Novel study - We have been reading Bud, Not Buddy as a class for the past month. The kids love the story, but we are all a bit tired of reading from the book every day. Last week, as we approach the end of the book, we got to the part **SPOILER ALERT** where Bud is taken in by a group of musicians, loves hearing their music, gets a musician name (Sleepy La Bone), and finds out that Mr. C is actually his grandfather. Well, on a whim, I asked the students to come up with their own musician name and we shared them on Thursday. It was so much fun, and the kids gave me a name - Turbo Turner, to which I did the robot dance. Yes, it was totally nerdy.
That night I realized that the students did not know what big band music of the 1930s sounded like (the type the band in the book plays, as it is set in the '30s). The next day I brought in a few samples for the students. Wow, it was pretty awesome to watch them diggin' the tunes! I had them listen to the way the instruments spoke (which was described in the text). I am so glad that I tried this out! I will definitely do this type of thing in the future. Kids just love music!
I also introduced the students to an e.e. cummings poem in light of the poetry focus lessons. the poem is:
1(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
ines
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
ines
The students were baffled that this could be a poem because it looked so weird. Well, we examined it and I showed them the letters written horizontally all smooshed together: l(aleaffalls)oneliness. It means, a leaf falls in loneliness. The students were actually interested in the information I was giving them!
All in all, Friday was an awesome day in Reading and I realized that I am going to have to insert various "non-curriculum" tidbits into my lessons. I noticed that they were more engaged. Perhaps it was my excitement, or just that we strayed from the usual format that day. What ever the case may be, I hope to have this happen more and more in the classroom.
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