Post Tagged with: "girls"

Quite a charmer.

Here is a girl I know quite well. She’s a fun-loving, easygoing girl who has a twin brother (with a very different, albeit nonetheless charming disposition). If you know a girl like her, check out this girl’s favourite books and maybe your girl would like them, too.

PROFILE
Girl, 8, Canadian, in French immersion at school. Enjoys reading and being read to.

DESCRIBE YOURSELF/LIKES
Eight-year-old girl who likes playing with her friends, books, skiing and horses. And is charming.

FIVE FAVOURITE BOOKS
1. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits and a Very Interesting Boy, by Jeanne Birdsall
Birdsall has also written a sequel (which this girl enjoyed), The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, and is writing a third book in the series. There will be five Penderwicks books in all.

This is President Obama and his daughter putting the book into backpacks for kids whose families are in the military. (The book for the boy-backpacks is The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan.)
Here’s a link to the Obama article.

2. Felicity Wishes: Secrets and Surprises, by Emma Thomson

3. Princess Lillifee, by Monika Finsterbusch

4. Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney

This very popular book follows the life of Miss Rumphius from childhood to old age. As a child, she decides what she wants to do with her life when and then achieves her goals – which includes searching for ways in which to make the world more beautiful.

5. Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, by Leslie Connor and Mary Azarian

The story centres around a young woman leaving the “old country.” The text begins, “She could have picked a chiming clock or a porcelain figure, but Miss Bridie chose a shovel back in 1856.”

“Oh, and why stop at five favourite books? I also like the Junie B. series, Clarice Bean, and the Ramona books.”

Here’s something exciting to tell your teenaged daughter.

There’s going to be a new Twilight book out soon.
June 5, to be precise.

Here’s the title (deep breath): The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella.

Author Stephenie Meyer is calling it a novella, although it’s 192 pages long. For her that’s a novella, since her books typically come in at more than double that size.

The story is the tale of Eclipse (her third Twilight novel), told from the point-of-view of Bree Tanner, a minor character from that book. It will retail for $16.99 in Canada.

Cool facts
Here are some cool facts to casually let slip in conversation with your teenager, showing that you’re an oh-so-plugged-in parent who sometimes knows even more than she does.

* Bree Tanner was a newborn vampire created by Victoria. (Your teenager will likely not even remember this character, because Bree was killed off early in her chaotic young life, so this will be a cooler fact than you may realize.)

* $1 from every book will go to benefit the American Red Cross (think about it…)

* Meyer began the book as a short story to “help me examine the other side of Eclipse, which I was editing at the time.”

* The book will be posted online, free, from noon June 7 to July 5.

* Stephenie’s name is spelled with an “e” rather than the traditional “a” because it’s taken from her father’s name – Stephen. I’ve mentioned this one before, but it’s still cool.

Here’s Meyer’s website.
Here’s Bree’s website.
And here’s another article I posted about the whole Twilight series.

Sorry about the long delay in posting – I’ve had a backlog of deadlines. I’m still not finished with ‘em, but I’ve got too much stuff to blog about to wait any longer! More soon. And thanks for all of the great feedback I’ve been getting from everyone (you know who you are). Please keep those e-mails and comments coming!

Do cheer up, Alice dear!

This is the first Alice in Wonderland – the namesake.

It’s Alice Liddell, one of three girls to whom Lewis Carroll told the original story of Alice Through the Looking Glass. They urged him to write it down, and the rest is history.

The Globe and Mail has a wonderful slide show of Alice through the ages, including an Annie Lebowitz portrait, one by the Hunter S. Thomson illustrator and this one, from the movie.

Please do encourage your child to read the book, or read it out loud to them. It’s so worth it.

It’s also a good idea to show them the Globe’s slide show. Reading extensions like seeing the movie or getting a taste for the background of a book can really help to get kids reading.

A little gem from the literacy conference.

It’s a knitted book bag, with finger puppets that adhere with snaps to the bag. A knitted string lets the child hang it around her neck and take it anywhere.

Each bag has a theme. For instance, the Ocean bag has a handpainted ocean scene, and it comes with a clownfish, a crab, a mermaid, an octopus, a sea turtle, a seal, a shark and a starfish.

The idea is that you put a book, or a couple of books, into the bag.
There’s a list of book suggestions for each bag. For the Ocean bag, they suggest Baby Beluga, by Raffi and Commotion in the Ocean, by Giles Andreae (and eight others).

Then, wherever your little reader goes, she carries an entire puppet show with her.

Interacting with literature is definitely a great way to get kids reading.

The bags are made in Bolivia by indigenous peoples; it’s a Fair Trade project, benefitting both countries and helping families in Bolivia earn a living wage.

You can purchase a bag, a product the owner calls 3 Bags Full, from her website.

And speaking of the owner – here she is. Her name is Sue Berlove, and boy, she is passionate about what she does. Do visit her website. For one thing, they have way better pictures of her bags than the one I’ve used here (taken myself, as if you didn’t know.)

Playing in the snow.

Here’s a girl who’s 7, and likes art, ballet and spaghetti. She also loves books. Maybe you know someone similar, who would like the same books she does.

