world objects with the students, I would pass out different sized shapes to each student and have them create something using the shapes. This would allow them to make a real-world object with the shapes to see that shapes are everywhere. This activity would appeal to diverse types of learners because there is auditory discussions, visual pictures of shapes, and kinesthetic learning by making something with the shapes. I would probably incorporate another book the next day that has various shapes in it to show students that you see shapes in everyday life. This would allow students to learn about shapes in the mathematics classroom using a trade book, which is very beneficial. I think students would enjoy listening or reading this book because it is interesting and about animals, which many children love.

Old Bear

Old Bear by Kevin Henkes is another great trade book to use in the classroom. This book discusses and illustrates the different seasons throughout the year. At the beginning of the story, the bear is about to hibernate during winter, and he dreams of the different seasons in the order they come. When the bear is beginning to go to sleep it is winter and the picture shows snow and ice covering the ground and trees. Then the bear dreams of spring where there are purple, pink, yellow, and blue flowers and butterflies in the green picture of the outdoors. Next the bear dreams about summer and the illustration shows the sun shining brightly, butterflies flying around, and a rain cloud that looks like it could let loose at any moment. The last season bear dreams about is autumn, where the illustration is filled with different birds, fish, and falling leaves in different yellows, oranges, reds, and browns. When the bear finally wakes up, he notices the beautiful spring colors and flowers. This book does a great job of describing what students would see during the different seasons throughout the year. The illustrations show the rich descriptions and visualizations of the different seasons. This would be a great book to read to students to introduce learning about the different seasons. While and after reading, I would ask students what they see, experience, and like to do during the different seasons. As a whole class, the students can compare and contrast what they see during the seasons compared to what bear sees in Old Bear. This book and discussion would allow students to create different pictures of the seasons and what they see. This would be a great way to get students to delve deeper into learning about the seasons and using their senses to describe what the seasons would look like using art rather than words. I think seasons would be a great topic to continue throughout the year because the teacher can take the students on walks around the school at different times, so they can observe the different seasons and changes using their senses. Then the students could write about their findings in a writing journal, where they write about what they saw, how it differed from what they thought it would, and how they felt. Another great topic that this book brings up is bears and other animals. I found this worksheet on Harper Collins website, http://files.harpercollins.com/PDF/ActivitiesGuides/0061552062.pdf, that discusses great topics about bears and other animals. I would love to have a discussion with students about bears and their habitats. This would open up a great inquiry project for students to research an animal they are interested in and find out information about that animal and it's habitat. The students could research different animals by using various fictional and non-fictional trade books, the Internet, and other resources. The students could present their final findings in a way that was meaningful to them including a poster, paper, using technology, etc.

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes is another great book that teachers can incorporate into the classroom learning. This book focuses on the emotions of the main character Chrysanthemum as she thinks about her name. She loves her name at first, and then on the first day of school, Chrysanthemum gets made fun of because her name is too long and she is named after a flower. Chrysanthemum continues to receive teasing from her classmates for a while until the art teacher Mrs. Twinkle makes her feel better by discussing that she is named after a flower and her name is long as well. I think this book brings up natural fears that students might have about coming to school on the first day. Many students are nervous about going to school for various reasons including getting bullied, not having friends, etc. This book addresses the different feelings students feel when they are teased and bullied by other classmates. As a teacher, I would first discuss how Chrysanthemum felt when she was being teased and how you can tell those were her feelings (looking at the pictures). Then I would ask students how they would feel if their classmates made fun of their name or something about them. This would be a great way to bring up the topic that every student is unique and different, and each student deserves to be respected. I think this would be a great way to talk about classroom rules and how students should treat one another. Classroom rules are important to establish on the first couple days of school with students because they feel more responsible to follow the rules they created. I would also read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes when discussing different classroom rules because Lilly breaks the rules in her classroom and has to deal with the punishment. Lilly is disrespecting her teacher, so this brings up different rules that can be created of how to treat the teacher and other classmates along with being respectful. 

The book Chrysanthemum could also be integrated into a mathematics lesson. The students could start off by counting how many letters are in Chrysanthemum's name. The teacher could write this on the board and tell students that they are going to be counting the letters in their name. After counting their own name, the students would count how many letters are in the other students' names in their group. Then as a small group, the students would write down how many letters are in each name and add up the total group's letters. While researching different activities that could go along with this book, I found an activity from ProTeacher Collection, http://www.proteacher.org/org/a/47306_Chrysanthemum.html, that was very similar and extended my idea. The extension was to graph the number of letters in each name and create a class graph. After graphing the number of letters in each name, the students would count the total number of letters from the graph using unifix cubes. Each student would count the number of letters in their name using unifix cubes and then work with their groups to make sticks of ten unifix cubes combining group members' names. This allows the students to practice counting by tens. I think this is a great idea because it allows students to practice counting using manipulatives, which is essential for younger students. The students can also line up from shortest to longest names, which would help them with organizing numbers and how they increase chronologically. This would also allow students to see that each name is different and unique because many names will be different lengths.