In June 29, 1999, main character Holly Evans undertakes a scientific project that appears to have gigantic results when huge vegetables begin landing on the planet. Yet she's still not sure where the vegetables all came from.
David Wiesner, author of June 29, 1999 (Houghton Mifflin, 1992) and two-time Caldecott Award winner, composes humorous books with delightful illustrations that surprise the reader. In fact, in June 29, 1999, Wiesner's illustrations are indicative of the emotions of the various story characters: people are delighted, surprised, and, in some cases, curious. Such illustrations provide an excellent opportunity for discussion of feelings and how they are expressed wordlessly through the talent of the illustrator. Explore the pictures in Wiesner's book carefully and identify elements that make the emotions in the story obvious to someone reading the book. Your students might then create lists of words and their own illustrations to express the feelings portrayed.
If you're looking for information on Wiesner's books, his biography, and related resources, this Houghton Mifflin site is for you. It even includes illustrations and notes on Wiesner's creative process.
Focusing on Wiesner's Caldecott Medal–winning book, this series of classroom activities includes comparing Wiesner's book to other versions of the three pigs story as well as links to a Kidspiration story map and additional resources.
This site provides recommended wordless picture books for children.
When she was born in Alabama on this day in 1880, Helen Keller was a normal baby; but when she was nineteen months old, she lost both her hearing and sight after an illness. As an adult, Keller was a writer, an educator, and a social activist.
In 1887, Keller learned to talk using a finger alphabet after her well-known breakthrough with Annie Sullivan at the family's well pump. The finger alphabet that Keller learned to communicate with Sullivan, her family, and eventually, many others was a basic version of the system that is now known as American Sign Language. Have your students explore the American Sign Language browser from Michigan State University and try using a few signs. Discuss how ASL differs from spoken English and how the two are similar. During the discussion, introduce the misconceptions about ASL addressed in the article Common Myths about Sign Language.
Ivy Green, Helen Keller's birthplace, sponsors this website on Keller's life and accomplishments as well as pictures and details on the birthplace, its grounds, and events that take place at Ivy Green.
The focus of this blog will be to synthesize research regarding the use of technology in the literacy development of deaf and hard of hearing students.
The Helen Keller Archival Collection at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) is the world’s largest repository of letters, speeches, press clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, architectural drawings, artifacts and audio-video materials relating to Helen Keller.
Eric Carle, born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929, has illustrated more than 60 books. One of his most beloved books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has been translated into more than 25 languages and has sold more than 12 million copies.
Eric Carle's illustrations feature paper collages, so after reading some of Carle's books you might create your own torn paper collages. Or if you're ready for more of a challenge, try creating Word Collages. Have students choose a scene, an emotion, an animal, or a person. Then students search out or create words, phrases, and sentences that illustrate what they've chosen. Words can be cut out of newspapers or magazines, created on a computer using a drawing program or the art tool in a word processing program, or drawn with markers or crayons. Assembled on a sheet of paper using glue or tape, the words should remind the reader of the scene, emotion, animal, or person that the student has chosen.
Eric Carle's own website includes information on all of Carle's books, upcoming events, forthcoming publications, and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.
Devoted to national and international picture book art, this museum emphasizes ways of combining visual and virtual literacy. The virtual tour provides great visuals, which could be a springboard for language or visual arts projects.
Scholastic's Eric Carle Author Study includes information from an interview with Carle, background information, a bibliography, and a variety of classroom activities using several Carle books for art, science, math, social studies, and writing connections.
The National Gallery of Art offers this interactive tool for creating collages. Letters, numbers, signs, and shapes comprise the images available for use in the collage.
If someone placed an original 1868 typewriter in front of you, you might not be able to figure out what it was. With keys that look more like they belong on a piano keyboard, the original typewriters looked very little like even the manual typewriters you're likely to happen upon today.
The invention of the typewriter led to the keyboards on the computers of today. Show your class a computer and a typewriter or two if you can find significantly different typewriters, such as a manual one and an electric one. Begin an inquiry-based study that compares typewriters to computers. Students can talk about everything from the appearance of the two tools to the way that one gets the final, finished product (a piece of paper with alphanumeric figures on it) to the different ways that they might use the two machines if they were composing a paper. As a conclusion to the project, ask students to hypothesize about how the shift from typewriters to computers changes the way that work is done.
