When You Light a Fire of Interest, Children Will Take It From There.

Last week, I shared this website with my classes.  It is a mesmerizing real time look into an eagle nest.  The mother and father bald eagle share the responsibilities of taking care of three tiny, downy eaglets.  We compared and contrasted how humans and eagles take care of their young.  We talked about basic needs of animals including what they eat. (The father brought a large fish into the nest and the mother fed it to the eaglets.) The most incredible thing was that by the next day, several children had checked out books about eagles from the library and many had gone online at home to research eagles. They discussed things like how much the mothers and fathers weigh, how many eggs are laid at one time, how old eagles get to be, and what the chances were that the eaglets would make it to maturity.  One student brought pictures that she had printed to share with others. This was not an assignment.  It was children who were interested in learning about a specific subject and having the motivation to find out more.  I LOVE it!
http://www.wvec.com/marketplace/microsite-content/eagle-cam.html

Read What You Love!

Kids love dogs.  I love dogs, too.  I have a precocious golden retriever named Sally that I talk about all the time.  So I shared this wonderful story about a black lab named Sally who decides to get a job because she is bored when all of her family goes off to work and school each day.  She likes digging in the yard, so she thinks that she would be a good archaeologist.  She likes licking food from dishes, so she could work in a restaurant.  She ultimately decides that taking care of her family is the best job of all.  The illustrations in this book are beautiful woodcut prints that promote creative thought.  The best part is that there are other books in this series from the same author.  And kids love to read books in a series!

Flat Stanley Makes Learning About New Places So Much More Fun!

This year, I read Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown to my second graders at the beginning of school.  Stanley is a boy who is flattened by a falling bulletin board, but finds that he can travel to exotic places in a mailing envelope.  My husband travels for business, so I made him a briefcase sized Stanley to take with him.  He took photos in San Antonio, Washington D.C., Phoenix, and Oklahoma City.  Stanley went to Texas A&M for parents weekend, too.  When I went to New York City, I took Stanley on a tour of the Metropolitan Museum.  Now all the kids are checking out books not only about Stanley, but about Egyptian mummies and pyramids and other things that Stanley saw at the museum.  They literally think of him as a member of our class and many students sent him Valentines.