THIS IS HOW YOU TEACH YOUR ANIMAL STUFFIE HOW TO READ

Greetings to All

It  started because I have a Mouse friend who really likes books.  He is always getting me to find him "Just Right Books".  This  mouse is enthusiastic about reading. He has all his forest friends joining him for story hours, book clubs and book exchanges.  It is really quite unusual! 

I guess I was getting quite used to my reading mouse, because when he told me that his friends would enjoy getting more one-on- one time with Little Children, it seemed to make sense to me.  

He was of the opinion that Little Children are very good with animals and have the knowledge and kindness needed to help all types of animals to make progress in their reading skills. He also reminded me that Little Children have a good sense of humour and can make reading fun. 

As you may recall, Jayden and Ethan have a welcoming teacher who doesn't seem to mind animals (stuffies) in her classroom. She decided that because it was almost the holidays, the kids could read and teach the animals-as long as it didn't take up too much time!  

That was all I needed to get myself into to gear and match 24 animals with a "Just Right Winter Holiday Book", put both into a nice new zip-lock bag.  I arrived on the last day before the winter break with a book and an animal for each student.


  All I said to the class was that the animals wanted their help to learn to read and to hear some fine winter holiday stories.  I wasn't sure how interested the class would be in this request...I thought if they gave it a go for ten minutes I would be really impressed. Everyone knows, Grade Twos don't have that long of an attention span and they are really just learning to read themselves, so who knows if this is a good idea?  But I had promised my Mouse I would give it a go.



Well I learned that Grade Twos have a very long attention span, they know a lot about reading and they are the best darned teachers I ever met! (And I have met a lot of teachers!)






This is a picture of Jayden's table forty-five  minutes into the session.  Kids have introduced themselves to their animal, given them cuddles, reassured them that they were welcome and loved. They made word lists to help focus on some key words and vocabulary, they reviewed those pesky sight words and always used a gentle encouraging voice.  All this was accomplished without a word of direction from moi! 







They thought of creative ways to engage the reader, made up a "Reader's Response" pages and  wrote follow up stories for their animal to take home with them.   






I noticed the children were able to gently, but firmly, re-direct a distracted  little seal pup. Notice how the little beaver kit is encouraged to keep "eyeballs to print ". 


I have included these pictures to provide  you with evidence  that the animals and the Grade Twos were incredibly focussed and directed.  But what the snaps don't show are the conversations that were taking place between reader and the children.  A particularly artistic illustration sparked long grand conversations that went back and forth.  The children posed interesting open ended questions, such as..."What do you think might happen next?" , or "What does this make you think about...Have you wondered about..?"


OMG! Those Grade Twos didn't even want to go out for recess...they were too busy teaching.  So much for short attention spans! 


Thank you Madame Kim for allowing your class to pass on the Legacy of Literacy to all the animals.  

Enjoy your Winter Celebrations.
Donna, aka the Book Lady, aka Grandma

Ernie the Elf Returns to Brannenbrook

Hello Dear Readers, 
Here is an update on what has been going on at Brannenbrook this December, 2015

Jayden and Ethan have a kind and welcoming teacher this year.  She  doesn’t mind me coming in to her classroom every Tuesday morning to listen to the Grade Two class read. 
 If  all goes well and there is no special field trip, or famous entertainer scheduled for an assembly, Madame Kim lets me test- run my new stories I am writing.   I feel that this is a very good deal because the Grade Two class happens to give me excellent feedback on the Pine Forest Adventures series.
The students in this class already know about Raven’s outrageous behavior because I have been  reading  these stories to them since kindergarten. ( Unfortunately, Raven  has shown minimal  improvement in managing his impulsive behaviours  over the last few years.)

The kids always tell me straight up if the story is funny...or not funny.  This is good feedback for a writer because kid’s are the best ones to ask about things being funny. 

My weekly visits were humming along.  My story time was also well received.  That tricky story , Pine Forest Community, got rave reviews and imagine my surprise when Aramondo figured out the joke at the end of the story.  (That kid is always “on-it”!)

But things changed one  dreary Tuesday morning in December.  I tried out my newest story about Moe the Mouse wanting to have a party so that he could show everyone his new canoe.  I decided that Moe’s canoe had magical powers and could transport both animals and Little Children by land, river or air! I was curious to see if Madam Kim’s students liked the idea of a flying canoe.   The good news is the story was a hit, the bad news was that the story was shorter than I had remembered and so I had extra time to fill before the recess bell.  

Like all experienced teachers, I had a handy bag of books by my side for just such an emergency. 

But this is when things started to go downhill fast! 

The only book in my bag was Mystery Visitor at Brannenbrook.  I have no idea how that book got into my bag because I had not seen it since December 25^th, 2014. 



                   Mystery Visitor at Brannenbrook

                               December, 2014

You might remember that this book has all of the outrageous adventures of Ernie and his horrible elf friends. 

The book brought back memories of chaos and confusion for the twenty days before Christmas Eve, 2014.

The last thing I wanted to do was read this book to the Grade Two class.  What could I do? There was no way out...so I read that first line.

“It wasn’t expected, it wasn’t requested.  No one predicted it.” 

The whole class was completely focused.  They  hardly made a sound until we came to the end of the story.

