Here are the suggestions I received for activities for the Tale of
Despereaux. Thanks to everyone. I think the teacher will love them.
A 5th grade teacher at my school read it, and she stopped in several parts of
the book and had the kids guess what was going to happen next. They
wrote what would happen and drew pictures. The pictures of what would
happen when
Despereaux is going down the steps to the dungeon were the most fun!
Since National Poetry month is soon here, what about doing acrostic poems
about the characters? The teacher should request that each letter contains
a line about the character that proves the character trait or description,
not just one word, for instance:
D aring when he tried to save the princess.
Also, here is an art activity suggested by a member of another listserve I
belong too, unfortunately I do not know the contributor's name:
The drawings in the book itself are chiaroscuro, and with that basis, plus
some things we talked about and saw on the internet, my students are now
making their own art booklets. I handed out some leftover publishing books
with 6 blank 1/2- pages, and construction paper covers. We do our
publishing on the computers now, so these are obsolete! On the cover, they
wrote "The Tale of Despereaux." (I was interested to notice that, even
though I had written the name on the board several times, it wasn't until
they actually had to write it that they realized it had all those vowels and
ended with an x!)
On page 1, I asked them to think about the first tale, Despereaux's, and
think of their very favorite moment from that part of the book. I told them
they were going to draw a picture, but they couldn't use hard, dark lines.
I suggested that they hold their pencils well back from the point, so that
they didn't have a hard grip on it and could be very light with the point.
I showed them a picture from the end of the book, where we haven't read (we
also read chapter 30 today) to remind them that no piece of the page is left
blank, none of it is white space, that it's all shades of light, medium and
dark in one color. One easy exercise to teach Chiaroscura is a ten box
shading exericise. Picture a train of ten one inch boxes, lined up side by
side. Have them shade the first box as darkly as they possible can with
their pencil. Then the object is to get lighter and lighter, until the last
box is white.
Then I had them draw their scene. Some were more successful than others.
Some had a *very* hard time not drawing everything out in hard, dark lines!
But we persisted. Next, I will have them use that experience to try one
from Roscuro's tale, then Miggery's, and the Princess Pea. Each time, my
hope is that they will gain a little experience in their schema to make the
pictures more like the real thing. Already I've seen some children
experimenting with adding the technique of erasing lightly in some areas of
the drawing.
How does it relate to reading? One of the things that is recommended for
comprehension is to "do the book" in some way. Combining art and the
reading does this. Some children are envisioning the story in new ways in
order to make pictures. It forces a visualization in the mind, the way
having to explain an idea forces one to actually think about the idea. I
like the fact that they are envisioning themselves in new ways as readers
and comprehenders,
http://www.teachinflorida.com/teachertoolkit/FGCUBookReviews.asp?a=fullreview&;
review_id=26
_http://www.candlewick.com/book_files/0763617229.mis.1.pdf_
(http://www.candlewick.com/book_files/0763617229.mis.1.pdf)
I saw a site that had some great activities, can't
remember, but you might google it. Also- for future
classes, Suzy Red is writing an instructional unit for
the book, see her site at suzyred.com
go into the reading room, the newest "Bluebonnet" list
books have this title included for the units.Will be
out soon and you can order online I think.
http://www.multcolib.org/talk/guides-desperaux.html
_http://www.albany.edu/dept/sisp/jjpowers/WebCollabF04/katedicamillo/MainMouse
.htm_
(http://www.albany.edu/dept/sisp/jjpowers/WebCollabF04/katedicamillo/MainMouse.htm)
Debbie Bergen LMS
Archer Street School
Freeport, NY 11520
_Snuggles556@aol.com_ (mailto:Snuggles556@aol.com)
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