The Top O" The Morning
By Patricia Broderick and Allen Raymond

Folk Tales, Fairy Tales...
From Afghanistan. We've not been aware of these stories, but Hoopoe Books (a division of The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge) has published a whole series based on traditional tales from Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East.

The stories are delightful, with beautiful art. Many of the story lines will seem somewhat familiar in certain aspects. For instance, there's The Lion Who Saw Himself In the Water. Then there's The Silly Chicken (you guessed it – the imagined catastrophe of the sky falling appears in a slightly different but no less effective way!). There are cumulative tales and teaching stories. In the Sufi tradition there is a continuum between the children's story, the folklore story and the instructional story.

It's great to realize the aspects of oneness in our various oral traditions. Imagine what a terrific unit can be constructed comparing the various printed versions of many oral traditions.

All kids will enjoy these tales and, if you have any Afghani children, they'll be delighted to hear the tales told to them as babies. The recommended ages for the various titles range from three years to 12 years. Like any good story, however, these can really be used at any level. Some of the titles have Spanish versions.

Visit www.hoopoekids.com for information about this series. Hardcovers are about $18 plus s/h and paperbacks (not available for every title) are $6.95 plus s/h. They have special offers on the entire nine-book series, and also for a smaller purchase of four books.
Hoopoe Books
www.hoopoekids.com

That's Our Lee...
Franklin Watts has published a wonderful biography of Lee Bennett Hopkins – writer, poet, anthologist. This book belongs in every school.

Lee is one of our favorite people, besides being a columnist for Teaching K-8, so we were really eager to read this book by Amy Strong. And we weren't disappointed. Amy has not only recounted the facts of Lee's life, but had access to his personal feelings about certain situations and events, which she shares with the reader. As well as we know Lee, we never realized the depth of his comfort in reuniting with his father after years and years of abandonment.

The book also includes discussions of the many honors Lee and his books have received. These are incorporated somewhat chronologically into the flow of the book and it makes for exciting reading as Lee's life unfolds.

This book is part of the wonderful Great Life Series produced by Franklin Watts (Scholastic). Other books in the series have covered Alexander Graham Bell, Marie Curie, Willa Cather, people from the field of government, inventors and even Fidel Castro.

This is an easy read and is so structured as to encourage discussion of an author's life and how it is reflected in his or her writing.
Franklin Watts – Scholastic
www.scholastic.com

The Neatest Idea...
Is from Edupress, Inc. Last spring they published the Two Can Read™ series, also known as buddy reading books.

The books in this series are uniquely designed with text on the left-hand pages leveled between 1.3 and 1.9 grade levels, while the text on the right-hand pages is leveled between 2.9 and 4.2 grade levels. The content, or information in the text, is the same on both pages, just written at different levels. Clever.

The grade levels selected were based on surveys that indicated the first-third grade combination was the most common pairing. However, these books can work at other levels. We know that cross-age tutoring is effective, and this is an ideal way to utilize it. A plus is that the books work well with parent-and-child reading.

There are three groups within the series: Nature Stories, Animal Stories and Adventure Stories. Each 16-page, 5 1/2 x 8/12 book is in full color. There is a short teacher's guide with extension activities available. This series is teacher-developed; no surprise when you realize just how well they work. The selling price on these books is a very affordable $2.99 (plus s/h) each. With all 18 titles, you'll have a whole year's program. Contact Edupress for more information and quantity pricing.
Edupress
www.edupressinc.com

Assessment...It's a Good Thing
When it's done the way Kathy Richardson suggests. Kathy is the genius behind Mathematical Perspectives Teacher Development Center and she's done just the best thing for teachers in her math interviews guides.

Kathy has written a series of nine books called Assessing Math Concepts. The first of these books is titled Counting Objects. The others cover Changing Numbers, More/Less Trains, Number Arrangements, Combination Trains, Hiding Assessment, Ten Frames, Grouping Tens and Two-Digit Addition & Subtraction.

The guides give the teacher background information for using the assessment tasks, organizing the information and classroom observations. There are also guidelines for providing appropriate instruction and references to selected resources included.

Each of the guides includes the following sections: Learning About the Concept, The Student Interview, Meeting Instructional Needs, Assessing Children at Work and Linking Assessment and Instruction. Student Interview Forms are available from the publisher, however, Classroom Summary Sheets (used for collecting data) and Assessing at Work forms (for documenting observations of specific skills) may be reproduced from the guide.

