MindWing Concepts Blog

St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching! We have three terrific resources already on our website and here are two other titles to add to the fun of this upcoming special day. Leprechaun Tales is a delightful collection of six short leprechaun tales retold by Yvonne Carroll. It would be fun to start each day off next week reading one to your students. They lend themselves to retelling with the SGM. This book provides an easy way to review a complete episode. If you are looking for simple crafts for students to do, Crafts for St. Patrick’s Day is the book for you! There is a brief introduction about St. Patrick’s Day by the author and followed by twenty craft projects...

One of the novels that we explored in sixth grade was Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. Our focus varied, depending on our students, and my task was always to provide the scaffolding using the SGM^® for classroom presentations—making the lessons accessible to all our students, including those with IEPs. Our elementary school used Braidy^®/SGM^® at all grade levels so that by the time students were in upper elementary, they were well-versed in using the icons for both narrative and expository texts. The beauty of the SGM^®, however, is that the icons are easily learned and students can successfully participate in lessons in a few introductory sessions...

After facing 27 heart breaking rejections, Dr. Seuss was heading back to his apartment to burn his first book. It was on his journey back that a chance encounter changed his future forever. As he was walking to his apartment along Madison Avenue he bumped into an old Dartmouth College friend, Mike McClintock. McClintock, by chance, had just started working that very morning at Vanguard Press children’s section as editor. A few hours later the two had signed a contract to publish Dr. Seuss’s first book, “And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” after it had been rejected 27 times...

I previewed last month that this month’s post would discuss some of those exemplar pairings specifically. Before we crack some books and launch some apps, a word about analyzing contexts. For both books and apps, it can help if they have what I like to call a “Speechie” quality. You can read more about this along with the FIVES criteria (Fairly Priced, Interactive, Visual, Educationally Relevant, Speechie). Breaking down the Speechie part, we can ask ourselves if the book or app is a context for speech and language development: • Does it have a narrative structure that can be used for intervention, considering Story Grammar Marker^® or Braidy the StoryBraid^® as a tool (this includes apps that allow you to make your own choices such that a story unfolds)? • Does it provide or allow you to interact with informational language...

Norman Bridwell’s Clifford books are, of course, very popular with preschool and early elementary school-aged students. If you’re looking for a quick activity to reinforce the Character icon for Valentine’s Day for the younger set, pick up a copy of Clifford’s First Valentine’s Day or Clifford’s Valentines.

While in NYC about a year ago providing a workshop, Maryellen displayed a group of books to use with the Story Grammar Marker^®. Three of the books were picture books and were written by Jacqueline Woodson. One of the participants came to Maryellen after the workshop to point out those books and especially the one entitled Each Kindness. The others on display were The Rope and The Other Side. Each Kindness is particularly well suited to this time of year with Valentine’s Day coming up and with the Celebration of Black History Month during February...