Mousekin children's book series lesson plans for life science

Hello friends of the Omschool! Teacher Omi here with some beloved children's literature classics from my childhood! Just in time for Children's Book Week and Earth Month in April, here are kids books that for preschool and emergent readers on nature. And these books star a little creature named Mousekin in his many woodland adventures. 

Using the Mousekin book series, by Edna Miller, you can teach complete units in life science. With Mousekin, childrean explore camouflage, hibernation, ecosystems, habitats, symbiosis and more. Edna Miller, a naturalist and children's book author introduced us to Mousekin, a white-footed mouse, with her first book Mousekin's Golden House, in 1964. 

Here are lesson plans using the Mousekin books in preschool and elementary life science activities. Each Mousekin book contains a glossary of science terms and animal species, as well as suggested reading and further reference.

Mousekin's Golden House (1964) Perfect for Halloween, fall and autumn harvest lesson plans. Looking for a place to hibernate in winter, Mousekin discovers how other forest animals prepare for winter. When Mousekin finds a discarded carved jack-o-lantern pumpkin, he makes it into a cozy winter den. Children will learn about how eastern woodland habitat creatures ready themselves for winter.

Mousekin's Christmas Eve (1965) Our furry friend finds another cozy nest when he finds himself unexpectedly indoors for the holidays. 

Mousekin Finds a Friend (1967) Seeking safety yet again, the little white-footed mouse discovers an ally in s surprising way. He learns more about predator, prey and also community relationships in the animal kingdom. 

Mousekin's Family (1972) Through the eyes of a young mouse, we see how different animal species raise their families in the wild. 

Mousekin's Birthday Lovely story of gestation, birth and care of a family of white-footed mice. Beautifully drawn images. 

Mousekin's Woodland Sleepers  (1970) Companion book for Mousekin's Golden House, Mousekin's Woodland Sleepers explores in more detail how different species hibernate, including where they hibernate and how winter sleep cycles work. Mousekin meets a hibernating woodchuck, bear and chipmunk. Mousekin also learns about predator/ prey relationships in winter, including the predatory screech owl, skunk and fox who do not hibernate. Excellent book on habitats.

Mousekin's ABC (1972) Excellent forest field guide and reference book.

Mousekin Takes a Trip (1976) Mousekin ends up in a new environment with new creatures when the house he's wintering in migrates south! 

Mousekin's Close Call (1978) While eluding a hungry weasel, Mousekin explores how different creatures protect and camouflage themselves and their young. Mousekin's Close Call shows different predator/ prey relationships, habitats and how the food chain works in an eastern woodland forest.

Mousekin's Mystery (1983) A forest fire leaves Mousekin homeless and fills the forest with an eerie glow. Mousekin discovers bioluminescence from the fox fire fungus. This book explores habitats and symbiosis also.

Mousekin's Thanksgiving  (1985) In his quest for winter food stores, Mousekin discovers that some creature is eating his winter stores, but in the process, making more winter food stores available. Mousekin's Thanksgiving explores how creatures rely on each other in a symbiotic relationship within habitats.

Mousekin's Easter Basket (1986) Perfect for spring lessons, Mousekin explores different nests and eggs in his search for shelter. Perfect book to help children identify how birds, insects, amphibians and reptiles design their nests and protect their young.

Mousekin's Lost Woodland (1996) Mousekin's beloved home is destroyed when the shared pond is drained to build a new house. Teaches children about deforestation, wetlands protection and ecology. 

There are a few I may have missed as Edna Miller was a prolific writer, penning Mousekin stories for over 30 years. 

Kids Book Party Planner with Children's Literature Book Crafts, Games, Snacks, Printables

Teacher Omi coming to you live from Grand Haven, Michigan, where it is raining and wet! So at least its not snow, BUT it's also too cold and wet to play outside. And you know what bored kids turn to, when they're rainy-day-bored: mischief! Did we learn nothing from the Cat in the Hat? The kids are the well-behaved ones and it was the cat who is the troublemaker! Why not stir up a little fun instead of trouble, with a cheap (mostly free) afternoon of fun, compliments of your storybook shelf. 

 

Here's a snowbound or rainy-day book party planner for kids, with children's literature crafts, snacks and storybook games. I've included free printable kids' book coloring pages to help keep youngers ones busy too. These book based activities are perfect for all ages. They're just right for Children's Book Day April 2 and Earth Month in April! 

What I do in the Omschool is to first, announce a book party. Stay-at-home parents, if at all possible, take the afternoon off and read to kids. Homeschoolers this is perfect for you! Turn off the phone, computer, music and television. Set younger kids to work creating book party decorations with these free printable book crafts links.

Next, pile the couch and floor with squishy pillows and cuddly blankets. Invite stuffed animal friends. And make a pillow pile. Make it the youngest toddler's job to collect supplies and create the atmosphere. Grandsons Emmett and Remus, I spy you for this task! Everyone gets to select his or her snuggle spot. You can even tell the kids to put  PJs on or do the book based costumes activity listed below. 

Now, choose a snowbound or rainy day book party theme--adventure, mystery, spring, fantasy, animals-- and let each child, including the baby, choose several of their favorite books on that subject. Our youngest Maximus loves his tail book from Omi and Opi so this would be a must-read. Or just keep it open-ended. Rotate reading one of each kid's chosen children's literature books. Parents, you get a pick too. 

Warning--be careful reading scary kids stories. Even books you didn't think would frighten may scare kids silly if read by a talented storyteller. I chose Sherlock Holmes "The Devil's Foot" one of my favorite scary stories) for one snowbound book party. I thought the children might be bored by Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian English. After reading a bit, I looked up to ask if they enjoying and saw eight bulging eyes and four mouths gaped. In unison, they commanded, "READ!!" At bedtime, four tired children insisted they couldn't sleep it was that scary. They're in their 30s now and still fondly remember being scared to pieces and loving it! 

Decorate the house for the snowbound or rainy day book party and wear costumes. Put energetic kids to work making storybook based decorations and costumes of their favorite characters from kids stories. Themes might be nursery rhymes, fairy tales, fantasy (even older kids will love this). Kids who are -10, like my older babygrands Silas, Moses, Lola, Lucian, Henry, Milo and Juno will love this part. Anyone who can't participate fully due to limitations, such as my grandson Ezra who is laid up with a broken leg, is the automatic Party Commander-in-Chief. All decisions must go by him! (But do involve them as much as they possibly can.) Here are free printable spring coloring pages from Crayola to help. 

This should be completely DIY. Don't buy anything: set out the recycling bin, dress-up clothes, bedding, towels, boxes, camping furniture and craft supplies. Make bored children put their vivid imaginations to work. Our granddaughter Flora loves her trampoline, so that would make a marvelous setting for the party. 

Good children's literature kids stories to use are: "The Chronicles of Narnia", "Aesop's Fables", "Grimm's Fairy Tales", "The Hobbit", Beatrix Potter, Dr. Seuss or children's literature about the Bible, cars or animals. This will keep kids busy for hours, which is good if you have to do the book party on another day. Edupics has a gazillion free printable coloring pages on pretty much any subject you come up with. 