We can't tell you how practical these guides are. They set out a situation; e.g. "Pre-Kindergarten – If the child is having difficulty learning to count objects: Use Counting Objects (Assessment 1)." Let's face it, there is no time in the classroom these days to individualize to the extent we want. These guides help by not only pinpointing instruction, but they save our time by their organization and clear language.

Kathy is available for workshops and getting her to your district would be a terrific #1 for your wish list. You can reach her at Mathematical Perspectives Teacher Development Center, 360-713-2782 or www.mathperspectives.com The distributor for the guides is Didax, Inc. The books average 60-67 pages and they're $19.95 each plus s/h.
Didax, Inc.
www.didaxinc.com

Bring your Students to New Heights...
We're not talking about an arbitrary level, but about the new reading intervention program, New Heights, developed in New Zealand and published in this country by Pacific Learning, a sister company to a company we love, Creative Teaching Press.

New Heights is an audio-facilitated reading program with five levels of increasing difficulty. Each set includes a teachers' guide (which includes activities for students and teachers), 20 audio-facilitated titles for student use, 20 audiotapes, three assessment titles and three pads of New Heights assessment sheets to accompany the assessment titles. The students' books have eight pages, plus cover, and include both fiction and nonfiction. The books work equally well with struggling readers and with kids for whom English is a second language.

Success is built into this program. The kids master these little books with the help of the audiotapes and build their self-esteem accordingly. There are assessment forms that help you to know just how well kids not only can decode, but how well they've comprehended what they read. The vocabulary is not a cake-walk, but with the help of the audiotapes the children learn rapidly and well. This program is truly individualized. The content of the stories is pretty interesting; we learned things we never knew about octopi...and that's from Set 3 (400-550 words).

There are lots of other pluses in this program: there are awards, information for families provided in blackline master format, a student handbook with simple instructions on how to use the program and information on how to conference with teachers. There's also a place for the student to record how many times he or she practiced reading a specific book with the audiotape and how many times he or she reads independently.

There is so much information available about this program – number of words in each book at the various levels, suggested activities, prompts for the teacher, cloze activity sheets, research base and on and on – that it's best to contact Pacific Learning directly.

At $395 per set, plus s/h, this one is a winner.
Pacific Learning
www.guidedreading.com

The World's Very Best Opera For Kids...in English!...
Was new to us. We listened to the cd and went through the Teacher's Guide. We think you'll find it really interesting. The cd features 14 arias performed in English by both well-known and rising opera stars. Some of the arias are familiar, some not so, but we have a new appreciation for all of them.

The cd includes a synopsis of each opera, performers' biographies and complete lyrics. The 48-page Teacher's Guide includes cross-curriculum connections for the music specialist or classroom teacher (grades two-eight). There are group activities, suggested lesson plans, assessment and evaluation summaries. There's a really handy glossary of opera and musical terms, plus an opera pronunciation guide. Introducing kids to opera can provide a lifelong interest in this art, plus the more short-term benefit of increased language growth and the sense of story in music. $15.99, Teacher's Guide and CD $31.98. plus s/h.
The Children's Group Inc.
www.childrensgroup.com

Academie Jr.
Mead has come up with some wonderful art supplies...some we've not seen before. They're a line of products called Academie Jr. and we received three great items.

There are pads (30 sheets, 9 x 12) of self-sticking drawing paper with two low-tack adhesive strips on the back. Resulting art, charts, whatever, can be hung vertically or horizontally. We can think of so many uses for this item. Really clever. The pads are called Draw 'n Display and are very affordable, retailing at about $3.99.

The next item is Two-color Paper, a pad (96 sheets – 12 assorted colors) of two-sided art paper. This paper has a smoother finish than construction paper, but has a nice sturdy weight. It can be used for art, arts and crafts and curriculum work. Creativity can flourish here with the pairing of vibrant colors. These pads retail for $2.49 per pad.

The other pads we received are called Guidelines and help children to learn to draw to scale and proportion. The paper is printed with faint 1/2" gridlines that blend into the background, eliminating the need for children to measure, mark, then erase background grid marks. This is the same method used by da Vinci. Anything that can help kids grasp scale and proportion is at the top of our art wish list. Suggested retail price is $2.99.

We just really can't think of a classroom that should be without these reasonably-priced helpers. Your job will be easier with them and the kids will love them, too.
Mead
www.MeadWeb.com