Ninja Story Shares

Ninja! Attack of the Clan by Arree Chung

One of my third grade teachers visits the media center a couple of times a year to pick up picture books featuring conversation bubbles. This is one I will recommend to her in the future. A fun activity to do with students after sharing this story is to ask them to create their own ninja-focused comics. They can do this on paper with colored pencils or pens or by using a digital comic creator such as Make Beliefs Comix. Arree Chung has his own website: arree.com and his bio states that he’s worked in the video game creation world — which you can see in the style of his illustrations. Arree’s website has a ton of fun resources, such as this short film he created for the book, this activity guide (including art worksheets), and tutorials for making your own origami ninja stars and drawing your own ninjas.

Dojo Daytrip by Chris Tougas

I love the ninja creed Tougas includes in his rhyming story: ninjas always help someone in need. This is a great lesson for showing kindness to others that would be beneficial for students to hear at any time of the year. The conclusion of the story is left open-ended, giving teachers the opportunity to use a writing prompt: “what do you think the Master ran into this time?” If you enjoy this book there is one that precedes this title that I have yet to get my hands on: Dojo Daycare.

Little Kunoichi: The Ninja Girl by Sanae Ishida

I love that this ninja story has a female lead character. In the story the term shugyo is loosely defined as “training like crazy.” This is a perfect story share to open up a discussion on how to deal with feelings of frustration. At the start of the story, Kunoichi introduces us to the super secret village on the super secret island where she lives with her family (which includes a pet bunny ninja). Have students do a combo art and writing activity on what their imaginary ninja pet would be. Another, more active lesson might be having students participate in a ninja obstacle course similar to the one that challenges Kunoichi. The following types of activities are also relevant: strategy (i.e. chess or some other brain puzzler), a ‘Go’ board game, mindfulness and meditation (i.e. deep breathing and yoga poses), and making and throwing ninja stars for target practice. At the end of the story, it is explained that shugyo is the goal — “better, not perfect.” I love this idea of accepting mistakes and striving for self-improvement: perfection does not and should not be the end goal. At the back of the book there is a facts page and some information about Japanese customs, fashion, music, language,  and sports. How cool is this?! Sanae Ishida has her own Etsy account where you can purchase prints from this book, including a map of the super secret island and of Kunoichi’s ninja school!

Ninja, Ninja, Never Stop! by Todd Tuell and illustrated by Tad Carpenter

This is a great book to share with the younger set (pre-k, kindergarten, and 1st grade) — the illustrations are so colorful and expressive and the text is sparse. It is very humorous and told in rhyme. After reading through the story once, have the students act out the narrative as it takes place! Other potential activities include those focused on family relationships — specifically between siblings — and there is even some attention focused on opposites, if that’s a standard you’re covering (e.g., small/large, short/tall, and climb/drop).

Wink the Ninja Who Wanted to Be Noticed (Book 1) by J.C. Phillips

Students who struggle to keep quiet might identify with the ninja in this book. Master Zutsu and his grandmother share words of wisdom with our young ninja friend, such as: “The loudest cricket is the first to be caught,” and “The blossom that flaunts its color is soon plucked.” Students can write reflective pieces on these phrases and discussions can be centered around them. There are examples of similes such as “…moves like a gazelle—swift and graceful” and “spirit shines like the morning sun,” which could be helpful for figurative language discussions. The theme is focused on youth finding their niche or the best way to express themselves. Check out J.C. Phillips’ website too — in the video section you and your students can watch Phillips read this story out loud, followed by a video of Phillips demonstrating how she creates her lovely collage illustrations. The latter can be the intro to an art activity and a response to literature using this medium. In the extras section,  you can print off a Wink maze or coloring sheet. If your students enjoyed this story you may want to check out the sequel: Wink the Ninja Who Wanted to Nap.

The Three Ninja Pigs and Ninja Red Riding Hood by Corey Rosen Schwartz and illustrated by Dan Santat

This is one book in a series of fractured fairy tales that this duo wrote and illustrated together. In Georgia, one of our third grade standards involves folk and fairy tales, and comparing and contrasting various tellings of the same story. Students (not surprisingly) totally dig Santat’s super-colorful, vibrant comic-book style illustrations, so this series is a perfect fit for this standard. Also by Rosen Schwartz and Santat: Hensel and Gretel: Ninja Chicks. Rosen Schwartz did another similar fairy tale twist with a different illustrator, Nate Wragg, for Goldie Rocks and the Three Bears. All of these stories are told in rhyme and the cadence set throughout the story makes it so much fun to read out loud. I find myself bouncing around to the rhythm, fully engaged in read aloud mode. In The Three Ninja Pigs, each little piggy represents a different type of martial art including aikido, jujitsu, and karate. In the back of the book is a glossary of the martial arts terms for students itching to learn more about each form. Back in spring 2016, I was lucky enough to meet Dan Santat at the local Piedmont College campus meeting hall for a special reading and signing of his newly released book Are We There Yet? (that’s me pictured above with super-fun and laid-back Dan.) As always, I love that these stories — Three Ninja Pigs and Ninja Red Riding Hood — feature brave heroines.

In the comments, please post your favorite ninja action rhymes, songs, art activities, and picture books! I would love to hear about them!

