Get Thinking with Picture Books!

presented by Cheryl Dinnin, Thames Valley DSB

at O.L.A. Super Conference 2004, Toronto

Reading aloud can excite children and interest them in authors, books and reading more than you might think. When you choose a book to read aloud, choose one that suits the grade's level of understanding, is familiar to you so you can read it with passion and with voice changes and so that you know the best times to stop for a prediction or a comment from the audience.

Sometimes, you find a picture book that doesn't connect with any unit of study or any classroom's current theme but you have to read it aloud to someone because it has grabbed you. In this case, invite a class to the library and read for the sheer pleasure it brings. Some of these books are listed in my bibliography for you to try.

If your time is short, it will save time if you do the work of creating sheets of ideas you want students to sort, sequence, organize, etc. so that they only have to cut and paste the ready-made pieces onto web or chart templates. If time is not an issue, have the students do the writing themselves.

Many of the ideas I have listed here can be done independently, in groups, or cooperatively as a class. With younger students, the cooperative route is the one to take, using lots of charts to record findings and ideas.

If you can read a wonderful picture book aloud to a class and, at the same time, involve the students in an activity that requires thinking skills, you have met two important objectives. Here is a list of some kinds of thinking (and other) activities to use with elementary school students.

1. Comparing Books and Ideas

Use Venn diagrams often with both picture books and research work with students. A Venn diagram is an excellent tool for determining the level of understanding of a topic or theme. John Venn was a logician who used diagrams to sort information. Venn diagrams show similarities and differences in two or more things

(a) Model the use of a Venn diagram by having the students compare you and the classroom teacher (stress kindness!) while you scribe the ideas in jot notes on the blackboard or chart paper. Require students to identify a characteristic or idea about the teacher(s) and tell where on the diagram to record the jot note

(b) For younger students, compare two books that are alike in many respects

e.g., Joseph Had a Little Overcoat & Something from Nothing

e.g., Geraldine's Baby Brother & Julius, the Baby of the World

(c) For older students, or those with experience doing this kind of comparison, try books whose similarities aren't as obvious at first glance

e.g., Olivia & Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse

e.g., Goldie and the Three Bears & Chester's Way

where you can focus the students on the traits of the main characters

(d) Compare two Blue Spruce books cooperatively after reading them

e.g., Caribou Song & What the Animals Were Waiting For

(e) For a more difficult activity, gather all the versions you can find of Clement Moore's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and put the students into small groups (3-
4 depending on the number of versions available), each group having three different versions of the poem. Make and distribute a 3-way Venn diagram paper on which to record, in jot notes, their ideas and observations of the three books. All versions will have the same words but the illustrations, covers, size, etc. will vary.

(f) A follow-up activity to the above would be to gather all the versions of the Cinderella story for students to complete another 3-way Venn diagram about. Here, the words will vary as well as the formats, illustrations, adherence to Charles Perrault's original story, etc.

2. Sequencing Ideas and Events

Sequencing is a skill that students will need to learn and use many times over, during their elementary school years and it's a skill that is transferrable across many subjects. Whether it is sequencing letters of the alphabet, sequencing numbers or sequencing events into a timeline, the acquiring of the skill is as important as the strategy of trying and testing ideas to see if they make sense. Use stories whose events are clearly defined and not "fuzzy".

(a) Create a paper chart with 6 or 9 (or more) main events from the story typed, one per box, typed in a large font. Ask the students to cut the event boxes apart and lay them out on the table in the sequence in which they happened in the story. Students should read all the events first, try to sequence the first and second events, reading them all over as they add another event, to make sure this retelling of the story makes sense. When they have found a sequence that makes sense, they need to glue them in sequence on a strip of chart paper to create the story's timeline. Students need to be taught to look for words such as then, later, after, etc. as clues to the sequence.

e.g., Prisicilla and Rosy

e.g., Cecil's Garden

3. Webbing Ideas

Graphic organizers of ideas are extremely useful tools. Students need to be taught a number of graphic organizers and their purposes so that they can determine when to use each kind. Webbing the main ideas of a story can demonstrate understanding and the ability to make connections.

