Educator's Guide

The Dino-Sports Series

Click on image for publisher's informationAuthor: Lisa Wheeler

Illustrator: Barry Gott

Genre: Picture books

Publisher: Carolrhoda Books

Titles included in guide: Dino-Soccer - ISBN: 9780761367895, Dino-Hockey - ISBN: 9780822561910, Dino-Basketball - ISBN: 9780761363934, Dino-Football - ISBN: 9780761363941, Dino-Baseball - ISBN: 9780761344292, Dino-Wrestling - ISBN: 9781467702126

 Click here to download the Common Core State Standards aligned Discussion & Project Guide created for grades K-3.

Overview: Play-by-play sports action series of picture books for 4-8 year olds featuring teams of Carnivorous dinosaurs against plant-eating dinos (Good Reads).

Travels with Charlie: Down South

Click on image for publisher's informationAuthor: Miles Backer

Illustrator: Chuck Nitzberg

Genre: Non-fiction Picture book

Publisher: Blue Apple Books

ISBN: 978-1-60905-353-6

Click here to download the Common Core State Standards aligned Discussion & Project Guide created for ages 6 to 9.

Overview: Part travelogue, part I SPY, part Where’s…Charlie!


Find a pirate museum. Look for Key West. Then find Miami where the beach is the best!
Is he on a Bourbon Street balcony? Riding the Ferris wheel on Atlantic City’s Steel Pier? Hiding out in a Nevada ghost town?

Buddy: The Story of Buddy Holly

Click on image to purchase the book.Author: Anne Bustard

Illustrator: Kurt Cyrus

Genre: Non-fiction Picture book

Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

ISBN: 0689866678

Click here to download the Common Core State Standards aligned Discussion & Project Guide created for ages 5 to 9.

Overview: A time or two ago, out West Texas way, a boy named Charles Hardin Holley was born. He was named after his granddaddy Charles and his granddaddy Hardin. But his mama called him Buddy.

That Buddy could shoot marbles with the best, hit homers in the red dirt, and pelt cans with his slingshot. But come sixth grade, when Buddy met up with a guitar, he never let it go. And later, when Buddy heard a new sound--part country, part gospel, and part blues, he got fired up.

It was the birth of rock 'n' roll.

Wooby & Peep: The Story of an Unlikely Friendship

Author: Cynthea Liu

Illustrator: Mary Peterson

Genre: Picture Book

Publisher: Sterling Publishing

ISBN: 9781402796449

Click here to download the Common Core State Standards aligned Discussion & Project Guide and Reader's Theatre created for ages 4 to 8.

Overview: Opposites attract and become fast friends in this quirky, funny picture book.

Wooby lives in a nice, quiet neighborhood where everyone minds his own business. And he likes it that way. Then noisy, energetic Peep moves next door with her banging and smashing and crashing. She even gives a “wild” PARTY! At first, shy Wooby is beside himself—until he realizes that he and Peep have more in common than he ever imagined. Hilarious comic-book panels throughout add fun and joy to this unique story.

Survival Colony 9 (YA)

Click on image to purchase bookAuthor: Joshua David Bellin

Genre: YA

Publisher: Margaret K. Elderry Books

ISBN: 978-1-4814-0354-2

Click here to download the Common Core State Standards aligned Discussion & Project guide create for ages 14 & up.

Overview: Querry Genn is in trouble. He can’t remember anything before the last six months. And Querry needs to remember. Otherwise he is dead weight to the other members of Survival Colony 9, one of the groups formed after a brutal war ravaged the earth. And now the Skaldi have come to scavenge what is left of humanity. No one knows what the Skaldi are, or why they are here, just that they impersonate humans, taking their form before shedding the corpse like a skin.


In a futuristic landscape ravaged by war, a colony’s hopes for survival hinge on one teenage boy.

 

Devin Rhodes is Dead (YA)

Click on image for publisher's information. Author: Jennifer Wolf Kam

Genre: YA

Publisher: Charlesbridge

ISBN: 978-1-934133-59-0

Awards: Winner of the NAESP Chapter Book Award 

Click here to download the Common Core State Standards aligned Discussion & Writing Prompt guide create for Grades 6 to 12.

Overview: High school freshman Cass is conflicted about her love/hate relationship with her best friend, Devin, and about her death. How did Devin's body end up at the bottom of Woodacre Ravine? Was Cass really responsible? Is concealing the truth haunting Cass or is it the ghost-like spirit of her dead friend?