My oldest son did this with his college roommates for a going-away party. They decorated rooms in different biomes: mountains, desert, rainforest. They made treasure maps, games, and choose-your-own-adventure activities. Again, let creativity and ingenuity, not Internet or wallet dictate activities! We're going for cheap. Think leftover cardboard, recycle bin, foil scraps and things like that. Here's a Pinterest board with all kinds of free printable kids book based games and another with free printable library books scavenger hunt games. 

Make snacks. Inventive children will enjoy creating festive treats from children's literature. Again, don't buy anything special: use leftovers and let them experiment. Serve tea, coffee, cocoa and cookies like grownups do at their book clubs. Kids love pretending to be adults. One of our family favorite books parties consisted of reading Paddle-to-the-Sea and eating a gallon of pickles! Last Sunday, our son reprised this book party with our grandkiddos! 

Use your storybook selections as springboards for ideas; Make foods listed in kids stories. Some, like American Girls, have accompanying cookbooks or recipes listed in the back. We once had a vintage Winnie-the-Pooh party and made Pooh recipes of haycorn pie, succotash and honey cake. Engage kids.

Children who like writing might write a journal entry about the storybook. Preschoolers and special needs children might illustrate kids stories they hear. Let kids draw and color while they listen. This keeps fidgety ones busy. Don't make is too schoolish. Keep the focus on fun.

Free poetry month lesson plans, poem templates, activities for young poets with printables

Hello and welcome to Teacher Omi's (grama's) favorite month or one of them! April celebrates many things including National Poetry Month. And April's other hat of Earth Month  nicely matches her poetry dress! So from the Omschool, where everything's coming up crocus and daffodil, here are free poetry month lesson plans, poem templates and activities for young poets. And you know that everything Omschool comes with free pintables! And, since the Omschool originated as a homeschool (33 years ago!) these poem activities will be geared to all ages, right down to the newest of my dynamic dozen babygrands, Max and Flora (Omi loves you all so much💕)

Acrostic name poems and All about Me poems The best place to begin is with what the child knows. So make an acrostic with his or her name. Juno- Jumping joyfully UnderNeath and Over. All about Me features kids filling in blanks with words to describe themselves. Bonus added use opposites, like " I am____ but I'm also _________. I  like ______ and I don't like ______. 

Nature Wander and Write. You get the best April has to offer with a BOGO nature walk and poetry slam! The concept is simple and the materials are few. (Mothers of many and teachers of crowds, rejoice!) You basically just find a pretty spot to wander, a meadow, field, by a brook, at the beach, in the woods. Equip each student over 7, Silas, Moses, Lola, that's you, with a pencil and notepad. Or for youngers, Lucian, Henry, Milo, Ezra, Juno this means you, each gets a box with crayons and paper. The mobile newbs, Emmett, Remus and Flora, get a box to collect samples. Max, your task is to supervise and provide commentary. The idea is to note down or draw interesting things you see. Once indoors you can complete your poem or poem drawing (art is poetry just with pictures, just like poetry is art with words). 

Gestalt Poetry Ponder Gestalt is a German phrase meaning that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Nowhere do we see this so clearly as in nature. So for this type of poetry, simply bring in one natural element. Might I suggest the humble yet regal pussywillow (called kitty toes, by son Jake) Or Omi's personal favorite, a sprig of dogwood? Arrange it in a simple vase. Or give each his own to explore VAKT (visually, auditorily, kinesthetically and tactilely). Students should note down or draw observations. They should experiment with different descriptor words. This makes a nice language arts-science connection. 

Adverbs and Adjectives Adventure After collecting your nature observations, begin your poem by creating a chart. List what you see, hear, taste, smell and touch (nouns) and words to describe those nouns (adjectives). Then list what happened or what the nouns did (verbs) with words to describe how it happened or how they did it (adverbs). Use my poem (free printable, btw) Achy-Lake-y Michigan Scent at the Grama-Grampa House  for examples. This is basically just my list of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs about a walk to the lake. 

Haiku for You The humble haiku is a perfect poem starter activity for kids. Instead of rhyming, it relies on pattern of syllables. The 5-7-5 pattern is pretty easy to master. But don't let kids get bogged down by strict adherence, either. As with rhyme poems, haiku can be flexible too. It's more important to get a rhythm that flows. And sound byte is king. If kids have a juicy word they just have to weave in, let 'em do it! 

Making noise with Edgar Allen Poe-etry Mr. Edgar Allen Poe might have had his dark side but I think he was a kid at heart because he was all about the sound poems called (delicious word!) onomatopoeia! Simply, it's words named from the sounds they make: bang, crash, boom, and such. The Bells and The Raven being two famous poems. So, how to begin? By listening. Even the silence makes sounds of a sort. Describe, in words or by drawing what you hear. What is the wind saying? Or the waves? Or your cat? Use my poem Campfire Songs and Lightning Bugs or Fireflies to explore how sound is used in poems. Look for all the onomatopoeia examples you can find. 

Assonance and alliteration in verse Not all poetry rhymes or has a certain number of syllables. Some, like onomatopoeia, relies on sound to create a rhythm or cadence. One way to achieve that is by using repetitive vowel sounds (assonance) and consonants (alliteration). In Campfire Songs and Achy-Lake-y, I used moan-groan, thunder-crumble crunch assonance and "endlessly tameless" alliteration to generate a sound pattern. Can you find other examples? Now write some letter matches of your own.  

Farad-ing Poetry Michael Faraday was an inventor who discovered the Farad (electrical unit) which was later named for him. That's what happens when a word is lacking. We make one up. I don't know if Poe invented some of those onomatopoeia,  but I do know that I have and you can if you can't find just the write word for your poem. In my Campfire Songs poem I made up (or at least I think I did) the words sklush and sklish. Others like crickle-trickle and worry-hurry I combined from others words. And Dr. Seuss, if the man gave us anything, it was permission to make up fun words! Gardinker and hakken-krakks being two of my favorites. 

Rhyme-time So of course, rhyming uses sound to creates poetry. I like writing this kind and you might too. But I prefer the other kinds best. Having to create rhymes can cramp your word choices. You end up discarding words you'd like to use to fit the rhyme. And it takes practice to write in rhyme too. Begin by generating a list of rhyming words and patterns. Use my poem For the Love of Alyssum to go by. You'll see what I mean about how I had to sacrifice certain words for ones that fit. It's good to practice on rhyme poems but the other sound kinds will likely be more satisfying. And then there's

Free verse Fun My grandkids know that I love the poem "This is Just to Say" What they don't know is why. It's just a note on a refrigerator. What's poetic about that? And I think therein lies the crux of poetry. It's a state of mind? Just like how do Jackson Pollack's pain splotches constitute art? Is it okay to just write a list of stuff and call it poetry or throw paint at a wall and call it art? I don't know. But I think with children and new poets especially, it helps establish the habit if there aren't a bunch of rules to bog you down. So for this exercise, just have kids start writing, anywhere. Put a word in the middle of the page and write words around it. That becomes a shape poem. Make a grocery list and look for sound patterns. 

