2013 Of Wine & Words

Come help us celebrate another great year at TRC at the ninth annual Of Wine & Words. Each year, we gather our supporters and friends to celebrate children’s literature and TRC’s accomplishments. Food from favorite local restaurants, wine from a local wine shop and beer from a Virginia brewery make this a delicious and festive occasion. A silent auction offers treats for yourself, outings around town and perfect gifts for the children in your life.

Join us on Friday, March 8, 2013, at 7 p.m. at the Boeing Conference Center in Rosslyn, VA. The VIP reception begins at 6:30 p.m. The night will include an appearance by our Chef Chair, Adam Barnett, Executive Chef of Eventide Restaurant and our Literacy Honoree, Henry Cole. The emcee for the evening is Doreen Gentzler from the NBC4 News.

Henry Cole is a celebrated children’s book author and illustrator, with over 50 books to his credit. A native Virginian, Henry taught science for 16 years at a northern Virginia school before becoming a full-time artist and author. His books run the gamut from hilarious (Chicken Butt!) to challengingly thought-provoking (Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad).  

Henry Cole

Wine tasting will be provided by The Curious Grape from Arlington, VA. Lost Rhino Brewery from Ashburn, VA will offer beer tasting. All attendees will receive a TRC tasting glass to use and keep as a souvenir. Food will be provided by Artisan Confections, Bayou Bakery, Coffee Bar & Eatery, Eventide Restaurant, Green Pig Bistro, Lebanese Taverna, Lincoln, The Liberty Tavern.

We hope you’ll come enjoy this evening with us. Tickets for volunteers are deeply discounted at $35 each. Volunteers can get two tickets at this price.  Tickets can be purchased online here. See you there!

I don't get it

The Dalai Lama walks up to a hot dog vendor and says, "Make me one with everything."

I smiled broadly when I first heard this joke in college but only because everyone around me was chuckling. Really, I didn’t get it. I had only a vague idea of who the Dalai Lama was and didn’t connect the “one with everything” with Buddhism—which I knew nothing about.

You need a frame of reference to connect to new and existing information. And that comes from the things that you are exposed to. To me, “one with everything” was a hot dog with all the fixings (including cole slaw). To a Buddhist, becoming “one with everything” (or moving past a sense of individual identity), is a spiritual goal.

Growing up in southern West Virginia, I wasn’t exposed to Buddhism through my family, culture, surroundings, or schooling, so a spiritual leader ordering a hot dog with the works was funny only because a hot dog seems far from divine and the guy ordering it is wearing a robe.

Kids naturally have limited knowledge about the world. They have had fewer experiences. But with fewer experiences to draw on, making connections and learning from what they read is challenging.

The good news is that knowledge brings more knowledge and improves thinking. And the sooner kids start to build that store of knowledge, the better. Interesting experiences, reading and sharing books are great for building knowledge. 

Start with pre-reading activities that introduce unfamiliar concepts or vocabulary. You might show photographs, bring in props or costumes, play music, or do some role playing.

When you’re ready to pick up a book to activate and expand their knowledge, try these tips:

• Read the title, show the cover and ask kids to tell you what they think the book is about. 
• Talk about what kind of story it is—a fable, historical fiction, tall tale, nonfiction, poetry—so listeners know what to expect
• Give kids ideas about where to focus their attention. They will be excited when they recognize things you’ve asked them to look for or make a connection to a pre-reading activity. 
• Talk about the author to help kids recognize how authors may bring specific themes or characters to different books.
• Think aloud when you are reading to share your own experiences and connections to the story and encourage kids to do the same.
• Talk about what the story is about and ask kids to tell you what it personally reminds them of.

Remember that the experiences and culture of others may be very different from your own. In order to help kids make stronger connections, you may want to build your own knowledge of the foods, historical figures, musical traditions and geography of other countries and cultures. 

Apparently the Dalai Lama himself had the same problem with a different version of the joke that an Australian reporter tried on him in 2011, “So the Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop, and says, ‘can you make me one with everything?’”

Rachael with 
Dr. Seuss' Horton

The Dalai Lama didn’t get it. He’d had no experience with pizza shops.  

Guest blog post by TRC Advisory Council member and Belle of the Book, Rachael Walker.



To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Focus on the process, not the product

“All young children are great artists. The importance of their art is in the act of creating with confidence and in using their imaginations. It is our sacred trust not to take away this gift from our children, but to encourage and nurture it at every opportunity.” ~ Susan Striker, creator of the Anti-Coloring Books.

All too often when planning art activities for kids, we focus on the finished product and forget to leave room for kids' individuality in their creations. Providing a model for an activity is a good idea because it provides guidance, but it is always best to encourage the children to follow their whims. Some kids will take just a few minutes to add just a bit to what you give them. Others will add and add and add more and more materials. Some of the difference is a matter of age. Some kids just love to manipulate craft materials and use their fine-motor skills. 

