“The War That Saved My Life,” written by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, is a story about Ada and Jamie, a sibling duo who have been mistreated by their abusive mother for their entire lives. Ada suffers from a clubfoot, which was left untreated since she was an infant. Their mother decided to keep Ada locked away from society in fears that Ada will embarrass her in any way. When Hitler begins to strike down on England, the opportunity arises for Jamie to find refuge from the upcoming war. As Jamie begins his journey to the countryside, Ada takes the opportunity of a lifetime and joins him on the train. When they arrive at their fateful destination they meet a women who quickly changes their lives. Miss. Smith is a single women who is a self-proclaimed “mean” woman, who takes the children in as her own and feeds and clothes them.

For my chapter book, I decided to read “The War That Saved My Life,” written by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. I chose to read this book because I have a huge interest in World War II books. “Night,” written by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel is one of my favorite books of all time and is a book I would definitely teach with if I ended up as a high school level English teacher. I read this book my sophomore year of high school and I still consider it one of the best books ever. Both of these books are set in the same time span anywhere from 1939 to 1945. “The Diary of Anne Frank,” written by Anne Frank, depicts a real-life experience of a young girl living in silence for years during World War II. All of these books are so deeply interesting and depict horrible, true life sequences.

 

For my second make, I really wanted to incorporate the vocabulary words often defined for us throughout “A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginnings,” by Lemony Snicket. I decided to make a crossword, because it would make students really think about the vocabulary words that were defined throughout the book. I went through the book again, looking for all of the vocabulary words that the narrator defines throughout. I thought this was a very simple way to introduce big words like blanched and adroit. I went on a crossword generator website where I crafted the whole thing. I personally love crosswords, so I would be extremely willing and excited to complete this if I were still an elementary student.

For my series book, I chose “A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning,” written by Lemony Snicket. The book tells the story of three orphaned siblings named Violet, Claus, and Sunny. These children lose both their house and their parents when their house suddenly burned down. They go to stay with the nearest relative they can, Count Olaf, who turns out to be a horrible man who mistreats the children terribly.

Unlike most, I had never read this book when I was younger, so I had no idea the premise or plot behind it at all. To be honest, it is nothing like I expected it would be. I believe it is pretty dark, considering the demise of the house and parents, but children probably would not realize. I like the book, but since it is such an easy read it can almost be boring at times in my opinion. I feel like this book would be very ideal for younger elementary children, since it is so easy to read. This novel is full of suspense, so I think this series would be a great choice to introduce to young readers. In a classroom, students could draw what they think each character in the novel would look like.

 

So far, in Donalyn Miller’s, “Reading in the Wild,” I understand the importance of dedicating time to reading, and to love what you are reading. I really enjoyed when Miller suggested breaking up reading into smaller chunks and reading for 5-10 minutes at a time rather than for 30 minutes to an hour or more. She offers really great techniques that would help someone like myself who does not enjoy reading certain things for long periods of time. I also really enjoyed how she incorporated her daughter, and how reading takes part in regular day activities.

As a future teacher, I am excited to let my students figure out how they are as a “reader.” I will never teach using a reading log, since I found them so useless. I am afraid my students won’t be comfortable enough to tell me what they understand and what they do not. I want my class to be a safe zone and students to be extremely comfortable there. Being a teacher seems incredibly difficult, but so rewarding, and that is the reason people choose to be teachers in the first place.

 

Fairytale ABC’s:

Download (PDF, 3.68MB)

Cinderella Puzzle:

https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=22858b091b4b

Since my group and I work together so well, we decided to collaborate and create a Fairytale ABC book and generate an online puzzle with Cinderella on it. We chose to do these 2 methods because they seemed fun to make and like it would give children a creative way to learn ABC’s with fairytales included. We collaborated and spilt up the ABC’s so it was easy to make and it ended up working out well. Erik found a list of fairytales by their ABC’s so it gave us more of a choice on which to pick.

I think both of these ideas would be fun and easy ways to get a class to interact and learn more about fairytales. The ABC book is fun to look through and theres many fairytales I had never even heard of. The puzzle is more for entertainment purposes, but would be very nice for a small child who is learning how to put things together.