The Golden Wand Awards!

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Multicultural Literature: The Sunita Experiment by Mitali Perkins (chapter book):

    This book is great story about a young girl, Sunita Sen, who is torn between her Indian heritage and her American upbringing.  She is in the eighth grade and when her grandparents come for a visit the entire dynamic of her house changes.  Her mother who is a college professor takes a break from her job to trade in for sarees and other traditional Indian attire.  When her parents decide she can no longer invite boys over she feels as if they are dramatically changing from their American way of life.  Sunita withdraws from her classmates, but her friends are patient and understanding of what she is experiencing.  This novel realistically addresses so many issues, including Sunita's temporary rejection of an African-American classmate when both girls are referred to as "colored."  This book does a great job of displaying her struggle with social acceptance, family issues, and figuring out her personal identity.  In the end she embraces the value of her culture.

    I think this book would be very beneficial for students to read because it exposes them to the problems that students who are multicultural go through.  As an activity for my classroom I would  have my students get into pairs.  They will individually list different details that they know about their heritage and if they do not know much about their heritage then I will enlist the help of their parents.  Once they have a list of about ten different facts about their heritage they will get back together with their partner and they will compare their lists.  They will make a vin-diagram that shows the similarities and differences between their two cultures.  After they have completed their vin- diagrams each of the pairs will present to the class and they will talk about the potential benefits they could have from being a member of that specific culture.  

                                                                                                        

Modern Fantasy: The Magic Bon Bons from the book Tales of Magic for kids, Edited by Peter I. Kattan:

    This is a story about a woman named Claribel and she dreams of being on the stage one day.  She wants to have some kind of talent, but she is not a talented person.  One day she decided to seek the help of a wise chemist who specializes in magic spells.  When she confides in him about wanting to be on stage he creates for her a potion in the form of candies.  Each of the five candies will make her talented in a different area. The five candies are: lavender= better dancer, pink=better singer, white=better actress, chocolate=better pianist, lemon= better high kick.  On the day that she receives them she decides to go to the store and go shopping, but accidentally leaves them there.  Another young girl in the store accidentally picks them up and takes them home with her.   That night everyone in her household ate one except for the mayor, who had come over to have dinner that night.  Everyone started freakishly breaking out into song or dance or whatever talent they had eaten the candy for.  The mayor leaves horrified by the way that family had been acting.  Later that week he is about to give a speech and finds the lavender candy in his pocket and decides to eat it.  Right as he is starting his speech he begins to break out in to gracious dance and the whole crowd is horrified.  Claribel quickly realizes that he has eaten one of her candies and so she yells out for him to be arrested.  In the end, Claribel gets the chemist to make her another batch and she goes on to be a successful dancer.

    I would use this book in the classroom because I think it is a great way to expand the student’s imaginations.  As an activity I would have the students write a creative story about if they had five magic bon bons.  They would have to describe what each of them would do and how it would affect them.  Also, I would have them write about what the consequences of these magic bon bons would bring upon them. 

Non Fiction: Cats by Seymour Simon:

    This book is a purely informational book about cats.  It starts out by talking about how all cats are hunting animals and like to prey on birds or insects.  Cats make good pets because they are not noisy like dogs, they are quiet friendly animals.  More than a hundred thousand years ago, wild cats were domesticated for the first time in Egypt.  Cats were used to protect stored grain from mice and other rodents.  They were such sacred animals that when one died, there was a period of mourning and the cat was mummified and buried in a casket in a cat cemetery.    This book then goes into detail about many different aspects about cats.  Some of these are: their eyes, how they eat, their whiskers, their memory, how they talk, their body language, how they have babies, and different varieties of cats.  This book is a really great book to read when you are thinking about getting a cat.  It can answer most of the common questions that you will have when thinking about investing in a cat.

    As an activity in the classroom I would have my students do research on an animal of their choice.  It can be a common indoor animal or any other animal they choose.  They will have to compile information, just as this book has.  Some of this would be the history or other information about the animal itself.  One thing I would definitely want the students to include in their book is questions in the back, just as the Seymour Simon book has.  These questions are questions that you need to ask before you decide to own this animal as a pet.  After the students have compiled all of their information then I would help them make it into a book.  Then after the entire class has finished we will have our own classroom library about many different animals.  


Cats Power point presentation (copy and past in new tab):
https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AUpz7vrJ0AS0ZGM0Y3FmejZfMGM5Nmc1NmQy&hl=en

Traditional Literature: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig:

This story was about a young donkey that one day found a beautiful pebble and figured out that it was a magic pebble that granted your every wish as long as you were touching it.  One his way home Sylvester was frightened by a lion and out of shock he wished that he was a rock.  He instantly became a rock and the pebble fell to the ground beside him.  His family searched and search for months and months until a year had gone by.  One day his parents went for a picnic and set down on their son in rock form.  Finding the pebble next to the rock it reminded them of their son so they set it on top of the rock while they ate their food.  Realizing that this was his family having a picnic on him he longed to be with them.  Not realizing that they had placed the pebble on his back he wishes in his mind that he could be with his family again.  Instantly he turned back into a donkey and he lived happily with his mother and father. 

A good activity for this book would be to have the students write their own creative story.  They would make believe that they had found a magic pebble that granted every wish they asked for.  The students would explain what they would wish for and what happened when that wish was granted to them.  In their creative story I would be sure and tell them not to copy any of the ideas from this story because I want to know just how creative they can make their wishes and the outcomes.  Then after they have finished writing their story I would have them fill out a cause and effect chart.  They would what the effect was after they made their wish, which would be the cause.  

Nonfiction: Harriet Tubman by David A. Adler:

    Harriet was born into slavery and always hated it throughout her life.  Even at a young age she would rebel sometimes.  One day she decided that she had had enough of being a slave and she was going to be free.  Once she got to Pennsylvania and was a free woman she worked hard to save money and use that to go back to the south.  She went back and forth leading people to freedom for years.  She helped over 300 slaves find freedom before the war ended. 

    I think this book is a great way for students to see the hardships that slaves had to endure in their life time.  As an activity in the classroom I would have the students choose one person from history that they would like to research.  I would have them all write a short summary of their lives and then to get practice using technology I would have them create their own Wordle on the person that they have chosen to research, just as I have done for Harriet Tubman.    

Two ways to count to ten by Ruby Dee:

    This story is about all the animals in the animal kingdom living together in harmony.  One day the Leopard King decided that he needs to be prepared with a successor for when he steps down as king so he calls a large gathering of the animals to see who will take his place and also marry his daughter.  He decides there will be a contest and the first person who can throw a spear up into the air and count to ten before it lands on the ground will win the contest and will be the next king.  All of the animals tried their hardest and threw it as high as they could, but none of them could reach ten before it fell.  Then out of the crowd comes a skinny little antelope and he asks for his turn.  The crowd laughs because all of the animals including the mighty lion have failed so far.  As the antelope threw the spear into the air he counted, “Two, four, six, eight, ten.”  When the spear fell everyone was astonished and laughed because he had not counted by ones.  The King then pointed out that he did not say how you had to count to ten.  The antelope won the contest and he became the new King of the jungle. 

    For this book I would have all of the students choose a number of their choice but it has to be above the number 25.  After they have choose their number I would have them on poster board create a poster the shows all of the different ways they can count to their number.  This can be by ones, two’s three’s, five’s, or however they choose to count it.  After they create their poster then we will display them in the classroom for all to see the many ways to count to a number.