Get Puzzling with the kid! Although this official celebration is held every year on January 29th, puzzling is educational and fun anytime. It’s an opportunity to reflect on those puzzles, games and even challenges in life that we embrace every day but sometimes take for granted. Puzzles also offer us a great way to spend quality time interacting with family. Puzzles are an awesome way to make challenges and learning fun any day!~Bette A. Stevens
REVIEW
The Tangram Zoo and Word Puzzles Too! by Bette A. Stevens
Very Clever!
“I bought this book to give as a gift to my grandchildren. Reading through the book before giving it to them, I found it taught me a few things, too. First, I had no idea a tangram is a seven-piece puzzle with specific shapes. A pattern is provided to cut out and get started along with the history of it. There are many ways to put the pieces together, but the book supplies shapes to make—with clues or riddles as to what they are. Although, this is a very clever and educational book for children, I appreciated the added bonus that an adult can sit down and enjoy it with the kids!” ~D.L. Finn, author
We’re finally seeing a bit of bare ground here at the farmstead in central Maine. Snow is slowly melting and potholes are keeping us wide awake on the roadways. We won’t see these blossoms for another month, but the three haiku verses that follow will show you how our season is progressing. This photograph is from—MY MAINE—my poetry and photography collection scheduled for release soon (April/May 2019). The collection includes 49 of my photographs along with 150 haiku poems that take readers on a seasonal journey through the Maine I know and love. The book includes a haiku tribute, “Maine Pines and People,” plus interesting facts and symbols from The Pine Tree State.
Wherever you are, whatever the season, I invite you to get outdoors and get inspired. Join the fun and write a seasonal haiku about what’s inspiring you. It’s as easy as 1-2-3… You’ll find the definition and descriptive details of writing haiku below. If the kids are around, make it afamily affair—they’ll love it!
My Maine: Haiku through the Seasons
(Excerpt from “Spring Awakenings”)
Rivers spill over While ice jams—slowly melting Weep upon their beds
Potholes irk drivers As roadways turn to washboards Kids giggle in back
Hills and vales exult Rivers and streams sing arias Mud season arrives
: an unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively; also: a poem in this form usually having a seasonal reference — compare tanka
Writing Tips from Bette
Discover more about how to write poetry and prose:
Bette in her garden with one of the monarch butterflies that emerged from its chrysalis at the farmstead in central Maine.
Monarch butterflies offer an amazing view into the intricate nature of the wild. Their scientific name—Danaus Plexippus— Greek for “Sleepy Transformation,” gets part of the story right, but not the epic whole. Monarch butterflies embark on an amazing migratory phenomenon as they have the ability to hibernate and metamorphose. International conservation efforts to protect and restore monarch habitat are ongoing. These efforts may help improve the near-endangered/endangered status of the species; but we, as ordinary citizens, can easily help the monarch butterfly recovery right in our own backyards and gardens.
Resources for kids, families, educators and gardeners Download Bette’s FREE PDF“Fun & Learning with Monarch Butterflies” where you’ll find: ★ Monarch Butterfly Facts
★ Coloring Pages
★ Gardening
★ Video: How to Make an Origami Butterfly
★ Butterfly Teacher Guide and so much more…
★ How you can help protect our monarchs DOWNLOAD Bette’s FREE PDFhttp://4writersandreaders.com/fun-learning-with-monarchs-2/
Write a Halloween Haiku & Get the Kids Writing Too!
BLACK CAT, A Halloween Haiku (inspired by Midnight, our fabulous furry feline). ~Bette A. Stevens, Maine author
Meet Midnight—The fabulous furry feline who inspired me to write BLACK CAT, a 🎃Halloween haiku🎃 (Haiku: a Japanese-inspired three-line: 5-7-5 syllable poetry form).
Midnight’s grooming table is decked out for each season or holiday and she loves it. I designed this year’s poster using a photo I took of Midnight resting on her grooming table here at the farmstead in central Maine. She’s a kitty who loves to hunt for spiders (one of her favorite treats). After taking the photo and writing the haiku, I added text plus spider and web graphics, then added a frame to make a poster. Kids of all ages enjoy writing and illustrating their own poetry. It makes a great family activity too.
What’s inspiring you this Halloween? Brainstorm your list and get writing. 🎃Have fun—don’t forget to get the kids writing too!
Here are some writer’s tricks (literary devices found in every writer’s toolbox) I used to create BLACK CAT. These tools can set a mood— they make writing and reading memorable and fun. Check them out and see if you can discover where I used them in my poem.
Read on to find out more about these literary devices.
BLACK CAT(haiku) by Bette A. Stevens
Black cat waits, watches… Stalking tricksters in their web. Spiders are her treats!