#GELDS #georgiapre-k #pre-k #preschool #ninjas #ninjabooks #shapes #elementaryschool #librarians #mediaspecialists #art #gonoodle #storybots #3rdgrade #comics #arreechung #christougas #dansantat #coreyrosenschwartz #jcphillips #toddtuell #sanaeishida #storiesinrhyme #writing #growthmindset #obstaclecourse #1stgrade #kindergarten #opposites #family #brothers #figurativelanguage #similes #self-expression #fracturedfairytales

Ninja Time

Sharing stories about sneaky ninjas is fun. It is so much fun, in fact, I decided to begin this school year by sharing a couple ninja stories with my pre-k and 1st grade students. Whenever I want to share new books with a particular theme, I find it helpful to borrow a wide selection of relevant titles from my public library. I do an insane amount of inter-library loaning — this enables me to “test drive” different books to see if they’re worthy of our permanent media center collection. It allows me to get a sense of what’s out there, but it’s also a great way to solicit student feedback before spending any money. I pay special attention to contemporary eye-catching cover design and (of course) starred reviews. So far this year, I’ve shared 10 Little Ninjas by Miranda Paul with my preschoolers and Ninja Boy Goes to School by N. D. Wilson with my 1st graders.

For both grades, I started out with a ninja training video on GoNoodle as a warm-up. Just as I browse through several books before selecting the ones I share with my students, I also browse through many videos, songs, and action rhymes before picking out one I think will be most engaging and enjoyable. I chose this video because I really love to use action rhymes — students can follow along singing and dancing, and they always have a great time doing it. I rarely choose songs that feature singing exclusively — in case you haven’t noticed, students often have trouble sitting still! Especially when they’re having fun! I prefer to channel all that energy into our activities. It’s such a positive, team-oriented way to start out our story-rug time. This particular song and dance is catchy and the dancers in the video make funny faces that crack me up. I knew the students would laugh and have a good time with it too as they got their blood pumping.

After reading the books (more on those in a bit!), the 1st graders and I discussed how we could be careful — like ninjas! — and protect our valuable library materials. With this activity, I was inspired by this presentation (available on TeachersPayTeachers.com, if you want to save some time and purchase it for $3.00). We looked at various images of books that had been damaged and talked about how good Library Ninjas keep books away from pets, younger siblings, food and drink, etc.

With pre-k, we talked about shapes, cutting and gluing paper circles and rectangles to make our own little ninjas (I found this art activity on the “No Time for Flash Cards” blog). The Georgia Pre-K (GELDS) standard I centered this activity around is CD-MA6: “The child will explore, recognize, and describe shapes and shape concepts.” Finally, we watched the circle and rectangle song clips from StoryBots. (The kids always love singing along to the lively videos published by StoryBots and this time was no exception.)

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing a few other ninja-themed stories, as well as ideas for discussions and activities to accompany them. Stay tuned!

#GELDS #georgiapre-k #pre-k #preschool #ninjas #ninjabooks #shapes #elementaryschool #librarians #mediaspecialists #art #gonoodle #storybots  #ndwilson #mirandapaul #1stgrade

Reading for Fun

This spring I passed out bingo sheets (shown here) for students to fill out over the summer. The idea was to encourage them to read a wide variety of books, but also for them to complete constructive non-reading activities, such as playing outside, writing a poem, or making paper airplanes. Students who completed the sheet (a bingo “black-out”) were invited to a slime party where they had the choice of making their own glow-in-the-dark, scented, neon, or glitter slime. Students also put their names in a drawing for gummy bear erasers, posters, squishy balls, and pencils. Eighty students completed the summer reading sheets — and nearly 30 of them also completed the public library’s summer reading program. This was an unprecedented number in the three years I’ve been at my school so I was super excited to celebrate such progress with my students.

Fast forward to this fall — at our monthly district media specialist meetings we are splitting up into small groups to read and discuss books related to our profession. I signed up to read Donalyn Miller and Susan Kelley’s book, Reading in the Wild, as well as Barbara A. Marinak and Linda Gambrell’s No More Reading for Junk.  I’m very eager to read both and report back here with my reactions — especially in the case of the latter title. You may have noticed that I really enjoy hosting reading contests of all sorts in my media center. My primary motivation for doing this — and for the many other activities I do in my media center — is to create a fun, positive atmosphere around a love of reading and other creative activities with my students. That’s why I host writing, art, and reading contests throughout the year.

Books and reading are only a part of the experience. The celebrations and parties following the reading contests are more about coming together to share new and exciting experiences. The prizes are only an afterthought or supplemental part of these contests — they aren’t the focus for me or for my students. In fact, one of my fifth grade male students exclaimed as he arrived at the other day: “The library is the best part of the school. We get to do something fun like read and then we get to make slime — something else fun — in the library?!”

So I will read this book with an open mind, but my enthusiasm for brainstorming hands-on activities for my students will continue. I’m already thinking about a mystery-centered theme for my winter reading contest with a super spy party as the main event. Stay tuned for more on that!

Let’s Begin!

Hi! My name is Lauren Knowlton. I live in Athens, Georgia, and work as an elementary school media specialist/librarian at Whit Davis Elementary School. Aside from librarian’ing, I enjoy playing soccer, jogging, collaging, cooking vegetarian meals for family and friends, researching true crime, and reading and learning about fashion and design. I strive to incorporate these extracurricular passions into weekly activities with my students whenever possible, because I believe engagement is contagious. Students are sensitive to our engagement just as we are to theirs – If I’m having fun, maybe they’ll start to think it’s okay for them to have fun, too.

I have created this blog to share my passion for books, for working with students in grades pre-k through 5th, for encountering new tech tools and gaming trends, for graphic novels and comics, for all forms of creativity and freedom of expression, and for celebrating diversity.

Confetti is colorful, bright, unpredictable, and messy — just like a modern school library! The name of this blog reflects the variety of interests I’ve listed above and the diverse strategies I employ to urge my students toward curiosity, enthusiasm, and love of learning. I hope that whoever you are, dear reader, you find something here that excites you or piques your interest. Maybe together we can flesh out new ideas to benefit our students. I look forward to receiving feedback and gaining new insights from people all across the educational spectrum — from librarians, sure, but also from parents, teachers, and administrators. Let’s get started!