Books in Through Children's Literature series

These dynamic literature-based activities will help you energize the social studies curriculum and implement national (and many of state) standards. Fredericks presents hundreds of hands-on, minds-on projects to stimulate actively and engage students in positive learning. Each of these 33 units offers book summaries, social studies topic areas, critical thinking questions, and dozens of easy-to-do activities for every grade level. The author also gives practical guidelines for integrating literature across the curriculum, lists of web sites useful in social studies classes, and annotated bibliographies of related resources.

Similar to U.S. History Through Children's Literature: From the Colonial Period to World War II in format and approach, historical fiction and nonfiction are integrated into modern U.S. History. For each of these topics, Miller suggests two or more titles-one for use with the entire class and one for use with small reading groups. Summaries of the books, author information, activities, and topics for discussion are supplemented with vocabulary lists and ideas for research topics and further reading. This integrated approach makes history more meaningful to students and helps them retain historical details and facts by immersing them in stories surrounding historical events. A well-researched and thorough resource.

Develop music appreciation among your students with folk songs, rhythmic poems, stories with musical themes, and picture books with strong musical links. Designed for teaching flexibility, these lessons can be adapted according to a teacher's level of musical proficiency and time limitations. Sections cover rhythm, melody, form, instruments, music history, and dance forms, with lively activities that involve singing, playing instruments, chanting, and movement. These are perfect for the nonmusician who is teaching music as well as the seasoned music specialist.

Due to popular demand, the Butzows have put together more fascinating thematic units that make science more exciting for young learners. Each chapter focuses on an individual book and includes vocabulary; concepts; applications; and a wide variety of activities, including hands-on and inquiry-based topics, games, puzzles, word searches, and more. The authors' approach helps connect the conceptual content to real-life experiences. Physical, life, earth, space, and environmental sciences are included.

For everyone who loved the best-selling and critically acclaimed Math Through Children's Literature, now there's Math Links. Updated to reflect the NCTM 2000 standards, each of the 36 math lessons complements a picture book and introduces activities using calculators, manipulatives, computers, games, projects, performances, and problem-solving challenges. The direct instruction and discovery strategies are supported by assessment recommendations, extension activities, and software and literary resource lists. Activity adaptations take into consideration learning differences and disabilities.

Natural disasters enthrall with their potency, might, and devastation. Tap into students' inherent awe of storms, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, avalanches, landslides, and tsunamis to open their minds to the wonders and power of the natural world. Using quality children's literature as a springboard to learning, this guide extends the understanding of science concepts through short activities, longer projects, and adventures. This participatory approach keeps the focus on the processes of science and promotes a personal response to learning. Students can use the literature and activities not just to better understand the forces of nature, but to grasp the implications of that potency on the lives of people near and far. Grades 3-6.

This teaching resource offers great lesson ideas and activities based on quality children's literature. All titles center around the theme of work, giving children an insight into today's working environment and the skills that are needed to succeed. Each chapter assists the teacher in planning exciting classroom activities and projects. Through literature, important concepts and role models are presented that will help children think about teamwork, cooperative learning, and economic issues.

Help students develop their own special talents and interests while supporting student literacy, social development, and a lifelong interest in reading through connecting books to children's hobbies. Each of the book's 30 chapters focuses on a different hobby through an annotation of a picture book in which the targeted hobby has a key role. Jurenka further explores each hobby ranging from bird-watching to tap dancing through a starter activity, a language arts activity, a poem citation, a glossary of associated vocabulary, references to related societies and associations, and five annotations of nonfiction informational books. Not only will students enthusiastically read about their chosen hobbies, they will develop healthy lifelong passions for activities that positively affect their social and intellectual development.

This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers – books written and designed for children who are just beginning to read independently. It argues that Early Readers deserve more scholarly attention and careful thought because they are, for many younger readers, their first opportunity to engage with a work of literature on their own, to feel a sense of mastery over a text, and to experience pleasure from the act of reading independently. Using interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon and synthesize research being done in education, child psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and children’s literature, the volume visits Early Readers from a variety of angles: as teaching tools; as cultural artifacts that shape cultural and individual subjectivity; as mass produced products sold to a niche market of parents, educators, and young children; and as aesthetic objects, works of literature and art with specific conventions. Examining the reasons such books are so popular with young readers, as well as the reasons that some adults challenge and censor them, the volume considers the ways Early Readers contribute to the construction of younger children as readers, thinkers, consumers, and as gendered, raced, classed subjects. It also addresses children’s texts that have been translated and sold around the globe, examining them as part of an increasingly transnational children’s media culture that may add to or supplant regional, ethnic, and national children’s literatures and cultures. While this collection focuses mostly on books written in English and often aimed at children living in the US, it is important to acknowledge that these Early Readers are a major US cultural export, influencing the reading habits and development of children across the globe.

This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers – books written and designed for children who are just beginning to read independently. It argues that Early Readers deserve more scholarly attention and careful thought because they are, for many younger readers, their first opportunity to engage with a work of literature on their own, to feel a sense of mastery over a text, and to experience pleasure from the act of reading independently. Using interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon and synthesize research being done in education, child psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and children’s literature, the volume visits Early Readers from a variety of angles: as teaching tools; as cultural artifacts that shape cultural and individual subjectivity; as mass produced products sold to a niche market of parents, educators, and young children; and as aesthetic objects, works of literature and art with specific conventions. Examining the reasons such books are so popular with young readers, as well as the reasons that some adults challenge and censor them, the volume considers the ways Early Readers contribute to the construction of younger children as readers, thinkers, consumers, and as gendered, raced, classed subjects. It also addresses children’s texts that have been translated and sold around the globe, examining them as part of an increasingly transnational children’s media culture that may add to or supplant regional, ethnic, and national children’s literatures and cultures. While this collection focuses mostly on books written in English and often aimed at children living in the US, it is important to acknowledge that these Early Readers are a major US cultural export, influencing the reading habits and development of children across the globe.