Note: If you do not have access to typewriters and computers for the class to explore first-hand, pictures of the objects could be a reasonable substitute.
This site includes games, puzzles, links, contest information, and a calendar of trivia related to patents and trademarks. Divided into materials for grades K–6 and 7–12, the site also features information for parents and coaches.
Many inventions come about as a result of people playing with the things in the environment around them. Explore the pages of this Smithsonian National Museum of American History site to see play turn into invention-and then perhaps you can invent something as you play in the classroom.
This Smithsonian Institution resource explores the similarities between the office of today and the past. Related lesson plans, a timeline, and information about office equipment-including the typewriter-are included.
This site focuses on the history and evolution of typewriters.
Juneteenth is a celebration of the day in 1865 that word of Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves, made its way to the state of Texas. The celebration name is a combination of "June" and "Nineteenth"—the day that the celebration takes place.
Juneteenth has grown into a heritage-centered event that focuses on family, community, education, and achievement—but its origins are still very important. How does the historical background of the day, as a celebration of freedom for the slaves of Texas, compare to other important celebrations of freedom in the United States?
Invite your students to compare Juneteenth celebrations to Fourth of July celebrations, using the Venn Diagram. What events take place on the two days? What do people do? How are the events described in the media? When students notice differences between the celebrations, ask them to hypothesize about the reasons. Conclude the discussion by asking students what conclusions they can draw about the ways that people celebrate and define freedom in the U.S.
Want to see what the original Emancipation Proclamation looked like? Visit the National Archives and Records Administration site, which includes historical background and photographs of the document.
This site explores the origins and history of the holiday, along with how to celebrate it in the workplace, community, and home.
This Library of Congress "America's Story" site explains the background and local celebrations of the emancipation in Texas.
Here is a list of books to introduce the holiday's stories and traditions to the youngest readers.
President Woodrow Wilson signed the law that proclaimed June 14 each year to be celebrated as the national holiday of Flag Day. Every year since 1916, this day has been a day of patriotic celebration.
Share with your students the songs from Patriotic Melodies from the Performing Arts Encyclopedia of the Library of Congress. Ask your students to consider how America, Americans, and the flag are represented in the various songs and to hypothesize about the reasons for the differences that they notice. With 27 songs to choose from, each student can work on a separate song or small groups can tackle several songs. The songs range from well-known tunes such as "When Johnny Came Marching Home" and "You're a Grand Old Flag" to more obscure songs like the "Library of Congress March."
This Library of Congress site includes historical background, photos, and artwork that explain how the flag and Flag Day came into being. Have students write their own stories about their personal interaction with the flag, or have them interview members of their family or community and write their stories.
The American Flag Foundation encourages all Americans to "pause for the pledge" at 7:00 p.m. on Flag Day. This site includes information on the program and a collection of educational resources including flag Q&A, flag etiquette and retiring, and information on the Pledge.
This site provides historical information about the U.S. flag, as well as images of each of the official versions of the flag throughout America's history. The site also features a variety of patriotic writings, including poems, essays, letters, and songs.
From the Verizon Literacy Network, this interactive activity includes 25 hidden flags for users to find, along with an interesting fact about the flag at each location.
On June 12, 1942, Anne Frank received a small red and white diary as a present for her 13th birthday. The diary, which she named Kitty, was her companion for just over two years. Frank's last entry in the diary was dated August 1, 1944. Her family's secret hiding place was raided three days later, on August 4. She died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February or March of 1945.
Explore the ways that eyewitness reports shape our understanding of events we can't see first-hand. Introduce students to this topic using a lesson (adapted to your grade level), such as Through the Eyes of a Refugee, which examines the first-hand reports of an Afghan refugee, or Evaluating Eyewitness Reports, which examines first-hand accounts of the Great Chicago Fire.
Then have students break into small groups for an end-of-the-year research project. First, provide an outline or list of the main topics you've studied during the year. Or, have students use their textbook as a reference. Have each group select an event to research, taking care that topics are not too broad, such as "World War II." Using primary source documents, have students research the event using eyewitness accounts. A good source of primary documents can be found at the American Slave Narratives website. Finally, have each group present their research to the class, for an end-of-the-year review session.
Visit this site for biographical information about Anne Frank as well as resources for students and teachers. The site includes photographs and excerpts from Frank's diary.
This collection of links offers a wealth of Holocaust information. There are maps, a glossary, and information on concentration camps, Nazi Germany, and more.
