STUDENTS' STORIES ANTHOLOGY coming up soon!

The AES students' stories anthology is almost ready! Six AES students have worked hard throught several months to create the book. So, stories are written, illustrations drawn, editorial work is finished. Now, the anthology needs only to be designed graphically and printed out in as many copies as possible. Here are some of students' illustrations to give you a taste of the unique upcoming short stories collection: 

Illustration from the story by Ania Depta, 4th grade student

Illustration from the story by Gosia Pietrzak, 5th grade student

Discovering Chapter 21 in The Little Prince

Book Club participants work on creating a sketch based on Chapter 21 in The Little Prince, where little prince meets the wise fox and learns about friendship and love. The sketch will be filmed and shown to the wider AES audience.

Creating a plot for the sketch

Creating dialogues for the sketch

Creating dialogues for the sketch

Launching of the AES Book Club

The Book Club is going very well, and… very different to what I had planned initially. In fact, it is moving very much away from what we know to be a traditional gathering around a book. Yes, still a book constitutes the center of our learning (now: The Little Prince), but it’s only an incentive to wider explore its themes and discuss them in connection to students’ lives. 

One of The Little Prince’s main themes is friendship and love. Students explore these themes while filming and acting. Of course, we do read, but only the most important fragments. Working on meaningful fragments is a great way to explore a book. Really, not the whole book has to be read. It’s about getting a student interested in a book rather than making him or her read it in full. The Book Club… what fun!

Chapter XXI - one of the most significant, where little prince meets the fox

"To you, I am just a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we shall need one another. To me, you will be unique. And I shall be unique to you," said the fox (quote from chapter XXI).

Reading aloud in classroom

Reading out loud is still a great teaching tool

For quite some time now, I have wanted to familiarize myself with the famous Spanish novel Adventures of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. So far, unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to dedicate enough time to this literary masterpiece. Until today… - a day filled with substitutions. As I got to know about these unexpected lessons at the last moment (it’s usually so with substitutions), I decided to use them to introduce students, and myself at the same time, to this fascinating novel and character of Don Quixote. 

Don Quixote by a French artist Honore Daumier (1870)

Today’s classes became an occasion to see whether students like being read to. In each class (grades 4^th to 6^th), I read Don Quixote aloud (a version retold by experts) for over twenty minutes. Again, my conclusion is that students enjoy listening to someone reading out loud and that it enhances their concentration skills. It is also a calming and soothing exercise that in an unobtrusive way spurs students’ imagination. Reading aloud is creative and has no limits - a teacher can use this method in any situation, like an unexpected substitution. 

MS

Remembering The Little Prince

The Little Prince is a novella consisting of two significant parts - the literary (written) and the visual (drawn). In fact, Antoine de Saint-Exupery is the author of both - the text as well as the illustrations. 

The visual part of the book is very rich itself and one can even choose to discuss the book merely through illustrations. If you haven't lately read The Little Prince or have no time to go through it, look at the pictures below and let your mind sink - at least for a moment - into this charming, wise and very poetic book: 

What is it? 

Illustration 1

Ill. 2 What does the above pair of ill. 1 and 2 tell you?

Illustration 1

Ill. 2 What does the above pair of ill. 1 and 2 tell you?

Happy Valentine's Day

Rose - the symbol of love

The little prince could not restrain his admiration: 
"Oh! How beautiful you are!"

An antique Little Prince

At school I found an old edition of The Little Prince with a dedication from 1973, have a look!

 

Dedication from 1973 inside an old edition of The Little Prince

Seduce me with a book!

On Sunday night I received a text message with a request from the school director. She asked me to substitute another teacher throughout Monday. Hmmm…, I thought, what should I prepare for the upcoming day? Mind you, I was to have classes with nearly all of the grades - from 2^nd to 6^th grade! 

However, it wasn’t long until I came up with a simple, but brilliant idea (forgive the lack of modesty). I decided to ask students to take out from their school bags books that they are currently reading for pleasure and to read them aloud to the class. I wasn’t, however, all that sure if this will work and if kids still enjoy the simple act of listening to a book…?

Now, after Monday is over, I can go ahead and say that literature still possess the power to seduce and that children really do receive pleasure from being read to (and that they do keep all sorts of good fiction in their school bags). Reading aloud is hypnotizing, soothing and enchanting - one can learn this from looking at the faces of children listening to literature. 
That Monday I also learned more about what type of literature is now popular among young people and what children really like to read. Below are photos of book lists we created in 3rd and 4th grades:

 MS

Books read by 4th graders

Books read by 3rd graders

 

Books read by 3rd graders

The first AES Book Club meeting

Last Tuesday, 4th of February, the first AES Book Club meeting took place. Seven students attended the Book Club. We began with a game "Who am I?" which enabled us to smoothly slip inside the world of literature. Each student thought of a book author, book character, or a book title, wrote it down on a yellow sticky note and stuck it to the forehead of a person sitting beside. These were the passwords that we came up with, words that drew us into the literary realm:

Passwords to literature

We then attended a "book sale". From a pile of a variety of books each student chose the one that grabbed his or her attention. The "book sale" showed how each one of us has a different literary taste and is drawn to different books. We learned that personal intuition serves as a good guide in choosing books we like most.

Attending a "book sale"

We concluded by reading letters written by renowned authors to their fans. Below is a famous letter from C.S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) to his godchild Lucy:

My dear Lucy, 

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can take it down from you upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. 

C.S. Lewis

Next week students will read their own letters to authors of their choice. We will begin reading a famous poetic tale "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. 

Re-discovering The Little Prince

You are more than welcome to join the Club!

- MS