"twelve yellow lemons" 

"squash to nosh"

"ruby red grapefruit"

"green beans" 

It's all about the celebration of words. Oh and for the littles, sorry, forgot to list activities for them. The best exposure is to give them brightly colored and musical toys to explore with all their senses. Not the electronic ones, please. Avoid those. Toys with real bells, shakers and noisemakers that's the kind I mean. Oh and give them cloth books to touch and feel. Mr. Max loves his fuzzy tails book from Omi and Opi. 

Ken Nesbitt Poetry4Kids has free printable poetry templates, poem patterns and poem lesson plans. Red Dragonfly on My Shoulder is a great Haiku read-aloud. We are teachers has more free printable poetry frames and templates. 

Free Biomes and habitats lesson plans with activities, worksheets and printables

Hello my Omschoolers! Teacher Omi here with another batch of free geography and science lesson plans, this time featuring biomes and habitats. These are biological ecosystems (habitats) of plant and animal life that grow up around the temporal zones created by geological and geographical land and water formations and the weather and climate conditions they create. It's all down to the water cycle, my dears! 

So to begin with, what in the world are biomes? A better question might be where in the world are they? And the answer is, everywhere! Each region of the world has a biome (flora and fauna) that has developed in response to the geographical and geological features of the land and its water sources. These have created weather patterns and climate conditions which have in turn surfaced that land and caused certain vegetation to grow or not grow. And that in turn has caused animal life to develop certain features. Even the people that originally inhabited a place had to adapt to their environment. 

Here are the OG biomes that came into being: forests (tropical, temperate, and boreal or taiga), grasslands (savannas and temperate grasslands), deserts, tundra, and freshwater and marine ecosystems.  Each requires certain amounts and kinds of precipitation to maintain it. And the creatures that live within these do so in remarkable symbiosis.  

Unfortunately, human development of (aka building on) land has changed it. Plant and animal life has been deprived, driven out and eradicated by plowing under, draining, drying up, tearing apart, deforesting, polluting, filling up, drilling into, concreting over homes and biomes and stripping of resources. We see in The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss a parable about the outcomes of environmental destruction. So where creatures live now and what vegetation grows there has radically changed in many areas. But that's content for another day. 

Here are free biomes lesson plans from Lesson Plans that Rock. I checked all the links included and they work great! And here's a printable biomes lapbook pattern and tutorial to create it. Here are free biomes coloring pages to print from Ask a Biologist. And you can still count on EdHelper for great preschool animal science lesson plans. I'm also delighted to see that Mr. Donn is still around with free geography lesson plans, activities and printables galore. Plus every other subject in the curriculum! Has it really been 15 years since I discovered this site??

Interactive Geography games, landforms definitions and printable geography lesson plans

Hello Omschool friends! Teacher Omi (grama) here with free printable geography games, crafts and lesson plans. In the US, geography has been absorbed into broader social studies lesson plans. Many older people who were drilled in geography and history fault modern educators for not continuing this. How many times did I hear my grandparents complain that us kid knew so little about US history and geography, let alone world history and geography. And they were right and wrong. Social studies broadens the study to include world cultures, civics, government and other related topics. We learned to connect events in time and place, instead of just memorizing dates and battles. We learned about people of the world not just where places were. 

But critics are correct to an extent too--when subject scope is widened some specific content falls through the cracks. And a thorough understanding of world geography is content that should not. So here are easy, hands-on geography lessons to teach not only where in the world but how the world is made up. These activities to  show how people of the world adapted to regions of the world and how cultures differ by climate, landforms, water sources, biomes and animal habitats they inhabit. 

Make hands-on landforms and topography maps for social studies. Begin by mixing up a large batch of play dough. Make the play dough in class and use it for interactive math measuring lesson plans. Here's an easy play dough recipe. This recipe will make enough for one student. Multiply ratios to make enough play dough for your class size

1 cup hot water 

1 cup white flour 

1/4 cup salt 

1 teaspoon vegetable oil 

teaspoons alum or cream of tartar 

food coloring 

Mix ingredients with fork till play dough cools enough that it can be worked by hand. Measuring and mixing play dough in class gives students practice in ratios, fractions and measurement. When mixed, separate play dough into balls. Color one ball blue (or green) for water. Leave one ball plain white color for land. Give each student a paper plate, a plastic knife and two zippered bags to separate play dough colors. Students will use these in hands-on geography lessons. 

Introduce geographical terms and definitions for landforms. Demonstrate shapes of landforms using play dough and then by drawing landforms on the overhead projector. Use black pen for land and blue for water. Students will use their blue and white clay to create landforms based on drawings from the board or overhead projector. 

Landforms scavenger hunt. List different landform, types of bodies of water and geographical features. Students should locate examples of landforms on topography maps or globes with 3D terrain landforms. Here are free printable landforms coloring pages and worksheets for geography lessons. Mr. Nussbaum has free printable geography maps, landforms coloring pages and more. Edupics has free printable outline maps to color and label. 

Geography landform terms, definitions and examples for topography lessons. 

Water formations:

strait: narrow strip of water, separating two large land masses and connecting two larger bodies of water, inverse of an isthmus (Straits of Mackinac, Straits of Magellan, Bosporus)

gulf: large inlet of ocean near a land mass (Gulf of Mexico)

bay: smaller inlet of coastal ocean near a land mass that connects to another body of water(Kotor, Fundy, Maya, San Francisco, Botany)

fjord: narrow, deep glacial valley flooded by ocean 

bight: broad open slightly recessed curvature of coastline that creates a bay

sound: ocean inlet near a coast deeper than bight and wider than fjord. (Puget Sound)

lagoon: (Laguna) shallow pond cut off by reef or sand bank, that surrounds an island, such as the Venetian Lagoon or is coastal.  

lake: body of water larger than a pond, but generally smaller than an ocean. Largest ones by square mile are Caspian Sea, Superior, Victoria, Huron and Michigan. Deepest are Lake Baikal, Tanganyika, Caspian, Viedma, Vostok) Some are also called seas. 

ocean: largest named bodies in the world (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic)

river: narrow strip of water flowing in one direction from a higher elevation to a lower elevation (Nile, Amazon, Mississippi) 

waterfall: created a river flows over a cliff

tributary: branch of a river 

delta: area at the mouth of a river where the river fans out in muddy marsh, silt or tributaries to meet a larger body of water (Mississippi Delta)

river basin: area along river that is drained by the river. 

bayou: slow-moving marshy inlet, arm or outlet of river or lake. 

swamp: forested wetland 

marsh: like a swamp with grass being primary vegetation

mire or bog (peat moss wetland)

Land formations

peninsula: piece of land that juts out into a body of water (state of Florida, Indochinese, Arabian,  Iberian in Spain, Crimean, Scandinavian peninsulas) 

island: small land mass in a body of water

key: island in a chain (Key Largo)

chain of islands (state of Hawaii)

atoll: a circle of islands (Bikini Atoll) 

archipelago: a collection of islands in no formation. It resembles a puzzle broken into pieces because that's pretty much what it was. The Greek islands for example came from the solid land mass of  Aegeis. (Greece, including the Cyclades, Dodecanese, Ionian, Saronic, Sporades, and North Aegean island clusters). 