We believe open-ended projects help build children's confidence in their skills and their individuality. It is important to praise equally those children who make elaborate extensions to the activity AND those who seem to engage only briefly. Who knows what elaborate extensions may be being built in the second child's imagination?

Open-ended activities work well for Read-Alouds because they are easily adaptable to wide age ranges. A four-year-old will enjoy these projects as much as an 11-year-old, but will likely produce a less ambitious product and spend less time at it. At a recent Read-Aloud at Next Steps Housing, the volunteers read Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews and gave each child dots with which to create an image of their choice. All of the kids, ranging from four to fourteen years old were thoroughly engaged in their creations and loved the freedom of the activity. 

Here are some open-ended ideas that could be adapted to fit a variety of themes.

From ID Mommy blog.

Collage.  Save or collect old magazines, catalogues and newspaper pages. Cut out pictures, paste them together on a sheet of construction paper to make a collage. Kids can create their favorite meal, if reading about food, or their ideal vacation spot, if talking about travel. Libraries often have old magazines for sale for $.25 each. You can also include nonpaper materials. For example, beans and rice, add so much to this farm scene.

Paper cutting. The classic example of paper cutting is making paper snowflakes. Show children how to fold the paper and where to cut so the finished product does not fall apart. Then give them the freedom to create snowflakes in different shapes and colors. Copy paper, tissue paper and coffee filters are great for this activity. 

Papel Picado is another great example of paper cutting. It's a traditional Mexican decoration that is easily adapted for kids. Fold colored tissue paper much like you would for a paper snowflake and cut out designs. These are often strung together to make colorful banners.

Clay and other manipulatives. Give each child some clay, play dough or pipe cleanesr and let her to create something related to what you've been reading. A team at Virginia Gardens last year let the kids create dinosaurs out of pipe cleaners. The kids were so proud of their creations. Have a look here:

Creating a scene. Provide each child with a piece of heavier stock paper as the base and a variety of materials to create a scene based on your theme. If creating a winter scene, provide cotton balls, glitter, pine needles, colored construction paper and stickers and let the kids create winter vistas.

When doing open-ended crafts, there is no "right" or "wrong" result, and it is finished when the child decides it is finished. The focus should be on the process of creating, not necessarily the end product. To spark conversation, ask each child to tell you about his art and what he used to create it. Let each child's personality and skills shine through their art.

For more ideas for open-ended crafts, read this pamphlet by 123child.com.



To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Z is for Moose? Yup. Read it and laugh.

Today's book feature is Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham and Paul O. Zelinsky.

Z is for moose? Really? How could that be? A zany moose? A zippy moose? A moose from the Zurich Zoo?  What kind of ABC book is this?

It’s a hilarious ABC book. And well worth reading aloud to group of kids. It’ll work for preschoolers through 10- to 12-year-olds because of its clever design, engaging illustrations and tongue-in-cheek story.

Here’s the set up:  It is Zebra’s job to keep everybody in order to end up on the correct page of this ABC book. But Moose is very excited and struggles to wait his turn. When “M” comes around, and things don’t go the way he expects them to, Moose goes berserk. What will Zebra do? Will Moose calm down? What will happen to the ABC book?

Most of the text follows standard ABC book format, “A is for Apple,” but speech bubbles add drama and humor. Zelinsky’s illustrations tell much of the story, too. If you pay attention to the details, you’ll get so much more of the story. 

As you are reading this book aloud, be sure to give the kids plenty of opportunity to carefully examine the pictures. Encourage the kids to predict which item will depict the letter that comes next, or what Moose or Zebra will do next. Ask them how Moose, Zebra or the other ABC characters feel about what is going on. Pause before the end and brainstorm ways that Zebra can resolve the problem.

This book would work well with other unusual ABC books like The Hidden Alphabet by Laura Vaccaro Seeger or The Z Was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg or with unconventional books about books like Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein or The Three Pigs by David Wiesner.

On a more emotional level, Moose’s melt down finds a great parallel in Pigeon’s tantrum in Mo Willem’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. And the resolution of the story invites a discussion about the nature of friendship that brings to mind Willem’s Piggy and Elephant books or Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad.

Or you could just have fun with it. It’s that kind of book.


To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Math + Reading = Fun

Reading about math?  Boring! Think again. Sharing books about math with kids can get them to think about math and reading in a totally new light.  A great book about math can build enthusiasm and skill in both math and reading at the same time!  

Number Sense

For math to be fun, kids need to have good number sense. That means being at ease playing with numbers and seeing patterns. A Remainder of One by Elinor J. Pinczes is a delightful book about 25 ladybugs marching in 2's, 3's, 4's, and finally 5's. It is not fun being the one left over. Pinczes wrote another book on grouping numbers titled One Hundred Hungry Ants. Both books are entertaining, have cute illustrations, and are easy to read aloud. Lining up paper clips, Cheerios, or the kids themselves in groups is a concrete way of exploring the concept.

