Happy Birthday Kirsten!

Title: Happy Birthday Kirsten!
Author: Janet Shaw
Illustrator: Renee Graff
Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary
Kirsten Larson is a pioneer girl who lives on the Minnesota prairie in 1854. Happy Birthday Kirsten (A springtime story) is the fourth book in the American Girls Series about Kirsten. This specific story takes place in the spring. Many new things are coming to the Larson family this spring. The family is expecting a new baby girl and a big new barn. These changes bring worries to Kirsten though because she is worried about her mother’s health during the pregrancy and she has to take over most of her mother’s chores. Before taking over her mother chores, Kirsten and her friends begin making a quilt at school that they were planning to give Miss Winston, their teacher, as a gift of appreciation. However, Kirsten is unable to contribute much to the making of the quilt so Miss Winston and the other girls decide to make it for Kirsten’s tenth birthday instead. A few weeks after the baby is born, Kirsten’s family throws her a birthday party. All her friends and their families are there to put up the new barn and to celebrate Kirsten’s tenth birthday. At the celebration, Kirsten’s friends present her with the quilt they made for her and they tell her it is a friendship quilt. Each person signs the friendship quilt. Kirsten has so much fun at her birthday party and does not think another birthday will top this one.

Classroom Connection
Happy Birthday Kirsten is a historical fiction book. Students could research the 1850’s and 1860’s to see how people actually lived during this time. Students could then make comparisions between things that happened in the book and things they found out while researching this time period.

At the beginning of the year the class could read this book aloud or for homework on their own. Once everyone was finished, I would discuss a fun activity that we could do in relation to this book throughout the entire year. Whenever it is someone’s birthday in the class, each person would be handed a piece of paper that was in the shape of a square and they would decorate it for whoever’s birthday it was. Once everyone was done, we could put the square pieces together and the birthday boy or girl would have a “birthday quilt” to take home with them from the class.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Title: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Retold and illustrated by: Jan Brett
Genre: Folktale


Summary
Once upon a time there lived three bears, one was a little, small, wee bear, one was a middle-sized bear, and the other was the older great huge bear. Each bear had their own bowl for porridge, their own chair to sit in, and their own bed to sleep in. One morning while waiting for their porridge to cool, the three bears took a walk in the woods. While they were out, a little girl named Goldilocks came to their house. She looked in the windows and noticed that no one was home so she lifted the latch and went into the house. As soon as she entered the house, she smelled the porridge. She went into the kitchen and tasted the porridge out of the huge bowl, but it was too hot, then she tasted it out of the middle-sized bowl, but it was too cold. Lastly, she tried the porridge out of the small bowl and it was just the right temperature; she ate all the porridge in that bowl. Next, Goldilocks decides to sit down. She tries each of the chairs and decides the little chair was neither too hard nor too soft, but just right. She sits in the chair until the bottom gives out and breaks. Lastly, Goldilocks goes upstairs to the bedroom where the bears sleep. She tries each of the three beds and decides the bed of the little, small, wee bear was neither too high at the neither head nor foot, but just right. She ends up falling asleep in this bed. While sleeping, the three bears returned to their home, each of the bears had noticed that someone had been eating their porridge, so they go into the living room to see if they can find anyone. Once in the living room, they noticed that the pillows and cushions were not in the same place they had left them. Since they had not discovered anyone yet, they went upstairs to check in their bedrooms. The big bear noticed that the pillow was out of place on his bed, the middle bear noticed that the cover was out of place on her bed, and the little, small, wee bear discovered Goldilocks sleeping in his bed. Goldilocks awakened to the voice of the little, small, wee bear. She immediately jumped out of the bed and ran to the window. She ran as fast as she could and never looked back. This was the last time that the three bears ever heard or saw Goldilocks.


Classroom Connection
There are several activities I could use in my classroom with the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears. First, I could use this book in a unit on fairytales and folktales. First, students would identify specific characteristics that this type of genre has. One characteristic that would be interesting to discuss in relation to this book and a few others is the resemblance of the number three. Students would write down all the stories that use the number three. Then students would describe the situation in each of these stories where the number three played a role. Finally, students would get in groups and discuss why they believe that the number three is so significant in fairytales and folktales.
Another activity I would use Goldilocks and the Three Bears in would be in role-playing or Reader’s Theater. Children would get into groups of four students each and come up with their own script of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but they would need to put their own little twist on it. For example, the students could change up the characters a little bit or change some of the situations or circumstances. Once the group finished writing their own script and practiced with their group, they would have the opportunity to perform for their peers.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Title: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Chapter Book)
Author: Roald Dahl
Genre: Modern Fantasy

