Variations on Traditional Literature

I chose to find variations on the traditional story of The Three Little Pigs. The three books I selected were The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, and The Three Pigs by David Weisner.

Trivizas’ The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig is a character swap on the traditional three little pigs story. The three little wolves are building their houses all together out of much sturdier materials than in the traditional tale. With that element of this story, I would discuss teamwork with my students and how two heads (and three) are better than one. Any version of the three little pigs has to have good character lessons built in. There is always a bully character in the story and that spins off to how my students can handle bullies in their lives. I was very surprised by the ending of this story though. After building three strong houses and having the pig destroy them all, the wolves build a house of flowers. Smelling the flowers changes the pig’s heart. This is a great place to teach about plot twists, and this particular plot twist lends itself to teaching about redemption and how even the most unlikely of people can turn over a new leaf and start anew.

Scieszka ‘s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs is also a story where the wolf is the protagonist and the “good guy.” The wolf is telling the story of how he had a cold and was out looking for a cup of sugar to bake his granny a birthday cake. He inadvertently blows down the houses and eats the pigs, and lands himself in jail. I would absolutely use this book to teach my students about point of view. This story is very similar to the traditional tale, except from the wolf’s point of view. For example, in original stories the evil wolf blows the houses down and eats the pigs. In Scieszka’s version the wolf accidently blows the houses down and eats the pigs because they were already dead. In either case the facts are the same. What changes is whose side you take.  I could also use a Venn diagram to compare this story to the traditional story.

I think that the three little wolves story is a more modern twist on the original version. Nowadays we like there to be neat and tidy happy endings where the bad guy can choose to be good after all. In The True Story, the wolf still ends up in trouble and two of the pigs are still dead. So the way the two versions end the story is very different from each other.

The Three Pigs by David Weisner is a very different take on the tale. The basic story begins the same, but then as you go along, Weisner starts messing with the fourth wall between the audience and the characters. The pigs find themselves coming out of the pages of their story and into the pages of other stories. The art in this book is beautiful and the book has won the Caldecott Medal. There are also different illustration styles for each story the pigs step into. This book is the most different of all three versions of The Three Little Pigs I read. After just the first page, the direction of the story completely changes. I think that this would not be a good book to compare and contrast to the original story. It would also be difficult to teach story elements with this book because the story is so fractured and doesn’t follow a typical arc. But it is a great book to read just for fun.

I find it interesting that there are so many stories (two of the three I selected) that portray the wolf not as the “bad guy.” This may have something to do with the fact that this story has been around for so long that authors have had time to do lots of different things with it. You can only tell the same story so many times before nobody really pays attention to it anymore. Also, the wolf is so often stuck in a stereotype of being the bad guy in fairy tales. It is good to get kids (and adults) thinking outside the box when it comes to characters and people they meet.

Space Across the Curriculum Lesson Plan

Discovering Scale Using Our Solar System

Objectives

Participants will:

• Explain the concept of scale using the Earth and Moon. 
• Build a model of the solar system to scale using beads.  

Suggested Grade Level

3^rd-5^th

Subject Areas

Science

Math

Social Studies

Timeline

Two Class Periods 

Standards

Science

NS.K-12.4 Earth and Space Science

• Properties of earth materials
• Objects in the sky
• Changes in earth and sky

Math

NM 3-5 Measurement

• Students will understand the need for measuring in standard units.

Math

NM.ALG.PK-12 Use Mathematical Models to Represent and Understand Quantitative Relationships

Social Studies

NCSS People, Places and Environments

·       Encourage learners to construct, use, and refine maps, calculate distance, scale, and organize information.

Background

            Scale is a difficult concept for students to grasp. Creating 1:1 scales, or full sized maps and models, is a good start when discussing this mathematical concept. A real life application for using scale is reading maps. We need to be able to do math and discover correct distances when going from one town to another.  Cartographers (map-makers) cannot just guess sizes and distances on maps or there would be a lot of lost people wandering around looking for their destination saying “it’s around here somewhere.” Scale is a very precise math; not a guess.

