Monthly Archives: March 2013

I don’t know about you, but I am always searching for interesting ways to introduce and explore/understand new vocabulary with my students. It’s not easy, and exposure is not enough. The students need to be engaged. So I was intrigued by this little book by Ken Pransky called My Fantastic Words Book. On one hand, it is billed as a “young student thesaurus.” On the other hand, the visual elements of this small book for breaking down and extending words could easily become a model for a classroom activity around new vocabulary at any grade level.

Pransky almost views the words here as visual templates, and then expands them along realms of synonym/antonyms, degrees or meaning, and other framing ideas. It’s hard to describe but the concept of word clouds is what comes to mind here, although each page has different shapes to them, depending on the word. For younger students, this book might be just enough of a thesaurus for stretching out their writing (although the number of words in the book are limited to common ones, such as say, go, mean, sad, etc.). For older students, it could become a model for how we often try to add nuance to our language by choosing other words along a synonym trajectory.

I am going to bring this book by my co-teacher and see if we can’t brainstorm a creative way to approach some vocabulary words, as Pransky has wisely situated this book (in a one-page teacher’s guide) as a strong way to approach vocabulary development with students who have learning difficulties and ELL students. The graphic element is a key piece. And I am already thinking of the technology possibilities here — either with a simple drawing program or maybe some word cloud generator, or maybe something else altogether. It might be that a site like Visuwords is a companion to My Fantastic Words Book.

Peace (in the words),
Kevin

We waited for almost three months for our library to get a copy of the third book in The Guardians of Childhood series. This one is called Toothiana, Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies, and like the other books in the series by William Joyce (who is developing a cross-platform franchise for The Guardian idea: books, movies, games), it has its up and downs.

The story revolves around the continuing development of the team of Guardians (which include Nicholas St. North and Bunnymund and Oombric the wizard, along with Nightlight the boy of pure energy and light, and the Man in the Moon) and their attempt to rid the world of Pitch, the king of nightmares who feeds on the bad dreams of children. A main human character, the orphan Katherine, gives the stories a childlike wonder and point of view, as she is part of the Guardians and sees more than evil in Pitch.

(Note: my son and I are reading the series together. Well, I am reading it out loud. He’s an active listener.)

Here, we meet Toothiana, and her origin story was the most interesting part of the novel, although she does not make an appearance until almost halfway through the novel. I won’t give it away but it involves a monkey king, a ruby box of magical teeth, a flying elephant, and tragedy. She also looks like no other tooth fairy you’ve seen before. Joyce depicts her as a beautiful warrior, armed to the teeth, and ready to protect children at any cost. She also has an army of mini-Toothianas that are smaller versions of herself (thus, the army).  In this depiction as a warrior, she fits in perfectly with the other stories, where Joyce has begun reworking our conceptions of idols connecting to holidays.

Even though the writing ebbs and flows (in my opinion), the plot kept us both interested (my son wasn’t all that concerned with the writing, to be honest.) And this book left off with an intriguing cliffhanger in which a mysterious and powerful figure, who may be Mother Nature, enters the fray and steals away Pitch and the human girl, Katherine.

And now, we look forward to the next installment in the saga (not due out until September): The Sandman and the War of Dreams.

Peace (in the magic),
Kevin