Told in alternating before-and-after chapters, Cass details life leading up to the mysterious events that led to Devin’s “wrongful death.” The turbulent adolescent changes that challenge Cass and Devin’s friendship will seem familiar and real to middle-grade and young-adult readers. The mystery about what happened to Devin and if she is really reaching out from beyond the grave will have readers on the edge of their seats.

A Kiss Means I Love You (Concept Picture Book)

Click on image for publisher's information.Author: Kathryn Madeline Allen

Photographer: Eric Futran

Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company

ISBN: 978-0-8075-4186-9

Awards: 2013 Baker's Dozen: The Best Children's Books for Family Literacy, Pennsylvania Center for the Book; 2013 Gradiva Award for Best Children's Books Finalist; 2013 Texas 2 x 2 Reading List; A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book 2013 - Picture Books; Best Books for Babies 2013

Click to download the Common Core State Standards Discussion and Activity Guide created for Ages 2-6/Grades PreK-1

Overview: A Kiss Means I Love You is charming a book that helps you teach children the meanings of facial expressions and gestures. Children will wave, clap, and cheer along with you as you read the light, rhyming verse paired with delightful photos of young children.

 

Odette's Secrets (Speculative Non-Fiction)

Click here for publisher's informationAuthor: Maryann McDonald

Genre: Middle grade, Speculative Non-Fiction

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's Books

ISBN: 978-1-59990-750-5      

Awards: Texas Bluebonnet Award Nominee

Click to download the Common Core State Standards Aligned Educator's Guide created for Grades 4-7

Overview: Today’s children are told never to keep secrets. But what if your life depends on it? What if you learn to lie so well that you start to forget who you really are? And if that happens, how will you find your true self again?

Odette Meyers was a Jewish child who survived WWII in France by hiding in plain sight. Many of the 84% of Jewish children saved in that country lived through the war in this way. Told in first person in free verse in Odette’s childhood voice, this historical novel “is a gentle introduction to a dark period (Maryann Macdonald).”

 

Odette is a young Jewish girl living in Paris during a dangerous time. The Nazis have invaded the city, and every day brings new threats.

After Odette's father enlists in the French army and her mother joins the Resistance, Odette is sent to the countryside until it is safe to return. On the surface, she leads the life of a regular girl--going to school, doing chores, and even attending Catholic Mass with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets about the life she left behind and her true identity.

Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyers--and written in moving free-verse poetry--this is the story of courage, of determination to survive, and of a young girl forced to hide in plain sight. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/odettes-secrets-9781599907505/#sthash.5eqI9PAL.dpuf
Odette is a young Jewish girl living in Paris during a dangerous time. The Nazis have invaded the city, and every day brings new threats.

After Odette's father enlists in the French army and her mother joins the Resistance, Odette is sent to the countryside until it is safe to return. On the surface, she leads the life of a regular girl--going to school, doing chores, and even attending Catholic Mass with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets about the life she left behind and her true identity.

Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyers--and written in moving free-verse poetry--this is the story of courage, of determination to survive, and of a young girl forced to hide in plain sight. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/odettes-secrets-9781599907505/#sthash.5eqI9PAL.dpuf
Odette is a young Jewish girl living in Paris during a dangerous time. The Nazis have invaded the city, and every day brings new threats.

After Odette's father enlists in the French army and her mother joins the Resistance, Odette is sent to the countryside until it is safe to return. On the surface, she leads the life of a regular girl--going to school, doing chores, and even attending Catholic Mass with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets about the life she left behind and her true identity.

Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyers--and written in moving free-verse poetry--this is the story of courage, of determination to survive, and of a young girl forced to hide in plain sight. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/odettes-secrets-9781599907505/#sthash.5eqI9PAL.dpuf
Odette is a young Jewish girl living in Paris during a dangerous time. The Nazis have invaded the city, and every day brings new threats.

After Odette's father enlists in the French army and her mother joins the Resistance, Odette is sent to the countryside until it is safe to return. On the surface, she leads the life of a regular girl--going to school, doing chores, and even attending Catholic Mass with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets about the life she left behind and her true identity.

Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyers--and written in moving free-verse poetry--this is the story of courage, of determination to survive, and of a young girl forced to hide in plain sight. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/odettes-secrets-9781599907505/#sthash.5eqI9PAL.dpuf
Odette is a young Jewish girl living in Paris during a dangerous time. The Nazis have invaded the city, and every day brings new threats.