This United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website uses text, images, and audio to provide an overview of the Holocaust.
Scholastic provides this collection of Anne Frank resources. There is a teacher's guide, an interview with a childhood friend, and several online activities.
On a series of three artificial islands and in the surrounding ponds, visitors to the 1854 World's Fair at the Crystal Palace in London saw the first life-size replicas of dinosaurs such as the Iguanodon, the Megalosaurus, and Pterodactyls, all created by sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins.
Waterhouse Hawkins' dinosaur replicas offer a great opportunity for an inquiry-based project. Some of Hawkins' models are known for their minor errors or incomplete detail. Consider the horn on the Iguanodon or the submerged Mosasaur (with body obscured since only fossils of the head had been discovered). The replicas are in fact more of a historical artifact than an accurate scientific model.
After learning about Hawkins' replicas, do a study of what we know about these same dinosaurs today-what did Hawkins get right and where did he draw the wrong conclusions? Students could work individually or in small groups to investigate a dinosaur of their choice, comparing Hawkins' versions to current knowledge about the prehistoric animals. The ReadWriteThink Venn Diagram is a nice tool to help students organize and present their findings.
This page from Smithsonian.com lists some dinosaur books appropriate for kids, along with brief descriptions.
Nyder's site includes photos of all the remaining dinosaurs in their original location on artificial islands outside the site of the original Crystal Palace building at Sydenham.
This Brooklyn College page details not only Hawkins' work on the Crystal Palace dinosaur replicas but also the ill-fated plans to build similar replicas in New York City.
Scientists out on a dig have found parts from six different dinosaurs. Put the parts together to create a dinosaur that really existed, OR create an imaginary dinosaur of your own!
On May 26, 1951, Sally Kristen Ride was born in Encino, California. In 1983, Ride became the first American woman in space as member of the space shuttle Challenger crew STS-7. She was a member of the panels investigating the Challenger explosion and the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
The StarKids Who's Who collection includes background information about Sally Ride's career.
After exploring the information about Dr. Ride on the site, write a letter to her foundation, Sally Ride Science. Have students brainstorm, as a class, things that they would like to ask about Dr. Ride's life and legacy. Narrow the list down to the questions that they're most curious about, and then have students compose a class letter, asking one or two of these questions, using the Letter Generator.
Send the students' letter to:
Sally Ride Science
9191 Towne Centre Drive
Suite L101
San Diego, CA 92122
Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and have students ask for a reply. More tips are available for the Letter Generator.
NASA offers this biography with details on Ride's educational background and career. It follows her progression from astronaut school to the first American woman in space to her career as a professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Sally Ride was inducted into the Hall in 1988. This page provides information about Ride and her work.
The website for Sally Ride's company includes information on space and science-related topics, resource links with an emphasis on girls in science, and information about Ride's science programs and products.
This page from the NASA site for students offers information about the space shuttle appropriate for elementary students. Older students can also explore the main Space Shuttle site.
On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh began the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris and the first solo flight across the Atlantic, taking off from Roosevelt Field in New York in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis. Thirty-three and a half hours later, "Lucky Lindy" landed safely in Paris, France, becoming the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic.
Charles A. Lindbergh: A Human Hero, a biography for younger readers, has a subtitle that might appear to be an oxymoron by contemporary standards. Often, society portrays heroes as superhuman, forgetting that heroes are ordinary people who manage to face extraordinary challenges successfully.
Write the words HUMAN HERO on the board and ask students to consider what might be meant by this phrase. Next, ask groups of students to think of people, alive or dead (or fictional), who fit the category "human hero." Then place all names students have mentioned on the board. Ask students to brainstorm a list of attributes or qualities these people share. Can this list of attributes and/or qualities lead to a definition of heroism? Students can finish by reading a biography of a selected hero and summarizing it using the Bio-Cube interactive.
The Lindbergh homepage includes links to a great collection of resources. Included are flight plans, biographical information, a timeline, video clips, and more.
Part of the PBS American Experience series, this website features information about the film Lindbergh. Also included are a timeline of aviation milestones, maps of Lindbergh's transatlantic flight, and a teacher's guide.
View an exact replica of The Spirit of St. Louis in flight!
This Smithsonian online exhibit includes technical specifications and pictures of Lindbergh's famous plane. The page features a timeline of the milestones of flight.