isthmus: narrow strip of land separating two large bodies of water and connecting two larger land masses, often bisected by man-made canal (Isthmus of Panama, Panama Canal) 

mountain: area of increased elevation rising to a peak 

cliff: the edge of a piece of land that cuts away to land of lower elevation 

dune: sandy beach that rises to an elevation along a lake 

bluff: a rounded area of land overlooking a lower elevation 

hill: an area of elevation smaller than a mountain with rounded top 

mesa: steep narrow elevation, similar to a hill or mountain with a flat top 

butte: an isolated rocky hill with steep, vertical sides and a flattish surface (Monument Valley, Death Valley, Grand Canyon) 

plateau: wide, high area of elevation with flat top 

canyon: narrow corridor or pass between rocky elevations 

gorge: similar to a canyon with a river bed at the bottom (Snake River Canyon) 

I've not included geographical surface types, or biomes, like tundra or savannah. These are biological plant and animal communities that develop in response to environment and climate which is created by water and land formations. That's subject matter for another lesson plan and Omi's tired! 😁

Real-life, Interactive geography games, globe and map activities with printables

April is Earth Month and it's a good time to explore earth science and world geography. Here are hands-on, real-life social studies lessons, map activities and geography games with globes. No computer or internet needed. Playing geography games with globes helps students visualize the big picture better than with maps. Use map activities to locate specific places and use globes for accurate placement of countries in the world at large. Use maps and globes in science lesson plans to explore biomes, habitats, temporal zones and climate. 

Race Around the World map activities: Divide students into teams of 2-4. Give each team a globe and attach a world map to the wall or bulletin board. Here are free printable outline maps. Call out countries, cities and provinces for teams to locate their globes. The first team to find the location wins a point. After the location is found indicate it on the wall map with a pin or sticky note arrow (available at most office supply retailers). 

Earth Science Jeopardy: Students may play individually or in teams. Draw a Jeopardy grid on a Dry Erase board, overhead projector or chalkboard. Label five categories across the top of the Earth Science Jeopardy board. Here are some suggested earth science categories: Rivers, Mountain Ranges, Africa, Asia, Islands, Europe, United States, South America, Bodies of Water, Northern Hemisphere, Locations that begin with ____ (fill in letter). Fill in dollar amounts as in regular Jeopardy. Players select a category and value. The geography games leader calls out a place and team members must locate it on globes. Give teams buzzers or bells to sound when they find the answer. 

Latitude and Longitude Hide 'n Seek map activities: Use the free printable longitude and latitude maps and time zone lesson plans to explain the how lines and degrees of latitude and longitude work. Official latitude lines--also called parallels--go east to west and longitude lines go north and south. There are 180 latitude lines--90 above the equator (north) and 90 below (south). There are 360 lines of longitude (180 in the eastern hemisphere and 180 in the western hemisphere). They are divided into 24 groups which define time zones as well as geographical locations. 

Plotting those coordinates and other graph math activities. Use coordinate geometry to place cities and landforms in lines of latitude and longitude. Ask students to list different earth science landforms located with the latitude and longitude markings. Ask students list cities and locales based on latitude and longitude coordinates or bearings. Here are free printable graph math activities. 

Time zones bingo map activities: Using the small dial attached to the top of the globe, teach students how read lines of longitude to determine time zone. Call out a time zone. Students fill their card by locating and listing a city or province in that time zone. Require older students to calculate what time it is in different countries by giving the time in another time zone. Explain the Greenwich Mean Time system. Here are free printable globes and longitude and latitude maps to help. 

Multicultural activities for world social studies lesson plans with free printables

 

Hello friends of the Omschool! Teacher Omi (grama) has been having big fun creating a welcome montage in many  languages on her front door. And it got me thinking that these would make excellent multilingual activities and interactive bulletin board displays for social studies lesson plans. So here are cross-curricular multicultural lesson plan ideas to build global understanding of different languages and cultures. I've included free printable around the world, world flags, language and alphabet charts as well. This is part one of a series of global lesson plans beginning with greetings and flags. 

Welcome Wall: Purchase magnetic letters in English, Russian, Hebrew and Greek alphabets and any other alphabet you wish. Or use free printable alphabet charts. Here a free printable Greek alphabet from It's a Greek Life. Ben Crowder offers free printable Russian (Cyrillic) alphabets, plus printable language activities for Thai, Coptic (Greek alphabet of Copts in last-stage ancient Egypt), Ugaritic (ancient Phoenician cuniform) , Greek, Hebrew and Ogham (ancient British/Irish) alphabets. Here are free printable Chinese alphabet lesson plans. Use letters to write greetings in different languages. If using magnetic letters in classrooms, arrange these on a white board or metal door or window frame. Or print cards to affix to any window or wall.

 You might say "hello", "welcome" or any greeting native to the country. Mine says: 

Konnichiwa-Good Day (Japan)

czesc- Hi (Polish)

liefdt-Love (Dutch, didn't have enough letters to do Welkom) 

Добро пожаловать (Dobro pozhalovat) Welcome (Russian) Other former USSR nations use variations of this.

Wilkommen- welcome (German)

Shalom- Hebrew (Jewish Israel)

Ola-Hello (Spanish)

Cead mile failte-a thousand welcomes (Irish)

Pax-peace (Latin)

Howdy-(American slang)

Jambo-Hello (Swahili)

Bonjour-Good Day (French, Belgian)

Xush Kelibsiz-welcome (Uzbekistan)

Kalimera-Good Morning (Greek)

Assalamu alaikum or Inshallah- peace be unto you or if Allah wills (Muslim greeting used in many areas in the middle east) 

Interactive bulletin board or white board lesson plans. Create a hands-on bulletin board/white board activities by placing a large world map in the middle. Write greetings from list above on individual index cards and place in an envelope half attached to bulletin board. Then attach lengths of yarn to stickers affixed to countries on the map, from the list. Attach the other end to empty zippered bags that you've attached around the map. The student selects the greeting an places it in the corresponding bag. For the white board variation, use magnetic letters to spell the greetings and match them to the country. 

Flags around the world: Print these free printable world flags to match each one to the country or greeting on your welcome wall. Make a bingo game out of it. Or get a world map puzzle with each country being a different piece. Match flags and countries. 

World Map puzzle. You can turn any map into a puzzle by cutting out the different countries, states, provinces or oblasts (regions or Russia) or federal subjects (like states, in Russia--there are 85!). Have students memorize countries by their shape. They can then reassemble them. Or you can provide blank maps for students to color and label by country. They can then create map keys to indicate colors represent which region, country or state. Good luck with Russia!  

Hello and Goodbye. Teach students pronunciations for basic greetings, salutations and farewells in various world languages. Have them role play the greetings and responses to each other .

Make sure students know this is only a sampling and you've just taught the dominant language. Very few countries are like the USA, speaking one main language. Many countries are made up of people from various groups who speak different regional and cultural dialects or completely different languages. 

How many countries you cover will depend on age of students. Don't worry about getting every one. You'll only kill the joy of the lesson. This is about helping children learn about different countries and how they speak. It's not meant to be exhaustive, just fun and horizon-widening.  

