Posts Tagged nature

Summer Reading: Summer Fun

By on May 19, 2023   /   Articles  

As the weather is warming up, summer reading season begins. Why not create some summer reading traditions to make reading even more fun? Below are a few ideas.

 

  • Get outside! Lean into the nice weather and explore outside reading spots. This could be the front porch, the shade of a tree, or a local park. This can make summery books come alive even more, gives readers some fresh air, and can turn reading into a place-based habit. Patricia Bailey’s Take A Hike: An Outdoor Adventure Book List article provides excellent recommendations for books to read in the great outdoors.

 

                     

 

 

  • Have special snacks! Whether it’s popsicles or homemade lemonade, having a refreshing summer treat reserved only for reading time can solidify the joys of reading for young readers. This Easy Homemade Lemonade recipe from Lovely Little Kitchen is something young readers can help make too!

 

 

  • Take a weekly trip to your library! Many local libraries host summer reading programs with reading suggestions and prizes included. This turns summer reading into an exciting event, fosters a reading community, and encourages the discovery of new books. For more information about reading challenges (and how to make summer reading fun), check out Stacy Mozer’s post on Encouraging Summer Reading.

 

 

  • Plan it out! Make an activity out of selecting a summer reading list. You can cut stiff paper into 3 x 6 inch rectangles and invite each young reader in your life to print the names of the books they want to read this summer on the front of it and decorate the back with drawings of their favorite summer place to read. Now they have a visional representation of books they want to read and a bookmark all in one. For a free printable bookmark with other summer reading ideas, you can check out my No Rules Reading.

 

Summer reading can define the season and creating traditions that celebrate reading can help create lifelong readers. Plus, summer reading is something the whole family can enjoy!

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It’s Almost Spring! Bringing Books to Life in the Great Outdoors

By on March 13, 2023   /   Articles  

Whether the children in your lives are eager lovers of literature or more reluctant readers, finding ways to bring books to life with outdoor activities can be a fun way to encourage thoughtful reading practices and to make books even more engaging. Below are a few ideas for how you might create activities to bring the events of a novel to life for the young readers in your life.

 

Nest, by Esther Ehrlich, can be adapted into real-life activities in many ways. Set in the 1970’s, this is the story of a family dealing with mental illness. Despite these heavier tones, there’s still a lot of joy in the story from which to pull inspiration. Young readers could go birdwatching just like the main character Chirp and look up the birds they spot in a field guide. Similarly, Chirp creates a dance routine to the song Help! by the Beatles. Young readers can do this too. It doesn’t need to be anything professional or elaborate but getting up and moving to a song (Beatles or not) provides a lot of physical fun and memorizing a dance routine is a good brain exercise, too! And it’s even more fun if it’s performed outdoors.

 

Book Jacket for Time of the Fireflies

Kimberley Griffiths Little’s novel The Time of the Fireflies also provides more opportunities for readers to engage more fully with the novel.  A picnic dinner to watch fireflies would be ideal for bringing Larissa’s story to life. Other  ideas for bringing her book to life include exploring one’s family history through word of mouth or old pictures and objects or, like Larissa, experience some time travel. Pick a year, help your readers do some research, and then spend an hour or two as though you’ve slipped through time!

 

Winner of the Newberry medal, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly, is another novel rich in the natural world and centered around a loveable, strong female protagonist. Readers of Calpurnia’s story can follow in her footsteps by exploring their yards, neighborhoods, or local parks with a notebook and pencil in hand. Walk slowly and observe with all the senses, taking notes and making sketches of what kinds of flora and fauna are found. A field guide could come in handy for this as well, as some young readers  might want to learn the scientific names of plants and animals they observe. This is a great activity to encourage mindfulness, art skills, and offer a foray into being a naturalist.

 

The First Last Day, by Dorian Cirrone, is also perfect as the weather is warming up. Main character Haleigh finds herself in the midst of a never-ending summer…literally! One activity to bring this novel to life is to encourage young readers to paint memories of their favorite days or to keep a journal of their life through paintings. The passage of time might not freeze as it does for Haleigh, but this is a great way to encourage artistic creativity as well as personal reflection. Other art supplies and mediums can be added or substituted, too.

