When I dropped Curious Girl off at school today, we read the board together. In her responsive classroom, there's always an interactive part to the morning message, and today's was "Name one thing you find in a city." Her classroom is heading into a unit on cities, which will culminate in Mini City, where each 4/5 classroom opens 4-5 stores and the children alternate between being shoppers and being shopkeepers. On the final of the three mini city days, it's open doors among the 3 classrooms and the little shoppers can go anywhere! Last year, CG's classroom had a jewelry shop, a pet shop, and the Lookin' Good Salon, where you could get a shave, manicure, makeover, and hair cut.
So I'm also thinking about city books for the spring. I'll check out Elswhere's great list in her comment on the prior post, and maybe push back The Chicken Chasing Queen for later in the spring. Knuffle Bunny Too, which CG is pushing for this week, does have a multicultural friendship developing (not to give too much away!). I also like Music Over Manhattan for its cityscapes; I'll check out Ezra Jack Keats' work, too, as it's set in cities.
But now, off to work, where I'm working on an essay about teaching English. Time for some writing of my own!
Whymommy's Clan
Marriage is Love
About Me
Soul of Adoption
8 comments:
How about Wow! City! by Robert Neubecker. I'm biased because my friend who is in charge of the Youth Collection at the library where I work gave me a poster from the book, and I just love the art. The book is in color, but my poster is black and white, so I bought some colored pencils and have been filling it in a little at a time. Anyway, Wow! City! starts "Izzy was a mountain girl. She lived up on top of the world. One day she came down...." The rest of the book is beautiful, dense pictures of city scenes, with captions like "Wow! Taxis!" and "Wow! Park!" Lots and lots to look at and talk about.
I used to adore the City Mouse, Country Mouse story. After searching for it on the web, this came up: http://www.yankeeweb.com/library/storytime/fables/fables_38.html. I think there's a really beautifully illustrated version out there somewhere...
Dosia--Jan Brett did a nice version.
Susan, this is such a great theme too! Did I put A Chair for my Mother in the other list? Probably. Also Jamela's Dress is in a city I think...oh have fun!
I loved all of Ezra Keats' books when I found them in the library when O was around 4. He was a fascinating man (I'd guess he was 'a friend of Dorothy's'). Apparently there is a statue of him in Brooklyn.
There's a great Australian picture book called 'Belonging' by Jeanne Baker (unless it's by Nadia Wheatley?) which has no words but is about urban life - I don't know if you'd find it there.
http://www.jeanniebaker.com/focus_web/belonging_interview.htm
Mo Willems is big in our house. Huge. Seriously, a day without one or both installments of Knuffle Bunny just isn't a day worth mentioning. The kids, of course, don't really get the wry humor; but I love, love, love the epilogue of KB2 :-) Classic.
Last night I remembered a true classic "city" book that my kids steadfastly ignore...Make Way for Ducklings.
I guess they are too hip for McCloskey.
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