Best I Can Read! early reader books, authors and illustrators from my childhood

Hello my friends of the Omschool! I have good news! Remember my post about how to find kids books you had loved and lost? I told you about a book I'd been hunting for probably 56  years. All I could recall was that a boy wanted to get his mother green lipstick for her birthday. Well I unearthed it along with another book my best friend Heather had that I had loved. I couldn't recall the title just the beautiful medieval pictures. That one is called Shadow Castle and the other is "The Happy Birthday Present." 

Now, something especially wonderful about "The Happy Birthday Present" is that it is one of the earliest offering from the I Can Read! Book Club which is probably the oldest book club for kids. It began with Little Bear (Else Holmelund Minarik) which featured early illustrations by Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). 

I wasn't in the book club but you often found the books at doctors' offices waiting rooms, along with Uncle Arthur which I'll write about later. Anyway, I must have been about 4 when I read the first one, "The Fire Cat." And I was so proud because I read it myself. Here are my favorite books and authors from the I Can Read! series. 

The Fire Cat (Esther Averill, 1960) I just learned that this is part of a Cat Club series I'm going to explore. 

The Happy Birthday Present (Joan Heilbroner, 1962) I'm really taken with Mary Chalmers illustrations which left an indelible image in memory, particularly Davy's green lollipop. 

Danny and the Dinosaur (Syd Hoff, 1958) Actually I liked all of Syd Hoff's I Can Read! books. You might mistake his work for H.A. Rey of Curious George fame. 

Frog and Toad series (Arnold Lobel) Lobel won the Caldicott Medal several times as well as a Newbery Medal, the highest honors in children's literature. His other works are Fables Mouse Soup and Owl at Home. I still recall my anti-book son Jakob being lured into reading and loving it with books like Owl at Home. "Tear Water Tea" is the best! 

Hurry, Hurry Edith Thatcher Hurd and her illustrator husband Clement Hurd (and then their son Thatcher Hurd) gave us some of the best in children's literature. You'll know Clement Hurd for his illustrations of "Goodnight Moon" (Margaret Wise Brown) She studied at the prestigious and very lateral thinking school called Bank Street College of Education (where I had aspired to go in the early 1980s, but let fear of failure stop me). Many of Edith's books are of ships, the ocean and creatures that live there and that resonates too. 

Emmett's Pig (Mary Stolz, a favorite author who's book "The Noonday Friends" is one of my top picks for unconventional and relatable girl sheros. 

And last but by no means least is the Mrs. Malaprop of the housekeeping domain, the one and only Amelia Bedelia. Peggy Parish wrote the first and there have been many more, thankfully! 

Earth Month STEM lesson plans using recycled egg cartons activities with printables

Greetings from the Omschool! Teacher Omi is loving the longer and warmer days of Spring. And right around the corner, is Earth Day, part of Earth Month in April. There are so many ecological ways to celebrate the coming spring and the new life of Easter. One of my favorites is to practice reducing, reusing and recycling. 

As a teacher and homeschool parent (now grandparent) I try to model good Earth Month habits all year long by recycling materials, reusing them as classroom materials and reducing landfill waste. Here are STEM and science experiments and science crafts made from recycled egg cartons. Repurpose recycled egg cartons into homemade science crafts and hands-on science games to save money and the environment. I've included links for free downlands and printable science lesson plans too. Print on recycled paper for the win! 

And you know how I work: lesson plans are written for all ages (Yes, my newest little grands, Flora and Max, you too! can't leave our precious babies and toddlers out!) These can be used in preschool, elementary and multiage classrooms and in a home school) I'll label the activities for babies and toddlers (MF Max and Flora!) 

Attribute sorting science games. Sensory exploration is the core of science. Students can practice exploration in hands-on science games. To play, pass out clean, recycled egg cartons with each section labeled with words or pictures of attributes. Attributes will depend on materials being sorted and science subjects being studied. Items may be sorted by color, shape, size, living/non-living, wood/metal/plastic, anything you want.

You can play this as a scavenger hunt in which students search for objects to fit each attribute category. Labeling and sorting materials into recycled egg cartons builds science vocabulary, adjective usage and descriptive powers. It has tie-ins to math, language, writing, even social studies. (MF activities: have older kids make a sensory activity for littles by creating homemade windchimes from trash. Baby will love laying and his back and listening to the pretty sounds. Or give a toddler a pile of blocks to stack and knock over.

Egg carton Sensory Exploration sorting STEM games for Earth Month. Sort by

Taste: Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, metallic, tart 
Smell: spicy, bitter, sour, soapy, flowery, fruity, moldy
Touch: furry, fuzzy, smooth, cool, warm, hard, rough, scratchy, bumpy, squashy (malleable), sticky
Sound: squeak, ring, buzz, beep, pop, clang, snap, crackle, scrape, scratch

(MF: give the littles "chewable" sensory items to manipulate. Children learn first about their world by taste, smell and touch. They "braille" their world as Dr. Leo Buscaglia called it.  You can make a simple rattle with a plastic vitamin bottle with some jingle bells or blocks in it. Seal the lid super tight and let the little shake away!  They can find endless entertainment in crinkly paper, too! 

Ecology STEM experiments using recycled egg cartons.

Paper or Plastic? Use cardboard and Styrofoam recycled egg cartons to demonstrate what happens to both in a landfill. Place a piece from each carton in water and soil put them in the window. Note any changes to each over time. Use this to explore biodegradable materials and renewable resources for Earth Month. Discuss how pollution is an environmental hazard and harms plants and animals.

Geology STEM science experiments for Earth Month: Use recycled egg cartons to classify and identify rocks and minerals. Here are free printable rock identification worksheets and online rock identification guides to help.. Students should label the sections of recycled egg cartons and sort by:

hardness on the MOHs scale here are free downloadable MOHs scale printables to help. 
rock type (metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous)
mineral composition (calcite, silicate, carbonate, etc.)
uses (building, abrasion, decoration, chemistry, etc.)

(MF-find tactile stem rocks or fidget stones for them to explore. They will enjoy exploring the safe, non-toxic toy animals too). Or reuse a large clear plastic container from the recycle bin and place various items inside, like a terrarium, for baby to study. 

Biology science games. Label the sections of recycled egg carton science crafts with taxonomy classification guide from the kingdoms (plantae, animalia, etc). Here are some more free printable animal classification activities too. Students might sort by subcategories KPCOFGS (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species). Students cut pictures or make tiny cards with names of members of various groups. They sort pictures or words into categories. They can test each other in partners or in groups. Label the bottom of the egg carton with answers for self-checking. This can be adapted to any age or grade depending upon what you are studying. Animals classification is the perfect social studies-science cross-curricular activity! 

Systems science crafts. Most all science experiments are based on a system or cycle. Use recycled egg carton science crafts to make 3D flow charts, anchor charts, Venn diagrams or graphic organizers Places objects in each section to represent parts of the cycle and draw arrows to show how they interact. Demonstrate electrical current, the water cycle. food chains, human body systems, habitats, plant development and insect metamorphosis. Here are free printable charts and graphic organizers from enchanted learning. Graphic organizers make great cross-curricular lesson plans. 

Science Timelines. Use recycled egg cartons to demonstrate how things change and develop (or regress) over time. Make timelines of science inventions, transportation, etc. Use this with any area of science that you teach.