Summary
Charlie Bucket is a young boy who lives with his mother, father, Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George, and Grandma Georgina. The seven of them live a very poor life because Mr. Bucket is the only person in the family with a job. In the evenings, Charlie always goes into the room of his four grandparents and listens to their stories. His Grandpa Joe was always telling him stories about the mysterious Willy Wonka who owned the biggest Chocolate Factory in the world. One evening his Grandpa Joe tells him that one day the chocolate factory had suddenly closed without giving anyone a reason why. Unexpectedly, the factory opens again, people see the smoke from the furnace rising once again, but nobody sees any workers coming in and out of the factory. One day Willy Wonka announces in the newspaper that he is holding a world-wide contest. He is putting five golden tickets in his chocolate candy bars and the five children that find them will have the opportunity to visit the factory as well as be given free chocolate for life. The names of the children who find the Golden tickets are Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee, and Charlie Bucket! The tour of the factory takes place on February 1st, the day after Charlie found the fifth and final Golden Ticket. Charlie decided to bring his Grandpa Joe with him to the factory. While on the tour of the factory, many interesting things occurred: Augustus gets sucked up into a pipe after refusing to get out of the chocolate lake, Violet turns purple and blows up as big as a blueberry, Veruca gets put into the bad nut shoot and ends up in the trash, and Mike shrinks after attempting to end up in a television. By the end of the tour, Charlie is the only child left. Willy Wonka tells Charlie that he has won the contest for being the last one left on the tour and that the prize is that the factory is now his when he decides to retire.



Classroom Connection
To incorporate technology in my classroom I decided to create a wordle that related to a specific section of the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The site www.wordle.net generates word clouds from texts and picks out the most commonly used words. For the wordle I created, I typed the first three paragraphs of the chapter called The Big Day Arrives. The purpose of this wordle was to get an idea of what this chapter might be about, based on the words that popped up in the word cloud.

This would be a fun and interactive technology application to use in the classroom. Students could use this application to make predictions of a particular chapter or section of an article by typing a few sentences or paragraphs into the text box and then letting wordle electronically pick the most commonly used words and display them in a word cloud. Students would then look at these words and try to make a prediction based on them. Another way to use wordle would be to have one student type up a description of a main character in s book and then have another student type up a description of that same character in the same box. Wordle would then take these two paragraphs and find the most common words and display them. Students would then be able to discuss what common descriptions they came up with as a class.

Ella Enchanted

Title: Ella Enchanted (Chapter book)
Author: Gail Carson Levine
Genre: Modern Fantasy

Summary
Ella Enchanted is about a girl named Ella who was unfortunately given a foolish fairy gift at her birth. Only an hour after she was born, the fairy Lucinda gave her the gift of obedience. This meant that Ella had to obey every thing that was commanded of her no matter how little or big it was. Ella grows up hating the gift that Lucinda bestowed upon her. At age fifteen, Ella’s mother dies, this turns her world upside down because she loved and enjoyed her mother very much. At her mother’s funeral she meets Prince Charmont, the Prince of Kyrria. They immediately bond and become close friends. A little bit after her mother’s funeral, Ella is sent off to finishing school with Olive and Hattie, the two girls she dislikes, because her father gets tired of her disobedience. Hattie figures out that Ella has to obey everything that is commanded to her and begins to use it against her. Ella cannot deal with Hattie anymore, so she runs away from finishing school. The night she ran away from finishing school, she read a letter out of the fairy tale book that Mandy had given her. This letter said that there was going to be a wedding on the Uaaxee’s farm and that several fairies were going to be present; Ella thought that this might be her chance to meet Lucinda who could perhaps take away the gift she had given her at birth. On her journey to the Uaaxee’s farm she has many adventures; she runs into elves, ogres, Prince Char, giants, and Lucinda. Once arriving at the wedding, she eventually speaks to Lucinda, but has no luck with having her reverse her gift. After the wedding, Ella returns home to find out that her father has lost everything and must get remarried. Ella’s father remarries Dame Olga, and Hattie and Olive become Ella’s stepsisters. Once settled into their new home, Ella’s father leaves and Ella is left alone to deal with the deceitfulness of Dame Olga, Hattie, and Olive. Ella begins exchanging letters with Prince Char while he is on a year-long journey to another country. Both Ella and Prince Char begin to fall in love with one another, however when Prince Char asks Ella to marry him over a letter, she refuses because she is under a spell and does not want him to get hurt. A ball is held to welcome Char back home and Ella decides to go in disguise and calls herself “Lela.” Throughout the three balls, “Lela” and Char form a special bond. On the third night, Hattie snatches off Ella’s mask and Char sees that she is Ella. Ella runs home, but Char follows her. Once she is face to face with Char she admits everything. Prince Char tells Ella to marry him and she refuses, Ella breaks the spell by not responding to several commands presented to her, but after figuring out that the spell is broken she runs up to Char and kisses him. The two of them get married and live happily ever after.


Classroom Connection
The story of Ella Enchanted is very close to the fairytale Cinderella. Students could read Ella Enchanted and then pick two other versions of Cinderella and compare and contrast the three books. Students could present their findings on some sort of visual aid and present it to the class. I think students would find it interesting to know how many different variations of Cinderella there are in existence.