Nana Kvaratskhelia

Building Curriculum Through Books  

Please complete all sections of the book report.  

Curriculum Theme: _My Family____________________________  

Book title: _” Me and my family tree” _______________________________  

Author: ____Joan Sweeney ____________________________  

Summarize your book. What is the story about?  

This book describes how all family members; siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are relative to one little girl. 

Mirrors and Windows: How might this book support children in your class. Is it a mirror, window, a sliding door, or a combination? Explain.  

This book will support children in my classroom to understand the value of family members and what does a family bond mean. It shows us a perfect example of a mirror and a window, when a girl arranges a family tree, we also arrange in our minds our family members, relatives and their names. 

Describe the illustrations. How do the illustrations add to the story?  

 The Illustration absolutely helped me to have clear imagination about how and where to put my family members in my family tree. 

List questions that you would ask before, during or following a read aloud or discussion of this book.  

“How many members are in your family? Tell me their names and which relationship do you have with them?” 

“Do you know all your relatives’ birthdays?” 

“What are you celebrating together?” 

“What do you know about your grand-grandparents?” 

“Do you have a family tree?” 

Get creative! Briefly describe an art activity (using visual arts, movement, music, or dramatic play) that you would do with your class of 4, 5, or 6-yearolds in connection with a reading this book.  

Today we are going to draw family free. We will need each member a crayon color to draw his/her branch to build a big tree and draw faces of each on its part. We will then sing a song about gratefulness we have to our relatives. 

Building Curriculum Through Books  

Please complete all sections of the book report.  

Curriculum Theme: __Myself___________________________  

Book title: ____” Chrysanthemum” ___________________________  

Author: ______Kevin Henkes__________________________  

Summarize your book. What is the story about?  

This book is about a girl who grew up in a love environment and has a unique name, that evokes cynicism in her peer Victoria, which is why the protagonist becomes complex and no longer wants to go to school because of it. The book tells the story of how a negative expression can affect us, but how important is support for us as well in situations of that need. 

Mirrors and Windows: How might this book support children in your class. Is it a mirror, window, a sliding door, or a combination? Explain.  

This book will help children understand how reckless behavior can hurt another person and what harm it can do to her/him. This is a mirror if we take the reflective behavior, a window for the things I would introduce them to and a sliding door for the circumstantial conditions that will sometimes face them, and they need to come up with solutions and creative thinking.  

The reflection here is depicted from events like when I am involved in some inner circumstances of self-thinking and I start to deny myself by preferring myself to be different or with more or less characters of my personality. The window on the other side, allows me to see how another person (in this case music teacher Mrs. Twinkle) stands up for her name and enjoys it. And by through sliding door we get to know the feelings of all the characters. 

Describe the illustrations. How do the illustrations add to the story?  

By seeing illustration I understood all the personages through exact visual, character and mood.   

List questions that you would ask before, during or following a read aloud or discussion of this book.  

“What are the names of characters?” 

“Do you ever have the same feelings like Chrysantemum?” 

“Do you think we have to laugh on anybody’s names and why?” 

“How Mrs. Twinkle supported Chrysantemum?” 

“What flower name would you give to yourself and your best friends and why?”  

Get creative! Briefly describe an art activity (using visual arts, movement, music, or dramatic play) that you would do with your class of 4-, 5-, or 6-year-old in connection with reading this book.  

I would ask the children to draw Chrysanthemums as they see, as well as a music teacher. I would ask what was particularly memorable to them about the character of Chrysanthemums and the music teacher. 

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