We're well into week three of our Tomie dePaola author study and knee deep
in Strega Nona's world! My class has fallen in love with the characters in these books.
Their folkloric quality, Big Anthony's bumbling, Bambolona's brusqueness and
Strega Nona's endearing ways have captured them hook, line, and sinker!
We began this part of our study by reading Strega Nona and
answering the question, "What is a strega?"
During our discussion my kiddos brainstormed examples and synonyms for the
kindhearted "Grandma Witch". We then defined a strega with these pasta pot circle maps.
We've been comparing story elements along the way and one of the things my class noticed
right away is that all of the Strega Nona books take place in Calabria, Italy.
(Which is also the author's ancestal home.) We read Strega Nona's "biography",
Strega Nona: Her Story, and looked closer at some of the "settings within the setting".
We talked about how Strega Nona's house and kitchen are key locations in many
of the stories. My class decided this made perfect sense to them since
Strega Nona has many visitors come to her house and when company comes
where do you go? The kitchen!
of the stories. My class decided this made perfect sense to them since
Strega Nona has many visitors come to her house and when company comes
where do you go? The kitchen!
My kiddos pour over the illustrations in these books taking in all of the details,
and looking for the little visual extras and references to other stories that Tomie dePaola
so often includes.One of the things I love from a teaching standpoint about his books
is that the illustrations flow from picture to story directly supporting the text.
We used a brace map to decompose the elements of this setting.
After reading Strega Nona: Her Story and Big Anthony: His Story we compared
the childhoods, life stories, and character traits of the two main characters.
We sorted them and some of my kiddos called these "sorting hats"
just like in Harry Potter!
In many of his books, especially the Strega Nona series, Tomie dePaola includes
lots of Italian words.
As we read through our books we collected these words and wrote them on sticky notes.
I forgot to prep any shapes for them to use so I pulled out my sticky note stash and it was a unanimous vote that we use the hearts! Of course it's because Tomie dePaola includes a little heart somewhere
in many of his illustrations and my kiddos love to try to find it!
I reused our chart from last year by cutting off the artwork and gluing it to a new page.
During our literacy centers we made these little Italian dictionaries.
My very favorite book in this series is Strega Nona Takes a Vacation. I love
seeing Strega Nona out of her element and my kiddos think the beach scenes
with her in the old fashioned bathing suit are hysterical!
After we read the book we talked about why Strega Nona might need a vacation
and what destinations she might choose. The kids wrote in their notebooks about
the kinds of things Strega Nona might do to relax on her trip and in our writing center
they wrote postcards home to Calabria
from Strega Nona's point of view.
Strega Nona sent a postcard to remind Big Anthony to do his chores!
My kiddos love Big Anthony because he is such a goof! I love him because he's a walking
example of cause and effect! We made these little trifolds to show the causes and effects of
the fact that Big Anthony NEVER pays attention!
Not only is Anthony a disaster waiting to happen but he is extremely forgetful!
We did this little writing activity and I took pictures of my class with a
string tied around their finger. I had to explain the meaning of
"tie a string on your finger" to help you remember. They just couldn't get over the
fact that anyone would do that rather than just setting a reminder on their phone! Ha!
"When you tell time, don't forget to look at the hour hand first and then the
minute hand."
I can just hear this little one's mother saying, "When you cut something with a knife
don't forget to put it away so your little brother doesn't cut his finger off!"
It's good to remember to always pay for your groceries!
We also did some pasta punctuation practice (How's that for alliteration?) in our literacy centers.
I wrote sentences on strips and found these little salsa pots at the Dollar Tree.
You can download a copy of this {HERE}.
We found a lot of patterns in story events during our study and one of my boys
thought it was pretty cool that "things overflow a lot in Tomie books!"
We had just been talking the day before about Big Anthony
being "overwhelmed" by all of the love sick ladies chasing him after he takes
Strega Nona's magic ring and "turned hansdsome". I pointed out that both of those words
began with the prefix "over" and that many of the events in these books are "over the top".
It was music to my ears when they started coming up with these big words!
Next year, I definitely want to do more with this!
We used this list to help us form analogies between events
and story elements.
This little friend piped up while sharing hers and said,
"The setting for these is OVERseas... well , except for Texas!"
I know this is the longest post ever, but before I go I wanted
to show you a little treasure I got this year. It's the most beautiful
pop-up book!
And.....guess what??
I was looking around on the Barnes & Noble site and stumbled upon this...
A NEW Tomie book! Coming out in October! You can preorder
it from Barnes & Noble {HERE}
it from Barnes & Noble {HERE}
If you'd like to do this author study with your class you can! All of this and
so much more is included in my Tomie dePaola: An Author Study
on TeachersPayTeachers and Teacher's Notebook
on TeachersPayTeachers and Teacher's Notebook
Click on the links below to see the rest of our author study:
Teaching with Tomie dePaola Books Part 1: Little Grunt and the Big EggTeaching with Tomie dePaola Books Part 2: The Art Lesson & Tony's Bread
Stay tuned for Teaching with Tomie dePaola Books Part 4: Writing a Response to Literature
I'd love for you to link up and share how you teach with Tomie books in YOUR classroom!