A very great misconception in the science world is the scale of the planets in our solar system. We are going to give students a greater cognitive understanding of scale using the planets in our solar system. Oftentimes, pictures depicting the planets and moons are created without taking scale into account. This is what causes these misconceptions to formulate in students’ minds. Scale is a mathematical concept that you can create a model of a larger object in correct proportions. For example, NASA can create a 1:15 scale model of a rocket, be able to take measurements of that model, and from there make decisions about the full sized rocket without going to the trouble of measuring the 50 foot tall rocket itself. It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around how big the solar system is and how spread apart it is. So creating a small model of the solar system gives students a much better idea of the correct proportions and just how big space really is.

Vocabulary

Hypothesis, Scale, Model, Solar System, Planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

Materials

Butcher Paper (two pieces per student)

Photos of space models at various scales (examples below)

Globe

Variety of different sized balls

Tennis Ball

8 planet beads per group (one orange, one red, one light blue, one dark red, one brown, one tan, one green, one blue)

1 piece of string per group

94 black spacer beads per group

String

Copy paper

Crayons/ Markers

Books about space

Lesson Day 1

1. Give each student a piece of butcher paper, roughly the size of the top of his or her desk. Ask students to place a few objects on the butcher paper and trace them with a marker. (Objects could include books, notebooks, pencils, glue bottles, etc.)
2. Explain that students have just created a map of their desks. Introduce the word “scale.” Tell students that the scale of their map is 1:1 or “full scale”. In other words the map is life sized: the actual size of all the objects.  Pose the following questions to students and allow them to discuss:

a.     What do we use maps for? To help us find which way to go.

2. If you created a 1:1 map of the school would be very helpful? No. Because it would be exactly as big as the school and you couldn’t use it to find your way.
2. Show students photos of models of different space objects at various scales. Ask why we build space shuttles at 1:15 scale. If we built it 1:1 it would be way too big. Building it to scale means everything is in its proper place. People could take measurements of the models, do some math, and the numbers would be accurate. (See examples below)
3. Tell students they are now going to create a 1:2 scale drawing of their desk map. Because it is 1:2, students need to divide every number in half. For instance, if the whole map was 2 feet by one foot, in scale it is 1 foot by six inches. If their notebook is 11 inches by 8 inches, to scale it would be 5 ½ inches by 4 inches.  When they are finished with their map they will give it to a partner and have them read the 1:2 map and try to re-create the full-scale map using the correct objects.
4. Explain that you are now going to discuss scale using the Earth and Moon. Hold up a 9 in diameter globe and say that this will represent the Earth. Ask students if this globe is the actual size of the Earth. No it is not. It is to scale. A full-sized model of the Earth would not be helpful because it would be as big as the planet.
5. Show students a variety of different sized balls from a bouncy ball all the way up to a basketball. Ask students to predict which ball was the correct size to be our globe Earth’s moon. Allow students to discuss among themselves, and then pick a few to come up and explain their reasoning. Tell students that the tennis ball is the correct size.
6. Now ask students how far away they think the Moon is from the Earth in our model. Pick a few to come up and stand where they think the moon would be.
7. Using string, show students how far apart the Moon and Earth should be. The distance from the Earth to the Moon is about the same as 9 and ½ times around the earth. So, if you wrap a piece of string 9 and ½ times around the globe, that will be how far away the tennis ball Moon model should be from the globe Earth.
8. That seems to be a really far distance. Ask students if they are surprised by this information.

Lesson Day 2

1. Begin by reviewing the concept of scale from yesterday.
2. Explain that in the model yesterday both the size of the Earth and Moon were correct and the distance between them was correct. Tell students that in our model today, the distance between planets will be correct, but the size will not be correct. Sometimes, as scientists, we need to pick only one thing to focus on. Today’s focus is correct scaled distance.
3. Place students in groups and pass out the planet beads and a handful of spacer beads to each group.
4. Write on the whiteboard what planet each color bead represents. Mercury=Orange, Venus=Red, Earth=Light Blue, Mars=Dark Red, Jupiter=Brown, Saturn=Tan, Uranus=Green, and Neptune=Blue.
5. As the students to make a hypothesis in their groups about how far apart all the planets are from each other. (Have a quick discussion to activate background knowledge about what a hypothesis is.) Have them lay the beads out on a desk and place black spacer beads in between the planet beads. Have students draw a picture of their hypotheses.
6. When they are done, ask them to count the total number of beads in their solar system. Then have one person from each group line up in order from smallest number of beads to greatest number of beads.

a.     Discuss good character and how we all have different ideas. It’s not okay to make fun of someone for having a different idea than you.  Our classroom should be a place where our classmates feel safe (to quote Ms. Frizzle) to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.