(a) Create a web template based on a specific book, with several "layers" of ideas coming rom the main theme of the book, in the centre. Make a chart or matrix with the main characters, main ideas, important events from the book. Ask the students to cut apart the ideas from the chart and paste them onto the web template, beginning with the identification of the story's main idea or theme and working the web outward with the ideas given to them. Again, laying the ideas onto the web and reading them to see if they make sense is a requirement to be met before doing any gluing. Students should be able to explain their thinking, giving the reasons for placing the ideas where they did.

e.g., Priscilla and Rosy

(b) Give students a chart with the names of the characters from a book. Ask the students to cut apart the names and lay them out on a blank sheet of paper in such a way that lines can be drawn to connect any two characters who have a connection in the story. Students should record on the line itself what the connection is between the two characters joined. For example, two characters may be connected because they are best friends, two may be connected because one is the other's dog, etc.

e.g., Chrysanthemum

4. Organizers for Consequences

Students need to know and understand that there are consequences for their actions.

(a) Reading picture books that demonstrate this idea is useful as a preamble to the use of another kind of graphic organizer: 'That's Good...That's Bad'.

e.g., That's Good! That's Bad!

e.g., Fortunately

(b) Model the use of the 'That's Good...That's Bad' organizer in the Information Power Pack books (Koechlin and Zwaan) on the blackboard, using a topic such as "daily homework". You and the classroom teacher can both contribute to the completion of the sample organizer during this modeling and/or ask for more ideas from the students. Write "Daily Homework" in the middle of the organizer, then work out from the middle with a good consequence of daily homework, then a good consequence from that one and a bad consequence from the last good one, etc.

(c) Ask students to complete a 'That's Good...That's Bad' organizer on a topic related to one in a picture book. This demonstrates that the students can think logically through an idea, sort their ideas, extend their thinking, think 'outside the box'.

5. Problem Solving

Students are usually taught a problem-solving model in their kindergarten years. Some picture books include a clearly-defined problem for which many possible solutions can be identified.

(a) Teach the problem-solving model first, using a well-known story or fairy tale.

Identify the problem / What is the problem?

Identify possible solutions / What can ___ do to fix the problem?

Identify the consequences of each solution. / What would happen if ___ did this? Or this? Or this?

Decide which solution is the best. / Which solution should ___ choose?

Check back in the book to see what the main character did to solve the problem and to see if any of the solutions suggested was the one used in the story.

(b) Make a problem-solving template on a sheet of paper for individual use or on chart paper for cooperative work. Leave the spaces empty for the recording of the answers to the questions of the model above.

e.g., Crickwing

e.g., When Pigasso Met Mootisse

6. Distinguishing Fact from Fiction and Fact from Opinion

Students will need to understand how to differentiate between fact and fiction or fact and opinion before they can begin research activities. Picture books can be used as teaching tools for these skills with young students.

(a) Teach the students that facts are ideas that are true and that can be proven. As you read, ask the students to identify ideas in the story that are facts - that we can prove by finding evidence in the encyclopedia or through a search engine. If you need to do so, find the evidence to prove the facts. Record these cooperatively on chart paper. Add to the list some other ideas of your own, that are opinions or fictional ideas from the story. Ask the students to explain the difference between the opinions you added and the facts they gave you.

e.g., Franklin stories

Real turtles...have shells, eat flies, can swim.

Fictional turtles like Franklin...drag their shells behind them by a rope, eat fly pie, play hide-and-go-seek.

(b) Read a selection of picture books about children from a foreign country. Prepare a worksheet with a list of facts about the foreign country and the culture of its people from the story as well as several opinions or fictional statements. Have the

students place a checkmark beside each statement that is a fact about the culture or country of the main character.

e.g., The Sandwich (Italy)

e.g., Angel Child, Dragon Child (Vietnam)

e.g., From Far Away (Lebanon)

e.g., Chin Chiang and the Dragon's Dance (China)

7. Character Studies

To prepare for assignments involving book reports and reviews, it is important to teach students how to organize their thinking about characters in a story. The first few times such a study is done should be cooperative, on chart paper or the blackboard until the students get the idea.

(a) Make a matrix with the names of the main characters across the top row and three character traits in the left column. Ask the students to give an example from the story where a character demonstrates a listed character trait. Record it in the correct cell on the matrix.

e.g., Chrysanthemum

Characters >>>

-------------------------

Traits	Chrysanthemum	Victoria	Mrs. Twinkle
proud	She was glad to have her long name and wrote it many different ways.
mean	She bullied Chrysanthemum in the playground and made fun of her in the classroom
helpful	She made Chrysanthemum feel good when she told the class her name was long, too

8. Senses Charts

Encourage young students to really listen to the words of the picture books you read by focusing their attention on the description. Ask them to listen for words or phrases that appeal to the senses.

