Nothing Ever Happens at the South Pole, by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Why I picked it up
Honestly, the only reason I picked this one up was because it had a penguin on the front. I’m a sucker for penguins. I also love the Berenstain Bears, and the fact that this was from the creators of those classic characters was a plus.
Why I finished it
I had to know what happened! When the story opens, the penguin is thrilled to get some mail and is excited to see that it’s a book for him to write in. All he has to do is wait for something to happen so he can write it down. And so, our hero sets out on a journey to see what he can see. Each time the penguin encounters something as he walks around the south pole, he deems it too boring to write about. The snowball he finds is no good, unless it was a giant snowball that smashes some baddies to the ground, and as he throws the snowball down and walks away, it does just that! It’s a comedy of errors as his actions trigger other events that really are exciting and oblivious!
Who I would give it to
Anyone that says “nothing ever happens to me” or “I don’t have anything to write about.” This book would be a perfect read-aloud, and younger kids will get a kick out of watching the crazy sequence of events the follow the penguin. Older kids can probably identify with the feeling of writer’s block.
Integration Ideas
Technology
There are plenty of online writing tools that kids can use to record the everyday things that happen to them. Penzu is an intuitive tool that offers the familiarity of the spiral notebook with the cool features of a Web 2.0 tool. So much easier than collecting 25 composition notebooks to take home and read!
Kidblog is hands-down the best blogging tool around for the classroom. Teachers can set up all student accounts (no email addresses needed!), and students have their very own blog to express their creativity in writing! The teacher has complete oversight of everything that happens on the blog – from posts to comments to visibility of the entire site. What a great way to gradually release the responsibility of writing for an authentic audience – start by keeping it a class blog, slowly publish to parents only, and then to the world.
Check out the interactive book app (for iPad and Android) too!
Reading and Writing Ideas
Stay tuned for next week and post all about the reading and writing connections that this book offers!
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