Respect Earth Month and make your STEM lesson plans POP! with hands-on science activities from your recycle bin. 

Free Printable Catholic Lenten coloring pages, Bible activities, Christian crafts

Hello my Omschool friends. Our family is Catholic and when I homeschooled our children, we followed the liturgical calendar and based our lesson plans around that. Our high holy day is Easter. For Catholic and Orthodox Christians, Easter is about more than just Easter baskets, bunnies and candy. Easter celebrates the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. During Lent, which is the 40-day period prior to Easter, Christians ready themselves for Jesus's coming with prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Lent begins in the Catholic liturgical calendar, on Ash Wednesday, following Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras (also called Shrove Tuesday) The date of Ash Wednesday changes each year as Easter is a "movable feast." In 2025, Ash Wednesday was Mar 5.  

Lent "follows" Jesus's during forty days of fasting in the desert when He was tempted by Satan. in preparation for His sacrifice on the cross. During Lent, we try to imitate Jesus. We follow the "Way of the Cross" or Stations of the Cross and pray the rosary. To help children learn about their Catholic Christian faith and observe Lent, here are free printable stations of the cross, rosary, saints and Easter bible story coloring pages. Use these for Lenten devotions.

The Catholic Kid has dozens of free printable Catholic coloring pages for Lent. There are free printable Catholic saints coloring pages too. 

Catholic Mom has an entire liturgical year of free downloadable and printable saints feast day coloring pages organized by month. This site also has 200+ free printable Sunday mass worksheets and activities, gospel Bible story coloring pages and devotional guides that follow the Catholic liturgical calendar. 

St. Anne's Helper has free printable Catholic activities and coloring pages for Lenten devotions. Catholic Icing is a homeschool mom blog with all kinds of printable Catholic activities, games, crafts, lesson plans and coloring pages. Clip Art Library has even more Catholic Bible printables and religious coloring pages. Edupics also has a big assortment of free printable Christian coloring pages. 

Between these sites, you'll free printable and downloadable Catholic Lenten coloring pages across all categories related to the faith, plus Christian games, activities, crafts and lesson plans. Some images are cartoons but others are beautifully drawn stained glass windows in various churches. These would make good adult coloring pages as well as challenging coloring pages for kids.  Categories include: 

free printable rosary coloring pages--Joyful Mysteries from the Bible story of Jesus's life: the annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Jesus, the Presentation and Finding the Child Jesus in the Temple--Sorrowful Mysteries from the Bible story of Jesus's life: the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, Carrying the Cross and the Crucifixion--Glorious Mysteries (heavenly events) in Jesus's life include the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Assumption and the Crowning of Mary Queen of Heaven.--Luminous Mysteries: the Baptism of Jesus, the Wedding at Cana (Jesus's first public miracle), the Proclamation of the Kingdom and the Institution of the Holy Eucharist. These are Bible events from the life of Jesus. 

free printable Stations of the Cross coloring pages, one for each of the 15 stations

free printable Apostles Creed coloring pages

free saints coloring pages of St. Patrick, Mary Mother of God, St. Joan of Arc, St. Philomena, St. Tarcisius, St. Clare, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Joseph, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Valentine and other saints. There are several of Pope Francis. 

Use these free printable Catholic Easter coloring pages for Ash Wednesday, Lent devotions, Holy Week, Palm Sunday and the Easter Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and finally Easter Sunday. Make a Stations of the Cross coloring book for mass and to keep little ones quiet during devotions and to reflect during your stations prayers. These coloring pages make great lent devotional activities to prepare children for Easter.

Kids books and children's TV shows about broken bones, hospitals and childhood injuries

Hello my friends of the Omschool (omi-grama school). I'm worried today because my sweet 4 y/o grandson broke his leg on a trampoline a few days ago. Poor little guy is going to be in a wheelchair and cast for quite awhile.  And you know what this Omi does whenever anyone is in crisis. First I pray then I turn to bibliotherapy to find solace. So my first thought was hunt up books to help little man cope. Here are books about injured kids, hospital stays and all that goes into mending a broken leg.

Number one and two have got to be Curious George Takes a Job and Curious George Goes to the Hospital (H.A. and Margaret Rey) First, I like that in both cases, the injuries were preventable if George had listened and not been so snoopy. It normalizes what is very normal child behavior. A child's mishaps are often his own or someone else's "fault" in that they were playing too roughly, not following directions, etc. They (or the other person) may feel guilty and ashamed but can take comfort that they're not alone. Everyone makes mistakes and can learn from them. Kids will find it interesting to see what hospitals were like, with children's wards instead of private rooms, and how injuries were treated (broken legs in traction) years ago--in Omi's time! Hopefully there won't be an open ether bottle though! 

I Broke My Trunk (Mo Willems) Poor elephant has bent his proboscis and tells a silly story of how it happened. You'll love this one for the funny pictures alone!  

Sammy's Broken Leg (Oh No!) and the Amazing Cast that Healed It (Judith Wolf Mandell) This book will resonate with any child who's been in a cast all summer and has to deal with boredom, annoyance, being left out of activities and other frustrations. A little cheesy but I think kids will love it! 

Arthur's Knee isn't a book that I know of but a episode of the TV series Arthur. Our adventurous aardvark disobeys and goes to a junkyard. Predictably, he gets hurt and learns a lot about the body and how it heals itself. You can watch Arthur free with PBSKids subscription. Some episodes are available on Youtube and Amazon Prime. 

Caillou suffers his share of injuries and learns how to ask for help and how his body works. Here's another one about summer injuries. 

Daniel Feels Better In this episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Daniel hurts his ankle and learns about how doctors help children with injuries and how an x-ray works. 

Use these resources to help children understand why and how accidents happen and cheer them when they do. 

 

A case against censorship: See You at the Library is not American, Constitutional or Biblical

 Hello my friends of the Omschool. I know, I know, I just wrote a pro-censorship post and now I'm contradicting myself with an anti-censorship one. So the first one was actually not so much in favor of censorship as delaying children reading books books that aren't age-appropriate, aka books that are too mature. Today I'm taking on full-out censorship, banning books and the See You at the Library initiatives.

When Kirk Cameron (yes the child actor) initiated his "See You At the Library" thing last year, his proclaimed intent didn't match his true agenda. His mission is supposedly to return to American, Constitutional and Bible values. It was really a hostile takeover of libraries. They didn't want a meeting room like anyone else using the library would be given. They demanded to read in the library proper where everyone was forced to listen to readings of their fundamentalist books. 

As a person who treasures the sanctity and QUIET of the library, I'd be opposed for this reason alone! Supposedly this was an alternative to "drag queen story hours" (the ignorance baffles). My children have enjoyed many events at the library and never once was there an agenda besides learning to love reading. So as a person and a parent who treasures her civil liberties, I would not want my children being proselytized at story hour. By any one of any persuasion.  But that's not all they did. 

They further wanted a shelf purge of anything that didn't fit with their narrow definition of appropriate literature. AND librarians were to be punished and fired if said books were left on shelves. This is the kind of slippery slope mentality that led to book burning in Nazi Germany, just saying. These advocates don't just want freedom to read what they want, they want you not to be free to read what you want. 