Then Arabella announced in a confident and bold way that Ernie the Elf who caused so much chaos and daily confusion for twenty days before Christmas was going to be back. And I better get ready for it. 

“NOOOOO!  THAT CAN”T BE TRUE Arabella!”, I wailed.

 I had enough of Ernie’s bad behavior to last me a whole life-time.  He was not going to be back because he was not invited back and that was that, Arabella!

But Arabella was right.  Ernie  did come back.  I knew her prediction was spot on when a huge box mysteriously arrived at my front door.  The return address said something about the North Pole.  The postal code: HO HO HO HO. 

A RED BOOT AND A SKINNY LEG was poking through the wrapping paper. 

Chaos and Madness at Brannenbrook, 2015

     Jayden, Come Over, I Think The Elves are                                Back!

“This isn’t looking good.”, I groaned to myself.

I stuck my head out my front door and yelled

JAYDEN, I THINK YOU HAVE A VISITOR

Scott, Kamala and Baby Brody accompanied Jayden to his Grandma’s house.  (You might recall that we live 29 steps from each other).

We examined the mysterious package for several minutes. Finally, the whole bunch of us, had to admit

Ernie and his friends were BACK!

Scott was the first to point out that the “skinny little shelf rat” owed him a whole lot of shaving cream.  Kamala remembered that Ernie had squished toothpaste all over her bathroom sink and, of course, I had not forgotten how many piles of candy, cookies and licorice were gobbled by those hungry short creatures!

Oh the craziness that those  little elves brought to our lives at Brannenbrook Farm  last year. How will we endure another bout of Elf Madness?

Kamala, Scott, and I decided to make up a bill for Ernie.  It was the right thing to do.  
  

“There has to be consequences for poor decisions, Ernie.”

We wrote out our bill and left it by the big box.  We all hoped (except for Jayden) that Ernie would get the message that he was not exactly welcome.

Our idea was that he would see the bill and pay up, then make his way to somewhere else...anywhere else but Brannenbrook Farm, thank you very much!

If our plan worked, the problem would be solved and peace would return to the farm.

Here is what I woke up to the next morning!

All the chocolate Turtles (my favourite Christmas treat!) and  all the brownies I had made for tomorrow’s dessert were completely devoured.
 And for some strange reason, Ernie and friends got into the dog treats and taste-tested them.

Oh and just to let you know, the elves did not even mention the bill we had so carefully written up.

Instead Ernie left us  a letter advising that the dog treats were less than delicious and we should not leave them for Santa.  GRRRRR!

Things went from bad to worse with each day!  I am showing you the evidence of the nonsense that went on every night at Brannenbrook Farm so that you can understand how difficult things were for all of us at the farm.  (Well, except for Jayden, Ethan and Ari.  They seemed to think Ernie was hilarious.)

Here is what happened on Ernie’s second night of nonsense.

Now I remember from last year that Ernie and his friends liked to pretend that  they are trapeze artists, but I did not give permission for a bunch of elves to go flipping and flying through the air all night long in my living room. 

AND they rearranged the Santa Village display.  It seems Ernie thought Jayden and I had placed the reindeer’s stable in the wrong part of town.  ( I guess he would know better than the two of us  about such matters, but still!!!)

The next night I thought I had heard a lot of zoom, zooming but every time I got up to check things out, everything was quiet and peaceful...until I woke up and saw what the short little trouble makers were up to all night long.  

How had they got their little tiny mitts on those miniature motorcycles?  And the cars and Monster Trucks, the old ambulance car, the tractors and diggers!   Jayden and Ethan had not played with those toys for years. I had no idea elves could search out and rescue discarded toys that were not even stored in my house!

But I would soon find out that this Elf seemed to know where all the good toys were tucked  away.  Like those Lincoln Logs that Ethan got last Christmas.   Ernie remembers everything.  He even remembered that Ethan’s Nana had found the most incredible fire truck at a second hand store in Vancouver and carried it home on the ferry and gave it to Ethan one Christmas when he was only three years old. They had a blast building a cabin and creating a tiny village.

 On the fourth night I thought I heard weird sounds.

The morning we woke up to toilet paper everywhere. This made us  all laugh.  You have to admit that they probably had heaps of fun.

Well the truth is we are getting used to our elf friends.  Maybe they aren’t as troublesome as we thought.  
On Christmas Eve they worked hard to make cookies for Santa.  



The usual four bales of hay went missing, along with a bag of oats. You have to give it to the tiny little creatures...they have the strength of super-man and they always look after Santa and the reindeer on Christmas Eve. 

This year we didn’t really mind Ernie and his Elf friends visiting.  We  were reminded that there are a lot of fun things to do during the dark December nights.  Old toys can be a lot of fun and it is important to think about  feeding Santa's hungry reindeer on Christmas Eve.

Arabella, you predicted Ernie would be back...You might consider inviting him to your house next Christmas? We could use a break!Oh and I have an idea for the Grade Two class.  How about writing up a report card for Ernie and the Elves.  This might help them improve their manners and be more socially responsible. 
That way, Arabella’s family won’t have a ton of Christmas candy disappear!

Tune in next year, same time and I will let you know how it all goes.

Love and kindness to all from Donna, Jayden, Ethan, Arianna, and Brody