After Odette's father enlists in the French army and her mother joins the Resistance, Odette is sent to the countryside until it is safe to return. On the surface, she leads the life of a regular girl--going to school, doing chores, and even attending Catholic Mass with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets about the life she left behind and her true identity.

Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyers--and written in moving free-verse poetry--this is the story of courage, of determination to survive, and of a young girl forced to hide in plain sight. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/odettes-secrets-9781599907505/#sthash.5eqI9PAL.dpuf
Odette is a young Jewish girl living in Paris during a dangerous time. The Nazis have invaded the city, and every day brings new threats.

After Odette's father enlists in the French army and her mother joins the Resistance, Odette is sent to the countryside until it is safe to return. On the surface, she leads the life of a regular girl--going to school, doing chores, and even attending Catholic Mass with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets about the life she left behind and her true identity.

Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyers--and written in moving free-verse poetry--this is the story of courage, of determination to survive, and of a young girl forced to hide in plain sight. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/odettes-secrets-9781599907505/#sthash.5eqI9PAL.dpuf

Plastic Ahoy: Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Non-fiction)

Click on image to access Educator's Guide.

Click on image to access Educator's Guide.

Author: Patricia Newman

Photographer: Annie Crawley

Genre: Science, Non-fiction

Publisher: Lerner Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-4677-1283-5

Click to download the Next Generation Science and Common Core Standards Aligned Educator's Guide created for Grades 3-6

Overview: Plastic: it's used to make everything from drink bottles and bags to toys and toothbrushes. But what happens when it ends up where it doesn't belong—like in the Pacific Ocean? How does it affect ocean life? Is it dangerous? And exactly how much is out there? 

A team of researchers went on a scientific expedition to find out. They explored the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where millions of pieces of plastic have collected. The plastic has drifted there from rivers, beaches, and ocean traffic all over the world. Most of it has broken down into tiny pieces the size of confetti.

For nearly three weeks at sea, researchers gathered bits of plastic and ocean organisms. These samples helped them learn more about the effects of plastic in the ocean. Follow along on the expedition to find out how scientists studied the Garbage Patch—and what alarming discoveries they made. (Lerner Books)

Under the Freedom Tree - A Remarkable Story

The tale of Under the Freedom Tree is a moving historical account of bravery and tenacity and inner conviction.  Susan VanHecke’s beautifully written account of three runaway slaves who became contraband of war is the type of story that stays with a reader long after the final page is turned. And, illustrator London Ladd’s heartfelt renditions of tragedy and triumph breathe life into the bold acts that ultimately played convincing roles in Lincoln’s decision to craft the Emancipation Proclamation. Folks, it was and is a true honor to create a Discussion and Activity Guide for this incredible story. It’s a keeper, for certain.

Mary_Smith_Peake.jpg

Mary Smith Peake - my hero!!!!!There are number of critical players in Under the Freedom Tree, people who changed history because of their beliefs in civil rights for all. For instance, there are Frank Baker, James Townsend, and Shepard Mallory – the three runaway slaves who risked their lives to find asylum at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Then, there’s General Benjamin Butler of the Union Army who deemed these men as ‘chattel’ and refused to return them to Confederate Army. And my most favorite person in the story – one that I’ve come to love – is Mary Smith Peake, the heroic teacher who courageously taught the children of the Slabtown community to read under the shade of a broad-limbed Live Oak – The Freedom Tree.

The guide is crafted in such a way that students will be able to retell this poignant story time and time again. It is my hope that, through the writing, matching, and historical sequencing activities offered in the guide, this remarkable recounting of the courageous individuals introduced in Under the Freedom Tree are celebrated forever.

Update

on 2014-11-26 12:24 by Debbie Gonzales

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Note! The guide created for UNDER THE FREEDOM TREE has been included as a part of a review for the School Library Journal's Booktalks to Go: History in Picture Books. This amazing book is keeping some great company with several other fantastic titles. Now that's something to be thankful for, isn't it?

A Book Guide for the Ages: Lara's Gift

Three words sum up the experience of creating a CCSS annotated book guide for the amazing novel Lara’s Gift – daring, daunting, and delightful.

Daring because the story is so well-written. The characters breathe as if they are living. The setting is so realistic, while working, I swore my fingers were frost-bitten by the Russian winter wind. Themes that I care about – family, integrity, honor, and truth – are as tightly interwoven as a horse blanket throughout the novel. All of this and those dogs! Those mesmerizing and  magical borzois! Honestly, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do the story justice. It’s a timeless tale, one that I predict will become a classic. Mark my words. You just wait and see.