PROFILE
Female, age 7, Canadian, loves reading

DESCRIBE YOURSELF
Smart, creative

LIKES
Art, Disney World, spaghetti, ballet, soccer, horses and playing in the snow and on the beach

FIVE FAVOURITE BOOKS
1) Camping Out: A Shadow Story, by Lisa Allen and Julie Sharp

2) The Paper Bag Princess, by Robert Munsch

3) Eloise’s Guide to Life: or, How to Eat, Dress, Travel, Behave and Stay Six Forever, by Kay Thompson

4) Thomas’s Snowsuit, by Robert Munsch

5) Santa Knows, by Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith

Want to know more about this post and the profiles we’re writing about? Click here.

Pippi meets Wednesday.

Send the message, “I want to hear the story you want to tell.”

OK, here are some final highlights from the Leonard Sax seminar:

1) Many more girls than boys graduate from university. This is true for Canada, the UK, and the US. Sax says boys have given up on school and on marks – they been given the unintentional message that “school is for girls.” His theory is that boys have been marked according to girl-based systems. When boys get low marks because they haven’t put enough colour in a drawing, or because the drawing is violent, they give up; they figure they just can’t do it. Then they say, “school is for girls.”

2) The same applies to reading. When they’re faced with a book like Jane Eyre, which doesn’t immediately appeal to the “boy brain” they say, “reading is for girls.”

3) And writing: When a boy writes a story that contains action (and/or violence) and limited character development, they get marked down for it. So they say, “Writing is for girls.”

4) It’s our job – as parents and educators – to find a way to make boys find reading, writing and studying relevant to them. Sax says, “want to hear the story your boy wants to tell.” They want to tell a story that has action, excitement, car crashes! Why do we insist they tell stories the “girl way”?

5) The top three factors at age 15 that determine who will graduate:
-grades at age 15
-reading ability
-study habits
Gender in ability isn’t a factor! So boys can do it – they’ve just become demotivated to do it. (See 1-3, above.) They think that “school is for girls.”

6) This isn’t to say that girls don’t have problems. They do. They’re more likely to have an eating disorder, be clinically anxious or depressed and become moody.

7) Boys understand boundaries. Instead of saying, “no throwing snowballs,” make some boundaries. “Snowball throwing within this area only.” Boys get “inbounds vs. out-of-bounds.” And they’re good with it.

8) Boys like action and that includes violence. Give them boundaries, says Sax. “generic and classic violence (wars, car crashes) is allowed; personal/threatening (specific to a person) violence is not allowed.”

9) 40-year-old men and women can sit still for the same amount of time. But a six-year-old girl can sit still and pay attention about twice as long as the average six-year-old boy.

10) There are boy-oriented teachers, and girl-oriented teachers. Sax says very few teachers are both – nearly all teachers prefer to teach one gender over the other. And it has nothing to do with the gender of the teacher.

11) Boys learn better when they’re standing. It’s been researched. (At our school, one grade-six teacher offers exercise balls rather than chairs if kids want to use them. Great idea.)

12) When girls have a personal bond with a teacher, they’ll work harder for them, so as not to disappoint them.

13) Girls’ eyes and brains process colour and texture earlier than boys. Boys’ brains process movement. It explains why girls use 10+ crayons in drawings, while boys use one or two. It explains why boys’ drawings have scribbles (it’s hard to draw action!) and car crashes. It explains why girls like dolls and boys like trucks.

I talked to my son about colour. Without prompting, he said, “Mom, when I draw at home I use one colour. But if I’m at school and I want to get a good mark, I use lots of colours.” That could have come right from Sax’s lecture. Boys prefer to use one colour, but are graded on using many colours. (Having said that, my son’s teachers are awesome – and very empathetic to boys, so I’m definitely not dissing anyone here. But he definitely has gotten the message that more colour is better.)

Part II of our coverage of Dr. Leonard Sax’s seminar in Toronto about how boys and girls learn.

It’s not that boys’ brains develop more slowly than girls’ brains, according to Leonard Sax. “It’s more nuanced than that.”

Researchers have found that:
* the areas of the brain involved in language and fine motor skills mature about six years earlier in girls than in boys;
* the areas of the brain involved in targetting and spatial memory mature about four years earlier in boys than in girls.

Boys mature faster in some areas than girls (for instance, at age two, a boy is likely to be able to build a bridge out of blocks more easily than a two-year-old girl).

And girls mature faster in some areas than boys (3.5-year-old girls may be able to interpret facial expressions than boys who are five years old).

The bottom line – rather than getting frustrated that your son is “being lazy” or “not trying hard enough,” it may simply be that his brain just isn’t ready for that particular skill.

And in that case, it’s more helpful to focus on what he is doing well, and help him work on those areas.

In reading, it’s often best to take a step back – and breathe. If he has a parent who cares enough to be reading a blog like this, then chances are he’ll be fine. Scatter books around the house. Read to him every day. Let him see you reading. These are the single most important elements that help to build a great reader.

How’s your summer going?

Here’s something cool you can share with your child.

It’s a series of videos on YouTube, and I’m not kidding they have, like, two million views each. Million. As your kid would say, “it’s siiiiick.”