 

Finally, in my novel, Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, the main character Cricket goes on a wilderness adventure to try to find her mother. A series of clues leads the way. There are several ways Smack Dab could be brought to life, but one idea is to create a clue-based scavenger hunt for your young readers to solve. This could be as simple as leaving hand-written notes with riddles or descriptions that lead from one location to the next. You can also create more complicated clue trails involving cyphers or clues that relate to poetry or history. Even better if the clues incorporate the outdoors or wilderness! A small prize could be added at the end of the clues or simply solving the scavenger hunt can be the victory. Plus, older kids could orchestrate clues for one another. You can find some activities here.

 

These are a few ideas to get started. Once you start reading with potential outdoor adventures in mind, the sky is the limit. –literally.  Happy reading!

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Engaging Readers by Exploring the Natural World of Book Settings

By on February 11, 2022   /   Articles, For Teachers  

The pandemic has placed stressors upon students, parents and educators alike. What if we could engage students more deeply in the books that they are reading while helping them reduce stress?  Research overwhelmingly shows that spending time in nature and exposure to natural elements reduces stress and promotes mental and physical health. Exploring the natural world in which books are set can help students achieve some of the benefits of exposure to nature. It also helps readers make cross-curricular connections and allows students’ natural curiosity to drive them to seek out non-fiction resources.

Below are six easy ways for you and the students in your life to get started.

  • Begin by collecting several books in which a significant part of the action takes place outdoors. Research shows that students are more engaged when they have a choice in their reading. Allowing them to select a book with a setting that they’d like to explore also sets the groundwork for their natural curiosity to drive their inquiry.

 

  • Ask students to read with nature in mind. As students read, invite them to take note of details of the natural world of the book’s setting. What do the characters see, hear, smell, taste and touch from the natural world in that setting? How do these interactions affect character development, story arc, plot, pacing, and other elements of the story?

 

  • Take nature journaling to the next level. Begin by providing students with a notebook and challenge them to create a day-by-day or week-by-week nature journal from the point of view of a fictional character in the book they have selected. Students can make notes about what would most likely be of interest to the character at each point in the story action. Students can use non-fiction resources to answer questions about plants, animals, geography, weather and other elements of the fictional character’s world at that time of year in that location. They can add drawings and notes about those elements to their journals. You also might challenge students to consider how these elements affect the main character’s ability to achieve their goal. For example, does the weather present an obstacle? If the character is surviving on their own in the natural world, what plants or animals present opportunities or contain threats? If the setting of the book is similar to the natural world found in your community, you might invite students to go on a field to a local park to explore that environment and add to their nature journals.

 

  • Invite students to create a diorama of their favorite part of the natural world of the book’s characters. As students read, you might invite them to select their favorite part of the natural world described in the story. You can challenge students to create a diorama of that setting, with footnotes about how each element in the setting affected character development, plot, pacing, and the overall story arc. This provides additional motivation to access non-fiction resources and to expand student knowledge.

 

  • Create a guided outdoor scavenger hunt featuring natural elements mentioned in the book. Many items are common across ecosystems. You might select several items mentioned in the book your students are studying and create a scavenger hunt of those items. For example, in My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, the main character created whistles out of willow, made salt from hickory limbs, and ate parts of wild violets. You might challenge students to see if they can find those things at a local park or other natural area where they have permission to take small samples of natural materials. You can find an example of a book-inspired scavenger hunt list here.

 

  • Create a discovery center and a tradition of a nature wonder hour. Once students have found items from their scavenger hunt, they can create a discovery center to house them. You can make a discovery center out of an old printer’s tray, a box, a basket, or another item that you have on hand. Invite students to consider the questions they have about those items. They can then explore answers in non-fiction resources during a regular Nature Wonder Hour. That time can be as long or as short as you’d like. The key is to let student curiosity guide their research. You can find a sample set of questions here.

Whatever activities you do, I hope that you and the students in your life enjoy diving even more deeply into the world of book settings. You can learn more about new releases at https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/mixed-up-files-book-lists/ and find a list of books by Mixed Up Files contributors at https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/about/contributor-books/. I’m wishing you and the students in your life lots of reading and outdoor adventures.

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