Why am I so vehement about this? Because it violates the American, Constitutional and Bible values they supposedly promote. American values are all about being able to worship as we choose (or don't choose). We are protected against state religions and enforced observances. We believe in separation of church and state.  I'm a Catholic but I don't want mandated prayer, Bible reading etc. That destroys the purpose which should be done is secret and from the heart. And, make no mistake, fundamentalists like these have no use for any religious observance other than their own, despite the fact that it predates theirs by 1,900 years. 

Our constitution promises freedom of speech and the press. The American Library System is the backbone and bastion of that freedom. The Bible is all about diversity, inclusion and equality. Jesus abhorred hatred, shaming, judgementalism, hypocrisy and double standards. He railed against Pharisees and the self-righteous. 

I call this "Make America Stupid Again." 

As a homeschool parent, I knew a fair number of other parents who 

Late Boomer Teen and Kids Books that earlier boomers, Gen Y and Z don't understand

Hello my friends of the Omschool. March is National Reading Month and also Women's History Month. I've been writing a lot about books with flawed but relatable girl heroes from my boomer childhood (late 60s into 70s) These characters are often misunderstood and seem very broken, which is what resonated with me and maybe a lot of girls my age. What I realize, reading reviews from clearly younger people, is that these stories don't translate well with Gen Y and Z and maybe not even Gen X. 

Interestingly enough, they don't make sense to earlier boomers either who were raised on Pollyanna and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. It seems we, the last of  the late, great boomers are the only ones that get these characters. That's because our youth and teen time was very different than any before or after us. 

Let's take for example, the book Me Too by Vera and Bill Cleaver. A 12 y/o girl is abandoned by father and essentially mother, to care for her developmentally disabled (called retarded back then) sister Lorna. She tries to "make Lorna smart" to win back father. This book often gets low reviews, venomous actually, for being unrealistic and because the main character (sorry I've forgotten her name) is so angry with her sister. 

But from the perspective of a kid then and now, if we're honest, it's absolutely believable. Fathers (and mothers) do abandon families. Mine did. And moms (and dads) are often absent. Mine were. Parents did leave their oldest kids to basically raise their siblings. Mine did. And while my situation was quite unusual comparatively speaking (and maybe why I appreciated this book so much), I know others could relate as well. 

And the older sister who gets all the venom, was the most believable of all. She was hurt that her family was shattered, resented her sister for ruining her life, angry with her parents for not taking care of her or Lorna and just mad at life in general for dealing her such a rotten hand. Now you tell me what generation of adolescents hasn't felt these things and for fewer reasons than this character has. 

Reviewers faulted her for blaming her sister, calling her names and hating her, but also for, politically incorrectly, trying to make her normal. Now, to begin with, a kid shouldn't be left to care for their sibling alone, especially not one with special needs. And if they are, they're going to make mistakes and get it wrong because they are KIDS. I find it interesting how we don't fault parents for parentifying their child and then blame the child for failing to be the adults that the adults are unwilling to be.

And trying to normalize her sister, calling her names, punishing her is exactly what normal teens would do. THAT is realistic. Hurtful? Sure. Sometimes mean, yep. Misguided, absolutely. She had none of the parental guidance she should have had. Life is not a Hardy Boys novel. And most girls or people aren't Nancy Drew with her perfect piety and smug saintliness. We bumble and stumble. 

One reviewer scalded  the book for not having a happy ending. (so read the Bobbsey Twins) And that's what I like about the book! My life has never had neat, tidy conclusions either. Another faulted her for using God's name in vain and for having "janky" ideas of Christianity. So sanctimoniousness aside, A lot of us in that time were questioning the hypocrisy of organized religion, being raised to do things that weren't modelled for us. And if the character had wrong ideas, it was because she was showed a janky version. She was being made to carry heavy burdens the "Christians" weren't helping carry. 

I confess I'm surprised at the vituperative attitude toward this book and others like it from Gen X, Y and Z. I expected it from older generations who tended not to understand kids of the 70s. How often did we hear "things were different in my generation!" They certainly were and now we're having to deal with the fallout of all that. So cut us some slack! 

But I didn't expect to read such scathing criticism from younger, self-professed enlightened people. It is shows how differently kids are now raised and that closemindedness is not the purview of older people alone. It never ceases to amaze me how insular people can be. They see things only through the lens of their own experience, social norms and constructs.  They pass judgement on people who have not lived in their reality. They hold past people accountable to now expectations. 

So where was I going with this? It gets back to my earlier post that to understand books from another time and place we have to understand the time and place it was written. We have to  drop preconceived notions and leave off judging what we didn't live and seek to understand cultural, and time period differences. 

There are so many examples of late boomer teen and kids books and plays that older boomers, Gen Y and Z don't understand. Some of these teen angst stories from the 50s were censored and banned: 

West Side Story (Jerome Robbins play)

Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

Rebel Without a Cause (film by Nicholas Ray)

Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)

The Wild One  (Lazlo Benedek film),

Cross and the Switchblade, Purple Violet Squish (and others by David Wilkerson co-authored with John and Elisabeth Sherril) 

Run, Baby, Run (Nicky Cruz)

From the 60s and 70s, the Bill and Vera Cleaver book Where the Lilies Bloom. M.E.Kerr's Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack, The Outsiders (an all of S.E. Hinton's books), Judy Blume books, The Pigman (and others by Paul Zindel). 

The only play/movie that I know of that dealt with troubled teens prior to this was the Dead End (1934) a fictionalized account of the Bowery Boys (Dead End kids). The characters are often considered unbelievable, 2D, archetypal or anachronistic by younger readers. Older boomers criticized them for showing kids as angry, fallible, "immoral", mouthy and even cruel. All of these books have been challenged and sometimes banned. 

And that's because readers are either looking at them through 21st century or good-ole days glasses. Books about teen gangs, drugs, abusive parents, youth violence, depression, murder, ageism, racism, alcoholism, runaways, suicide all this was for adults. We kids had it with dinner on TV. No one protected us from it but they also never imagined WE were dealing with it too. Dead End kids excepted, virtually no story ). So now, topics like this might seem trite. Because people talk about these things now.  When they were written they were revolutionary. 

How to read vintage books by understanding time and place

Hello my friends of the Omschool, teacher Omi (grama) here with some thoughts on reading vintage children's literature. There are certain mindsets one must have and preconceived notions to do away with when reading books not set in a familiar time or place. Or books about unfamiliar subject matter, especially different cultures, traditions and peoples. 

I have an advantage here because I am vintage and much of what I have read, even as a child, far predates me, timewise and in content. I was born in 1964 and learned to read about 4. I got left alone to read what I wanted. So I often ended up reading books that were too mature for me. I have also read books that take place within different cultural milieu. Scholastic Books was very good at presenting different times and cultures sensitively and accurately. And I was a diehard Scholastic fangirl. 

All this was so good for me because it broadened my mind, deepened my empathy and and prevented me from developing a lot of ethno-centric stereotypes and prejudices. I've always had intense respect and appreciation for people's differing ways of doing things. If anything, I wanted to leave the US and move to those places I read about. 

