Book Review: “The Paper Doorway” Poetry by Dean Koontz

I recently gave my 12 year old son the assignment to reflect on poetry that he had recently read. His response was that he could not do the assignment, as he did not like poetry and had never really read any poetry.

My response to him went something like this “but you love poetry, and you recently were telling me about all the great little ‘stories’ you were reading in your Dean Koontz book.”

His response “That’s not poetry, I liked that book. It was full of funny little stories.”

We had a long discussion after about how poetry takes on many forms and brings many different emotions. The emotions that were felt with Koontz’s poetry made my son feel happy. All poetry is not like that and my son did later admit he enjoys poetry, especially Koontz’s poetry.

“The Paper Doorway” is filled with humorous, whimsical poetry for children of all ages. There are wonderful illustrations on nearly each page and each illustration contains a mouse for your child to find.

This is a must have book for all young readers which will expose them to the joys of poetry.

Classroom Kit for National Poetry Month

If you are involved in educating children (a classroom or homeschool teacher, a school or public librarian, a reading specialist, a PTA member, an administrator, etc.) here’s a free gift for you.

Celebrate National Poetry Month and Young People’s Poetry Week, April 16-22, with a free classroom kit suitable for grades 2-5. The kit includes a full-color poster featuring a poem and art from Douglas Florian’s new poetry collection, Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars. You’ll also receive a pack of special poetry-writing pencils for your students, a Florian author bio, and tips on writing poetry from Douglas Florian himself!

(Allow 2-4 weeks for delivery; offer good while supplies last.)

http://www.harcourtbooks.com/TK8/

Are Special Ed Students treated too Special?

It is without question that students with special needs may not be excluded from school based upon their handicap. However, the safety of other students may be at stake in some situations regarding students who are emotionally or behaviorally disturbed.

There was a specific situation that occurred in my classroom that put both regular ed students and a student who had an IEP for a learning disability as risk. With out anyone's knowledge, one of my IEP students had brought a cigarette lighter to school. During one of my classes, he flicked the lighter on under another students arm. I saw the flash of light, and immediately knew what he had done. I looked at him and asked him to go to his administrator's office and stay there until I came down at the end of the period. I also had a paraprofessional in my room (because of the number of special ed students in the room this period) and I asked him to walk the student to his administrator and tell the administrator what had happened. The para as well as most of the students in the classroom did not see the incident. Previous to this, the student had never had a problem in my class or any of his classes this year. He stated that he was not aware that a lighter was a weapon and now realized he should not have brought it to school. The student was suspended from my class for 3 days and given in school suspension and several after school detentions. If this had been a regular education student, I feel the consequences would have been much more severe, but he was protected by his classification.

Based on this situation and others, It is my opinion that special education students who are emotionally or behaviorally disturbed should be placed in a classroom where there is constant supervision and low teacher to student ratio's. These students need to be reminded of school rules and acceptable behavior more often than traditional regular education students.

Remove books from a library?

As parents and educators, we may want to protect our children. However, it is important to remember that individuals must make their own choices in life. We should strive for our children and students to have opportunities that will enhance their understanding of different beliefs, cultures, and value systems which will enable our children and students to make informed decisions.

Second, even though as individuals we all have our own ideals it is equally important for us (as a society) to remember that there are other opinions and ideas present in the world and we should not be ethnocentric concerning those ideas. We should not limit our or others desire to explore literature whether we agree with it or not.

Finally, if we enable different education boars to limit what can be placed or taken out of school libraries, we send a message to those children that material that one group of individuals does not agree with should be censored or removed and students should not be individuals free to delve into what ever topics that spark their interest in the educational system.

Therefore, I agree with the Pico case decision in which local school boards should “not be permitted to remove books from school libraries simply because it dislikes the ideas contained in the books” (Alexander, 2001, p. 289).

Reference:
Alexander, K., Alexander, M. D. (2001). American Public School Law. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

Marshall's Artwork

Marshall created this last night at Michael's... we think he did a great job!!