Daunting because Lara’s Gift is incredibly rich with fascinating historical content with which to focus upon. Being that my guides are project-based rather than being heavily didactic, I wondered where to begin. Like a trail guide leading a band of hikers through a wooded path, I create book guides with the intention of highlighting key literary aspects and then lead the reader to interpret the issues presented in their own way. Through projects and discussion, I desired to create a book guide to match the majesty of Lara’s Gift, which is one tall order, for certain.

Delightful because we did it. That’s right. We. Author Annemarie O’Brien is the consummate professional with an incredible eye to detail and purpose. It’s no wonder Lara’s Gift is such a fantastic story. Together we created something that both of us can be proud of. I brought my decades of educational experience to the project. She brought an elevated vision of excellence which helped make the book guide better than ever!

I encourage you first to get your own copy of Lara’s Gift and then peruse through the Common Core State Standards aligned activities and lessons offered in the teacher guide. Write poetry. Complete a crossword puzzle with Russian words. Listen to the Russian bells. Make a Fabergé egg. And, fall in love with a brave young Russian girl and her beloved borzoi.

In closing, I’d like to ask you to please comment and share this post on some social media platform to win a copy of Lara’s Gift. For every share or comment, your name will be entered into the pot. Winners will be contacted via email.

 For more opportunities to win a copy of Lara’s Gift and/or a manuscript critique by Deborah Halverson from Dear Editor, check out these internet sites on these dates: Fiction Notes (7/31); Kissing the Earth, Quirk and Quill, or Simple Saturday (8/1); Coffee with a Canine, Dog Reads, or World Reads (8/5); Dear Editor (8/6); Word Spelunking (8/7); Random Acts of Reading (8/8); The Hiding Spot (8/9); and Beth Fish Reads (8/13).

 For more information about Lara’s Gift, check out:

www.AnnemarieOBrienAuthor.com

 For a Teacher’s Guide:

http://annemarieobrienauthor.com/contact/

 To view the Book Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whcIDqxCq9g

 

Update! Chained Wins SCBWI Crystal Kite Award!

The guide I made for Lynne Kelly's amazing CHAINED  was such fun to make - as they all are in their own special way. Being that this book was extraordinarily rich with theme and culture, the ideas for this guide can spilling out of me. I wanted to create something that could easily be adapted into a classroom setting, something that met CCSS standards in a creative way. By George, I think I nailed it!

The guide includes academic activities in the study of point of view, summary, journaling, and group discussion. And, for a little of fun and flair, I added several arts and crafts activities, all of which are super inexpensive and easy to incorporate as a part of busy day at school. 

 For your viewing pleasure, I have moderately wrapped my brain around the basics of making a YouTube video featuring the crafts included in the guide. Folks, with the book CHAINED in hand, these projects will make perfect sense. 

So, buy the book. Read it. Then go and grab some scissors and glue and have some Simple Saturday-like fun!

I hope you enjoy yourselves with the projects half as much as I did making them. 

Kick Up Yer Heels

To make a vibrant guide I first need a lively, multi-sensory, energetic story filled with heart and soul. And my buddy Bethany Hegedus pulled it off without a hitch. She dun good, I tell ya. Real good.

Her Truth with a Capital T is rich, rich, RICH with, as IndieBound says, "...grace and humor and a heaping helping of little-known facts, Bethany Hegedus incorporates the passions of the North and the South and bridges the past and the present in this story about one summer in the life of a sassy Southern girl and her trumpet-playing adopted Northern cousin." How 'bout that?

In regards to making the guide, Bethany gave me a ton of scrumptious literary stuff to work with. In addition to in-depth discussion questions and those ever-important TEKS annotations I created quilt codes, metaphor madness, a Reader's Theatre, and even a recipe for deeee-licious blackberry cobbler. Yum. Yum. Click HERE to get a look at the the guide, if you'd like.

But, for me, the best part are the YouTube video clip selections - in particular The Best Bluegrass Clogging Video Ever Made. Boyeeee! I love this video!! I challenge you to watch it without letting a smile stretch across your face. Can't be done.

Check out the jaunty tilt of the banjo picker's hat, will you? How the the old guy's elbow pumps? Pap Paw snoozing on the settee? And the darling dimpled girl with the dashing smile? Got to love it! In my mind, this video captures the multi-generational heel-kicking love of cultural diversity Bethany so aptly celebrates in her books and in her life.

Think I'll watch it again.