But back to topic, mindsets we need for reading vintage literature. Maybe mindset is the wrong word because it implies inflexibility and we need flexibility and tolerance to understand things outside our ken. It's crucial to accept that not everyone does things or understands things as I do. My culture, upbringing, background, society and age play a huge role. 

I got to thinking about this reading a blog post about a book called "Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack" (M.E. Kerr). I'm not sure the blogger's age but guessing they weren't reading this book when it was written in 1972 (set in 71). There are many criticisms about its many "wacky" references. 

However the wacky references, such as the cat's name being Ralph Nader, wasn't wacky at all in 1971. Ralph Nader was a household name. It would be like naming a cat Steve Jobs now. It was also deemed strange that main character Tucker's mom wrote for a true confessions magazine. In 1971, the grocery store aisle was papered in such magazines, the National Enquirer being the best known. 

Then there's discussion on quirky ways parents behaved which, though it might sound made-up was actually pretty normal, especially in larger cities like L.A. People did go to shrinks and join trendy and fad religious groups. Many of the biggest named diets like South Beach and Scarsdale came out at that time. Moms did do charity work and called it that. The word Ghetto was in common parlance. 

There's also commentary on odd things different characters say which to someone living in those times sounds completely normal. Not acceptable but certainly common. Racism, misogyny, religious and lifestyle bigotry was on prime-time with Archie Bunker. He openly attacked liberals, Jews and "pinkos" and was applauded for it. Kids got used to hearing their parents say things and use terms that make us cringe today. It made some of us cringe then too.  

And then there is the mention of Dinky Hocker's BMI, 5'4" 165#,  which makes the author very uncomfortable. But this BMI WAS considered very overweight back then. I was put on a 1,000 calorie a day diet at age 8 because I weighed 100 pounds. I never gained more than 25 pounds or so and just hit max weight more quickly. Then when I gained weight in high school, I was called fat at 138 pounds. It may not be right but it is how it was.  People were smaller back then, it's just a fact. 

Why do I bring these points up? Because they highlight how important it is, when reading books in different time periods, to understand that what we do and think now isn't always how it's been. And that authors are writing in the time they live to audiences of the time. Agatha Christie used the N-word in a play because it was acceptable then. 

Even beloved Nancy Drew was a condescending racist bigot with a bad case of white savior complex, in her earlier incarnations. But she was reflecting the time and place she lived in. So to understand a novel, we have to understand what the time was like, as odd as it may seem. We don't have to like or agree. But we have to understand. 

We can note what's wrong but we also have to be careful not to be too judgmental of authors reflecting their own time and experience. Some of them were breaking ground just by mentioning these things. And future generations will look back on us and have a lot to find fault with too (current Trump regime springs to mind). Not all change is progress. Nor was the past a unilaterally better time and place. Some things are better, some worse, some just different. 

A case for censorship: Why kids should read age-appropriate books

Hi friends of the Omschool. Today's topic is loaded and controversial. I'm talking about censorship and why there are reasons for it. Now, if you know me, you know that last thing I am is a book burner. Banning books accomplishes about as much locking up alcohol. It just makes it that much more tempting. I'm not talking about entirely forbidding certain books. I'm saying keep kids from reading books that aren't age-appropriate until they are old enough to understand them. And my reason for saying this is anecdotal. 

I started reading about 3 or 4  was reading chapter books by seven and adult literature by about 9. My parents were very involved in their own lives and didn't take any interest in what I read. So I read books that were waaayy to mature for me. I ended up learning about things I was far too young to understand and only ended up feeling icky and confused. 

For example, books on intimacy. I read and loved "Are you there God, it's me Margaret" because it actually talked about things like getting your period. So I moved on, at age 9-ish, to "Then Again Maybe I Won't" which talked about a boy's version of puberty. And was totally embarrassed. I totally missed the really good parts of the book because I was stuck on the what seemed to me, gross parts. 

Was it wrong for a book geared for 10-14 y/os to talk about male genitalia, wet dreams and self-stimulation? Well, I rest my case for age-appropriate: 13 or 14 maybe, 10, no. My husband said he never read it but would have been horrified even at age 13 or 14. I won't be buying it for my grandsons, either. I'm not a prude but just because I was so off-put reading it too young. Which is sad because the book is a very good read. Maybe it was just the time we lived in, maybe not. 

Anyway, then, I bought "Forever" also Judy Blume at 11 and was NOT ready for that AT ALL. It was clearly YA, written about a 17 y/o and was full on teen sex. It made me sick but also luridly fascinated. The problem is not whether teens should read it but that tweens certainly should not.  It sent me down the Harlequin romance rabbit hole and by 13, I was reading semi-porn grocery store novels with my stepmom. I still recall how uncomfortable they  made me, but hey, when an adult lets you, why not? 

Well, why not is because it imprints indelible images on your young mind that leave you feeling dirty and ashamed. But no one tells you this and you don't dare to tell anyone for fear of being told you're disgusting. And if you have been molested, it just makes things worse. You believe it's your fault for reading such things in the first place. 

So I don't believe that kids books should sanitize or condescend, there are better times for children, teens and YA to be introduced to various topics. It wasn't just books on sex that were too mature for me. I read the "The Pigman" (Paul Zindel) around 10. I liked it but was also disturbed by it. Same with "Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack." They were good but I just wasn't ready for them.  There's arguably no age to read "Helter Skelter" certainly not 13.  

Even books like "Freaky Friday" with which there was nothing "iffy" about and which I absolutely adored posed problems when read too young. I missed a lot, it being stream of consciousness writing. And then there were books like "Harriet the Spy" which I read at a younger age but still in range. I missed a lot in that because the setting was unfamiliar. Also, these elementary age kids were featured doing things that were more suited to middle school. 

And don't get me started on all the YA psych books I consumed like candy at around 12.  "Lisa Bright and Dark" (John Neufield) and "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" (Joanne Greenberg) gave me a way too young look into mental hospitals, shrinks, manic-depressive disorder, anorexia, depression, schizophrenia, teen suicide, substance abuse, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, homosexuality, and other terrifying but fascinating issues. 

Then there were the "teen journal" books I became obsessed with at about 13, such as "Go Ask Alice" "Jay's Journal" and "Annie's Baby." They too dealt with fascinating but frightening things, including Satanism and occult. I just learned, looking them up, that it was all a big con and author Beatrice Sparks was a fake. I really believed she was a psychiatrist and that these were real stories from kids' journals. I majored in psychology because of books like these and even recommended them in past articles. There was a lot of money to be made on teen suffering back then. 

In closing, I don't say that these issues should be hushed up. I wish there had been more books on things I was dealing with, like parentification and enmeshment. But then, I probably wouldn't have made the connection anyway because literature was an escape for me. I just urge parents to know what your child is reading and be prepared to walk with them through it. 

Our son wanted to take on Stephen King at around 12. I was reluctant but didn't want to make it forbidden fruit. So I powered through a few with him (and found I'm still to young for some of this content!) And we talked about it. And he regrets reading some of it. But maybe that's what maturing is all about, making choices as best you can and living with the consequences of those choices. 

Thanks--mar