My Friend Rabbit

My Friend Rabbit

Rohmann, E. (2003). My friend rabbit. Mexico: Scholastic.

This picture story book is a 2003 Caldecott Medal winner.   It is told in the third person from the point of view of the mouse.  The mouse has faith that rabbit means well, but everywhere he goes trouble follows him. 

Eric Rohmann tells a story of Rabbit, who has big ideas to solve problems.  These big ideas don’t always work out the way Rabbit had planned.  Which sometimes leads to hard feelings from friends, but through it all Mouse knows Rabbit means well.  In the story Rabbit wants to send Mouse flying in the airplane, this doesn’t turn out as planned and the airplane gets stuck in a tree.  Rabbit then comes up with a brilliant plan to retrieve the airplane.  This plan seems to be working until they realize where they have landed, but don’t worry Rabbit has an idea.

The story is told primarily through pictures, the visual elements set the mood.  The use of dotted curly lines creates the effect of the airplane’s movement.  The illustrator did a great job giving clues to Rabbit’s plan by drawing Rabbit pulling the tail of the animal he was going to use on one page and the rest of the elephant on the next page. I would stop and ask students to predict what animal the tail belonged to before moving on.  I feel the illustrator was able to portray the enormous size of the animals by using all the space on the page.  The illustrator at one point in the book had to change the direction of the illustrations to create the vertical forming of an animal tower.  

The following website had a great idea for ordinal numbers:  http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/my-friend-rabbit-lesson-plan

I would use this with preschool or kindergarten to teach first, second, third and so forth. 

I would also use this book to teach social skills/friendship skills:

PL-EP-1.1.9 -Students will describe social (e.g., getting along with others, serving as team members) and emotional (e.g., expressing feelings, self-concept) health. DOK 1

Faithful Elephants

Faithful Elephants

Tsuchiya, Y. (1988). Faithful elephants: A true story of animals, people, and war. Boston, MA: Hougton Mifflin Company.

               

This realistic fiction picture book depicts the true story of a tragic incident during World War II in Japan.  The story is narrated by a zookeeper at the Ueno Zoo telling the tale as he remembers. He tells a tale of three elephants John, Tonky, and Wanly; who once lived at the Ueno Zoo.  His story explains the fears of the people and the zookeepers during the time of war.  They were afraid if the bombs that were falling over Japan might hit the zoo and the animals might be killed, injured, or worst of all released on the area townspeople.  To ensure this would not happen; the Army commanded the animals be poisoned to death.  The narrator tells of the unimaginable feat the zookeepers faced and the emotional toll it took on them.

Ted Lewin’s depicted the scenes of these tragic events through the medium of watercolor.  The color used throughout the book changed to portray the changing mood of the zookeepers and the unimaginable feat they were carrying out. He used soft warm colors at the beginning of the story to set the mood of contentment.  However the colors changed drastically as the story progressed to darker, less vibrant colors to depict the sorrow and remorse the zookeepers where feeling.

On several occasions the author used a literary device called onomatopoeia; the use of a word to depict a sound.  For example, the author says, “….but each time he brought a poisoned potato to his mouth with his trunk, he threw it to the ground, kerplunk!”  Each time he used this literary device the word is italicized to draw attention to the sound.  Students would easily be able to locate and identify examples of onomatopoeia in the text.  Students could be given opportunity to make some noise in their own writing by incorporating this literary device.

Introduction

My name is Joanne Hicks.  I am working toward my masters degree, in Reading and Writing Specialist P-12.  I will have two more courses to complete after this class.  I am getting very excited to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

This is my fourth year teaching, I have taught 4^th grade and 3^rd grade for the past three years, but this year I am the Title 1 reading and math teacher.  I am really enjoying the opportunity to work with so many different students throughout the day. 

Life is pretty hectic in my house.  I am married and we have two children, one is 14 and the other is 11.  They attend school in another school district so our schedules are not the same, which poses a few obstacles from time to time.  My son is very active in History Club, Acedemic Team, band, and baseball. My daughter is in Math Club, Choir, and Soccer.  I also coach a fourth grade Odyssey of the Mind team at my school, so our family life is very hectic.