(a) Make a 5-column chart on chart paper, labeling the columns with the five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. Students listen for description that could be recorded on the chart, identifying the column where it should be written.

e.g., No Two Snowflakes

e.g., Four Seasons for Toby

SEEING	HEARING	SMELLING	TASTING	TOUCHING
children dressed in bright jackets	cardinal singing	white snowdrops	pumpkin	touching the snow
sun shining on snow	geese honking	juicy berries
bees buzzing	tender grass shoots
At the end of the story, identify which sense column(s) had the most recorded descriptions and possible reasons for that pattern.

(b) Try the same activity with another story and compare the description patterns of the two books. Some authors try to paint a picture for the reader to "see" while others write to appeal to all senses. Display the two charts side by side to make comparisons such as, "The first book has a lot in the 'seeing' column and not very much in the 'tasting' column. The second book has the same number of things in each column."

9. Cooperative Research

The students need to see how you check with the appropriate resources to find out more about the subject of your book.

(a) While reading a picture book with factual information, model for the students how to use specific reference books (What encyclopedia volume would give us information about 'leaf-cutter ants'?) to find out more about the subject. Show the students where the encyclopedia set is located and how to find the volume you want, find the article and read the relevant parts aloud.

e.g., Crickwing

(b) Before you read one of many new picture books about artists and their paintings, take the students to the non–fiction shelf in the 700s and show them the factual books about the artists - their biographies - as well as books about their paintings. Show the students some paintings typical of the artist(s) in the picture book. See if they can recognize the style in the picture book. Read the encyclopedia articles about Picasso and Matisse before reading When Pigasso Met Mootisse to explain to even young students that the meeting actually took place between the two artists but a little differently than described in the story.

e.g., The Magical Garden of Claude Monet [more in the series]

e.g., Linnea in Monet's Garden

e.g., Katie and the Sunflowers [more in the series]

10. Examining the Texts

The texts of picture books are rich with wonderful descriptive words which students can use in their own writing. Remind them that reading not only improves reading but also writing skills.

(a) Make lists of poetic phrases, descriptive verbs, adjectives with nouns, etc. Encourage the use of these words and phrases in their own classroom writing.

e.g., It's Raining, It's Pouring for descriptive verbs

e.g., Crickwing for adjectives with nouns

e.g., No Two Snowflakes for poetic language

(b) Teach the students some terms to describe picture book text: poetic, rhyming, prose, repetitive. Ask them to identify the kind of language in the text you read aloud.

(c) Running the Blue Spruce Awards program is a natural setting for the discussion of the texts of the 10 nominated books each year when you read them aloud.

11. Examining the Illustrations

Discuss that picture books, in many cases, are the cooperative work of two people: the author and the illustrator.

(a) As you read, draw the students' attention to the colour choices used in the book: the end papers, the colour palette used in the illustrations, the media used for the illustrations. Look at the borders or frames around the illustrations, the bands across the top and bottom of the pages, the story told inside these bands (e.g., Jan Brett books), the details (or lack of details) in the illustrations, any visual patterns.

(b) Study several books by one author focusing on the illustrations to see if the students can identify the work of the illustrator in other contexts. For example, author / illustrator Marie Louise Gay's characters are easily identifiable because her style is distinctive.

(c) Play games with the students using the illustrations. Focus their attention on the illustrations by asking them to look for things as you read. For example, using Alison Lester's series about the seven children, have students tell which of the children is missing from the illustration on each double spread in the book. See if they can recall the names of all seven to name the missing child. Ask them also to think of the pattern of choices each of the seven children makes. (e.g., Rosie likes cowboy / western things, Clive is Asian and likes Asian things, etc.)

(d) Running the Blue Spruce Awards program is a natural setting for the discussion of the illustrations of the 10 nominated books each year when you read them aloud.

