Picture Books for Our Amazing Writers

Before we jumped into pictures books and the connections to writing, I wanted to start this section in my blog with a writing project that invites students to look inside their hearts, record those important pieces on a heart mapping and connect those pieces with an "I AM" poem. If you missed this part of the process, you can just look back at yesterday's postings. 

After we share those poems and maps with our community of family and friends, I take a picture of their Mapping Hearts, give a copy of the picture to my students and they glue that picture in their writer's notebook so those "important ideas" about our hearts are right there whenever we need to go back and look at it again. 

From those hearts and those poems, a lot of ideas and knowledge about your students should surface. From there on, I think carefully about the books I read aloud or the ones I use as mentors because I like to "try" to make connections the best I can between the picture books I read or the ones we use as mentor text and their lives. And I say  "I try" because it is not always possible and because sometimes it is just fun to read a book for FUN. and that is simply OK.

Now, I invite you to look at the book Someday by  Eileen Spinelli. 

 I love this part of the book, it reminds me of my good friend Natali (an Olympics Fanatic)...

"Someday I am going to be a gymnast at the Olympics. I will tumble and twirl across the mat. I will leap into the air as gracefully as any ballerina. The judges will swoon with delight. I'll win the gold medal! Someday...

As for today-I am practicing cartwheels in the backyards"

This book is just beautiful and what a great invitation to write about your "dreams" and your "nows" about your tomorrows and your todays. If I were to write something like this when I was 9 or ten, I was positive I would have written something like this...

"Someday I am going to be a teacher, I will teach children a little bit of everything, how to read, how to write, how to do mental maths, how to push yourself in the swings really high, how to jump rope with all kinds of silly rhymes. Someday...

As for today, I am playing teacher with my best friend, and we are taking turns teaching math."

If I were a mom, I would love to do a writing piece like this with my child so I can record his hopes without forgetting his NOW. And talk about taking this piece out in a couple of years to look back at life. 

What about you? what about your NOWS and your HOPES. I don't care how old we are, we are all entitled to dreams, and possibilities, and to a present. 

Since I am keeping a summer journal along with my ELLs students, I will go now and write an entry about my Someday (Inspired by Eileen Spinelli).

What about you my dear friend? dare to dream? dare to look at Today and Tomorrow...go ahead, grab a pencil, pour your heart out on that paper, give yourself  permission to dream.