Fortunately

Today I want to share a book with you that I learned about when I was in the Teaching Credential Program.  In this program, I had a professor who, like me, had a children's book fetish. This professor introduced me to lots of excellent books that, of course, I just had to have.  You could say that said professor enabled me to further rationalize my buying of children's books when a) I didn't have any kids yet, and b) I was planning on teaching middle school.

Here's a little peek at my bulging children's book collection.

I'm the first to admit that I have a problem.  However, we're not here to talk about that today, are we?  I want to tell you about this book, Fortunately by Remy Charlip.

Here's a little peek at what the book is like:

Fortunately

one day, Ned got a letter that said,

"Please Come to a Surprise Party."

But unfortunately

the party was in Florida

and he was in New York.

Fortunately

a friend loaned him an airplane.

Unfortunately

the motor exploded.

Fortunately

there was a parachute in the airplane.

Unfortunately

there was a hole in the parachute.

Fortunately

there was a haystack on the ground.

Unfortunately

there was a pitchfork in the haystack.

Fortunately

he missed the pitchfork.

Unfortunately

he missed the haystack.

Now that I've plagiarized half the book, I'm sure you get the idea.  

This is the kind of book that children can really get involved in, trying to anticipate what will happen next.  It also allows them to stretch their imaginations by coming up with more fortunately/unfortunately possibilities.

My favorite lesson to do with this book is for elementary age students.  You simply tell them that they're going to write and publish their own Fortunately book.  It's a model that's relatively easy for children to follow, while allowing endless variations.

It's fun for them to tell a story with the fortunately/unfortunately viewpoint each step along the way.  They can base their book on a story in their life that actually happened, with embellishments, of course.  Or, they could come up with an entirely fictional story only limited by their imaginations.  It's a fun activity to do with kids that results in an enjoying read for adults.

Another nifty idea that I love, I got off of the Barnes & Noble website.  It's to have kids use this model when writing book reports.  This would take some of the tedium out of the whole book report process, don't you think?