12. Circle Stories

Read aloud several picture books whose stories come back to where they started so that the students can see the idea of a 'circle story'. Discuss what patterns there are in the story and the ways in which the author gets the story to come back to the start.

e.g., If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

e.g., If You Give a Moose a Muffin

e.g., If You Give a Pig a Pancake

e.g., If You Take a Mouse to the Movies

e.g., It's Not My Fault

(a) Model the writing of a circle story using a circular template you create, with spaces for 5-6 events in the story. The story's first and last event must be similar and connected. Think aloud as you write your model story or, even better, work cooperatively with the classroom teacher to make up a circle story. Emphasize through the modeling the thinking process involved as you revise and edit your story.

(b) Ask the students to write their own circle story based on what you've read aloud and what you've modeled. They could work alone (older students) or in partners.

Share what is created.

13. Importance of Reading

Use books about books and reading to stress the importance of learning to read and to illustrate that reading is also very pleasurable.

(a) Read several picture books about books and reading over a number of periods. See if the students can identify the theme of the books you've chosen. Ask for their reasons for your choices.

e.g., A Story for Bear

e.g., Reading with Dad

e.g., Raising Sweetness

e.g., Book! Book! Book!

e.g., Running the Road to ABC

e.g., Joseph Wants to Read

14. Just for Fun

Some picture books are just fun to read for the pure enjoyment of the story.

e.g., Stanley's Party

e.g., Hooway for Wodney Wat

e.g., Bedhead

e.g., The Great Poochini

e.g., Max, The Stubborn Little Wolf

e.g., CDC?

Picture Book References

Anhoult, Laurence.	The Magical Garden of Claude Monet.

Bailey, Linda.	Stanley's Party.

Bjork, Cristina.	Linnea in Monet's Garden.

Bourgeois, Paulette.	Franklin stories

Brett, Jan.	Hedgie's Surprise.

Bruss, Deborah.	Book! Book! Book!.

Cannon, Janell.	Crickwing.

Charlip, Remy.	Fortunately.

Clement, Gary.	The Great Poochini.

Cuyler, Margery.	That's Good! That's Bad!.

Diterlizzi, Tony.	Ted.

Ellwand, David.	Cinderlily: A Floral Fairy Tale.

Falconer, Ian.	Olivia.

Fitch, Sheree.	No Two Snowflakes.

Gilman, Phoebe.	Something from Nothing.

Harris, Dorothy Joan.	Four Seasons for Toby.

Haseley, Dennis.	A Story for Bear.

Henkes, Kevin.	Chester's Way.

—	Chrysanthemum.

---	Julius, the Baby of the World.

—	Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse.

—	Owen.

Highway, Tomson.	Caribou Song.

Jennings, Sharon.	Priscilla and Rosy.

Jorgensen, Richard.	Reading with Dad.

Judes, Marie-Odile.	Max, The Stubborn Little Wolf.

Keller, Holly.	Cecil's Garden.

—	Geraldine and Mrs. Duffy.

—	Geraldine's Baby Brother.

—	Horace.

Laden, Nina.	When Pigasso Met Mootisse.

Lauture, Denize.	Running the Road to ABC.

Lester, Alison.	Celeste Sails for Spain.

—	Clive Eats Alligators.

—	Rosie Sips Spiders.

—	Tessa Snaps Snakes.

—	When Frank Was Four.

Lester, Helen.	Hooway for Wodney Wat.

—	It's Not My Fault.

London, Jonathan.	What the Animals Were Waiting For.

Mayhew, James.	Katie and the Sunflowers.

Munsch, Robert.	From Far Away.

Numeroff, Laura.	If You Give a Moose a Muffin.

---	If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

—	If You Give a Pig a Pancake.

—	If You Take a Mouse to the Movies.

Palatini, Margie.	Bedhead.

Spalding, Andrea.	It's Raining, It's Pouring.

Stanley, Diane.	Goldie and the Three Bears.

—	Raising Sweetness.

—	Saving Sweetness.

Steig, William.	CDC?.

Surat, Michele.	Angel Child, Dragon Child.

Taback, Simms.	Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.

Teyssedre, Fabienne.	Joseph Wants to Read.

Wallace, Ian.	Chin Chiang and the Dragon's Dance.

—	The Sandwich.

Wheeler, Lisa.	Sailor Moo: Cow at Sea.

Also:

Koechlin, Carol and Sandi Zwaan. Information Power Pack. Pemboke.