Three Writer’s Tricks (Literary devices used in writing poetry and prose)
Assonance Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words.
Consonance Another literary device used by writers and poets is consonance. It is the repetition of the final consonant sounds, usually in the more important words or in the accented syllables.
Alliteration You put your alliteration tool to work when words that start with the same sound are used close together in a phrase or sentence. The sound is usually a consonant and the words don’t have to always be right next to one another.
Finding “just the right words” Abundant resources are available in print as well as through online searches. Listed below are the two resources I had readily available in the classroom for my students (Grades 4-8). Paperbacks are inexpensive enough to have multiple copies available, and in my opinion, they are indispensable.
The Scholastic Rhyming Dictionary by Sue Young
Webster’s Thesaurus for Students by Merriam-Webster
🎃 HappyWritingandReading Haiku
&Happy Halloween 🎃
~ Bette A. Stevens, Maine author/illustrator
Find out more about how to write haiku and other poetry at Reference.Com
“The love of reading is a lynchpin for successful learning—for success in life. Kids learn to read best when adults take time to share their passion for books with them.” ~Bette A. Stevens, Maine author.
One of the best ways to inspire kids to love to read is by reading aloud to them and talking with them about the books you share. We can all make a difference in the lives of the children around us when we #GetCaughtReading with the kids!
Benefits of Reading Aloud to Children of all ages
Expands vocabulary as they hear new words in context
Provides contextual examples for grammar and sentence structure that everyday conversation does not offer
Strengthens reading comprehension
Increases a child’s attention span
Teaches life skills associated with story themes and characters
Research has shown that children who come to school with a large vocabulary achieve more in school than those that have little familiarity with a wide range of words. Children are great listeners and imitators—they pay attention to what they hear. Reading aloud and discussing books with children is crucial to successful learning. Before children are reading on their own, a crucial part of their learning is based on imitating what they hear and observe.
Children are able to listen and comprehend content read to them two years above their actual reading level. Reading comprehension doesn’t catch up to a child’s listening comprehension level until eighth grade. When listening to adults read stories above their current reading level, a child’s vocabulary increases. This also provides an opportunity for listeners hear complete and complex sentence structure that is not offered in everyday conversation.
Children of all ages love to be read to by adults who are excited about books and reading. In fact, avid adult readers are walking, talking advertisements for books as they share their love of the written word with listeners. And, children enjoy talking about books with adults as much as the adults enjoy talking with them. When readers and listeners discuss characters and themes, their lives are enriched and family/generational communication skills are strengthened. A child’s story comprehension skills increase significantly as well. Reading aloud to children creates a win-win experience for everyone.
Where are the children?
In the U.S. alone there are about 15 million children living in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold—many of these children do not have books in their homes or adults who are available to read to them.
Where are these children? We’ll find them in homes, schools and libraries in villages, towns and cities in our own communities and across the globe. Local libraries and elementary schools are pleased to hear from those of us who are looking for the opportunity to share our love of reading with those who need it most—children of all ages, from all walks of life. Together we can change the world—one reader, one book, one book talk—one child or group of children at a time.
“So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.” ~William James
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Inspired by nature and human nature, author Bette A. Stevens is a retired elementary and middle school teacher, a wife, mother of two and grandmother of five. Stevens lives in Central Maine with her husband on their 37-acre farmstead where she enjoys reading, writing, gardening, walking and reveling in the beauty of nature. She advocates for children and families, for childhood literacy and for the conservation of monarch butterflies—an endangered species (and for milkweed, the only plant that monarch caterpillars will eat).
Stevens is the author of AMAZING MATILDA, an award-winning picture book (Ages 5-11); The Tangram Zoo and Word Puzzles Too!, a home/school resource incorporating hands-on math, science and writing (Ages 6-12); and PURE TRASH (Ages 10-Adult), the short story prequel to her début novel, DOG BONE SOUP (Ages 12-Adult)—coming-of-age story and family drama set in 1950s and 60s New England.
Find out more about author Bette A. Stevens and take a “Look Inside” her books for readers and listeners of all ages at http://viewauthor.at/BetteAStevens
Bette A. Stevens is a 2017 KCT INTERNATIONAL LITERARY AWARD ‘Top Finalist’ BLUE “TREAT” AWARD Winner!!!
To learn more about Bette and her other books, please visit her RWISA profile page! Please pick up your copy of this amazing title today!!! You’ll be so glad you did!
Book blurb
A compelling family drama in which a youth grows to manhood in a society where the poor are quickly and often wrongly judged.
“The love of reading is a lynchpin for successful learning—for success in life. Kids learn to read best when adults take time to share their passion for books with them.” ~Bette A. Stevens, Maine author.
“So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.” ~William James
Day Three Quote: 
Written
on 04/09/2019