7.     Pass out the pieces of string. As a class, read aloud the following chart and have everyone put the beads on the string correctly.

1 spacer

Mercury (orange bead)

1 spacer

Venus (red bead)

1 spacer

Earth (light blue bead)

1 spacer

Mars (dark red bead)

12 spacers

Jupiter (brown bead)

14 spacers

Saturn (tan bead)

30 spacers

Uranus (green bead)

34 spacers

Neptune (blue bead)

8.     Ask the students to discuss in their group if their hypothesis was correct. Then they need to draw a picture of what their string of beads looks like now.

Extensions

·       Each black spacer bead is equivalent to 30 million miles. Have students find the distance between Mercury and Neptune using their string of beads. They need to work in their groups to do the math. Then, they must write a paragraph explaining how they solved this problem.

·       Have students look through assorted books about space for any information regarding planetary scale. They can share what they find with the class.

Evaluation/Assessment

Informal observation: students working collaboratively together in groups and all students are participating

Drawing of hypothesized bead solar system compared to accurate drawing of bead solar system

Completed solar system string of beads (one per group)

Resources

Elementary Science Program: http://www.espsciencetime.org/student_life.cfm?subpage=295515

NASA Lesson: Solar System Math: http://quest.nasa.gov/vft/docs/SSML1/SSML1Tchr.pdf

Space Foundation Lesson- Play-Doh Scale Solar System

Space Foundation Lesson- Pluto’s Not a Planet

USGS Lesson on Map Scale: http://egsc.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/teachers-packets/mapadventures/malessn7.html

Examples of space models to scale: Would use larger pictures and hands on models with students.

Crispin Cross of Lead

Crispin cross of lead

I absolutely love to read children’s literature. It may be my favorite genre. But I definitely get stuck in the rut of reading the same kinds of books and historic fiction is not usually my cup of tea. So I went into Crispin fully preparing to not like it. And at first I had a really hard time getting into it, but then Avi definitely sucked me and I got lost in the story.

I don’t think that this is a book I would use with my kiddos. I think they are too young, first of all, and I also think there is a lot of talk of religion. I kind of hate that teachers need to be so politically correct in schools nowadays, and I can just hear the angry parent emails already. In a public school I think it’s too touchy of a subject to delve into, or at least delve into well. If I taught older kids, or if we studied the time period in the book it might make more sense.

Some other award winning books I have read include The View from Saturday by EL Konigsburg and A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’engle. It’s hard to compare books like these. I think that historic fiction is such a different genre because there is so much research and background that go into it. And if you have the background info on the time period of a book you will take something much different from it than a person who knows nothing of the history.

It’s good they have guidelines for the Newberry Award because something like great literature is so subjective and changes from person to person. I can’t even imagine having to pick a winner. I think it would be incredibly hard. Throughout Newberry winners I see a lot of common themes. They are often great tales of childhood, and children overcoming tremendous obstacles. These books all have great morals that I would want to share with my children.

Chapter Books

Two of the books I read this week were The BFG by Roald Dahl and The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl. I do use both of these books with my third graders. I so an author study in my class where each reading group is doing books by the same author. Dahl has a very wide range of reading levels among his books. The Magic Finger I use with my lower readers. It is considered a grade level 3.1 equivalent. I use The BFG with my advanced readers. It is considered a 4.8 grade level equivalent. When we get together as a class to discuss our books I like to Identify similarities and differences with the different books by the same author. We talk about the tone of the book, the style of writing, the kind of words used, and the moral of the stories. Students could even create a venn diagram to show their findings. Another activity could be using non-linguistic representations. Students could “jigsaw” read the books and then share what their book was about in a creative fashion, such as a play they act out. That way all the students in the class will have an idea about what each book was about, while only needing to read one of the books. Jigsaw is a great way to get a lot of information to students while they only need to master a small piece of the information.