By Ken Roberts (2006)
| Introduction | About the Willows | Strategies | Lessons | Helpful Resources | References |
Summary
In this sequel to Thumb in a Box, the kids from New Auckland make a plan to visit the big city. The small village on the coast of British Columbia has never had a baseball diamond, let alone a team. With some ingenuity, Leon (Thumb) and Susan recruit a baseball team that qualifies for the championship game in Vancouver. For most of the children, it is their first trip outside the village. Their experiences at the tournament and in the big city are quite an eye-opener for this intrepid group of ball-players.
Strategies
After students have had many experiences with modelled strategies, they are ready to work through guided activities.
Modeled Connections
- Text - to - Self
When I was reading Thumb on a Diamond, I had a hard time figuring out where Susan and Thumb lived. I've always lived in a city or town where I could jump in a car to get groceries or watch TV whenever I wanted. I really wonder what it would be like to not have any cars in my community or no TV shows to watch. I wonder what it would be like to live right next to the ocean.
- Text - to - Text
I thought about how much I enjoyed reading about New Auckland for the first time in Thumb in a Box. I was surprised that Leon had a new nickname. It felt really familiar to see some of the characters from the first book.
- Text - to - World
I was just reading an article about some fishing villages in B.C. and Newfoundland. It helped me understand how isolated some places in Canada can be.
Guided Connection
Students could use a double entry diary to show connections.
| Scene | What I thought of: |
| Susan and Thumb are skipping stones (page 32) |
My whole family likes to skip stones. They can pick good stones and make them skip many times. |
| "Four skips," I yelled to Susan. I'm pathetic." | I can never make my stones skip the same as my family. I sure know how Thumb feels because I'm really bad at skipping stones. I actually think four skips would be good. |
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Could you use a table like this and find a connection for you? Maybe it is something in the text that relates to you, or something that you noticed in another book or something that you saw in the newspaper or T.V. We'll be able to share these with our reading partners tomorrow.
Guided Monitoring Meaning
Sometimes we need to make sure we understand what we are reading. Here are some sticky notes. Every time you find something that doesn't make sense, just put a sticky note right there.
(Read the phrase with the students)
"[The beavers are] in all the bogs around the bay." (p 28)
I don't know what a bog is so I'm going to put a sticky note there. I might try to figure the word out by reading on, or I might look the word up in a dictionary or I might ask someone.
This is what it says when I read on.
"When the snow melts, it runs down the cliffs and settles into craters along the shore."
That kind of tells me what a bog is. I'm going to put my sticky note on the question board though because I'm still not completely sure what a bog is. I think that a bog must have melted water but I don't really know what a crater is.
Everyday, we'll look at our sticky notes on the question board so we can see if we can help each other understand.
When you do your reading today, make sure to put your sticky notes on words or sentences that you don't understand or questions you might have.
Thumb on a Diamond - 2007 Diamond Willow Award nominee
http://www.willowawards.ca/nomdescribe/thumb.htm
| Making Connections | Questioning | Visualizing | Making Inferences | Determining Importance | Synthesis | Monitoring Meaninig |
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Thumb on a Diamond.doc | 45.5 KB |