   

Were you stumped by word problems that involved trains and tunnels? Spaghetti and Meatballs for All! deals with the more realistic problem of seating people for a dinner party. At first is seems so simple until you realize there is more than one way to solve the problem. This book allows kids to look at different options. There is more than one "right" answer. Other books that help children have fun with numbers include The Grapes of Math by Greg Tang and Sir Cumference and All the King's Tens by Cindy Neuschwander.

Measurement

Measurement seems obvious to adults, but it is often confusing to children. There are so many different units of measurement. Kids need practice and some personal ownership. 

Leo Lionni's classic Inch by Inch is about an inchworm who outsmarts the birds who want to eat him by measuring them. Measuring Penny, by Loreen Leedy, is a cute book about a child measuring her dog, Penny, in every way possible. 

Children love learning how to use a measuring tape and measuring themselves. Let them practice by finding the size of their hands, feet, and heads. They also think it is fun to measure with non-standard units like toothpicks or pennies. 

                     

STEM

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education is an important focus for American schools, but science seems to get all the attention.  We seldom focus on the last three areas when we read to kids.  There are now so many great math books available that it is easy to include them when you read with a child. The links below can help you find math books and activities that most interest you.

Thanks to a generous donation, TRC now has a variety of math books and math activity packets for volunteers to use. Click here for a list of books and activity packs available.

For more math titles and activities, click here.  Look for more information about an upcoming volunteer seminar about integrating STEM themes into Read-Alouds.

To learn more about integrating STEM themes into Read-Alouds, join us for a volunteer seminar on Tuesday, March 19 at 7:00 p.m..  Location is to be determined.  Contact Stephanie Berman for more information.

Guest blog post by TRC volunteer and former elementary school teacher, Sally Berman.


To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Working towards the dream: race at Read-Alouds

As we remember Martin Luther King Jr. this week, it's a good time to examine the ways that inequality seeps into the corners of everyday life in ways that are easy for the privileged to overlook. While race is never an easy thing to talk about, it's an important thing to talk about, and it's important to be aware of the small racial inequalities that are cultural, not legal, and are therefore harder to overcome.

I was lucky in my childhood: if I went to the library and pulled a book off the shelf, chances are the characters in it would look like me. It's hard to talk about, embarrassing for me to admit--and symptomatic of larger cultural failures in the United States--but the fact is (and there's no way to beat around the bush): picture books are overwhelmingly about white people.And, as discussed in the New York Times' recent article, children of color don't have the privilege of seeing themselves in the books they're reading.While it's important for children of every color to be exposed to books with characters who have different skin tones--it certainly would have been good for me--it's exceptionally important to keep this in mind at TRC Read-Alouds. Because economic and racial inequities go hand-in-hand in the United States, statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority of Read-Aloud attendees aren't white.

The ideal picture book--for any child-- features characters of varying race without being about race. The unfortunate truth is that these books are harder to find--especially if you, like me, were raised mostly reading books about white people.  But they're out there. A personal favorite is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

Another way to try to combat this problem is to choose books like Circle of Friends by Giora Carmi, where race is ambiguous. 

And of course, books that feature animals circumvent issues of characters' race altogether--though it would be best if we didn't have to depend on that. 

Cultural racial inequality in the United States is pervasive and historical and hard to beat. We still have not achieved Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. So when you choose books, flip through and think about what messages the races of people in the illustrations will send. Make choices consciously. Be aware. 

Guest blog post written by Anna McCormally.

To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

New Read-Aloud program at Columbia Grove!

We are excited to announce a new partnership with Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing to launch a Read-Aloud program at the Columbia Grove apartments. As with all of our Read-Aloud programs, the volunteers are essential to making the program a success, so please consider volunteering at Columbia Grove or encouraging your friends and neighbors to do so.

Columbia Grove is located in south Arlington, off of Columbia Pike and near Bailey's Crossroads at 1010 S. Frederick Street. The 208 units in 14 garden apartment buildings are situated among large areas of green space and outdoor play areas. Over 100 children call Columbia Grove home and attend Abingdon and Claremont elementary schools. The Read-Aloud program will be the first children's programming at Columbia Grove.

The Read-Aloud program’s goal is to share the joy and excitement of books with children living in homeless shelters and affordable apartment complexes. Volunteers bring books to life during one-hour Read-Alouds that engage children and include themed hands-on activities. 

The Read-Aloud program at Columbia Grove will be held on Mondays from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. beginning in late February 2013.   

New Read-Aloud volunteers must attend an orientation session, clear a background check and commit to reading one Monday a month for a minimum of one year. All volunteers must be at least 18 years of age. Orientation for Columbia Grove volunteers will be held on Saturday, February 2, 2013 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Arlington Central Library at 1015 N. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22201.

Current Read-Aloud volunteers are encouraged to help out with the first few months of Read-Alouds at Columbia Grove and to spread the word about this new program. This is a perfect opportunity to encourage friends and family to become Read-Aloud volunteers.

For more information or to sign up as a volunteer, visit The Reading Connection website at http://thereadingconnection.org/volunteer or e-mail program manager Stephanie Berman at sberman@thereadingconnection.org.