I Walk With Vanessa

A Story about a Simple Act of Kindness
by Kerascoet

**A MUST READ FOR EVERY CLASSROOM!**

Summary: After seeing the new girl, Vanessa, being bullied on her way home from school, a young girl comes up with a way to make Vanessa feel welcomed that eventually grows to involve the whole school.

This wordless picture book comes with a deep message about bullying.  Discussions arise about bullying behavior, bystanders, and what you can do to help a person being bullied.

The back papers offer suggestions on what a student can do if they are being bullied or if they see someone else being bullied.  It also offers a glossary of words teachers and adults can use when discussing this book.

 

Already created lesson plans to borrow ideas from:

A Comprehensive Lesson Plan from the Anti-Defamation League

Walk Away, Ignore, Talk it Out, and Seek Help (WITS) lesson plan

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Where’s the Elephant?

Yes, this is a search-and-find book.

But, not in the typical “only find the elephant” kind of way.

This book introduces three characters: the elephant, the parrot, and the snake.  The remainder of the book is wordless where the reader encounters the animals’ habitat constantly shrinking due to deforestation.  Progressively, the animals become easier and easier to find.

Put this in your plans to use next year to compliment any environmental awareness unit or a great discussion starter on Earth Day!

The Typewriter

The Typewriter

by Bill Thomson

Wordless picture book author/illustrator Bill Thompson (author of Chalk and Fossil) is at it again.  This time the kids in the story come across an old typewriter.  When they put paper in it and write, the words come to life.

Add this to your must-use wordless picture books!

This book is also great to teach:

• Cause and Effect
• Beginning, Middle, and End
• Compare/Contrast
• Description through illustrations
• Sequencing (using illustrations only)

 

Fox’s Garden

Fox’s Garden

by Princesse Camcam

This wordless picture book will really get your readers thinking!  It starts off very straight-forward: a fox getting shooed away from the city.  But then, once the fox enters the greenhouse, magical things start happening.

Add this book to your list of wordless picture books!

Check out this link for ideas on how to use a wordless picture book!

 

Coming Home

Coming Home
by Greg Ruth

In this nearly wordless picture book, the boy waits and watched until finally being reunited with his mother, who is coming home from her deployment.

Add this book to your list of wordless picture books.

Need ideas on what to do with wordless picture books? Read this from Scholastic.

I will definitely be using this book to introduce the concept of Veteran’s Day next year! It is a great discussion starter for young students to talk about military personnel and the emotions that go along with a deployment.

Unspoken

E COL

by Henry Cole

This wordless picture book depicts the story of a young girl living on a farm in Virginia with her grandparents during the Civil War.  The pictures begin by showing Confederate soldiers at the farm either looking for escaped slaves or looking for food to eat.  Later on we see the young girl getting potatoes from the barn cellar for dinner that evening when she hears rustling in the cellar.  It turns out there is an escaped slave (presumably a girl) hiding in their cellar.  It is illegal to house escaped slaves, and the soldiers return offering a reward looking for ths particular slave.  Will the young girl disclose the escapee’s hiding place, or will she allow the escapee to continue her path north towards freedom?

It would be a great upper elementary read-aloud, think-aloud book when discussing how illustrations connect to the text, or how one can infer much just by examining the illustrations.  It would also be a great addition to a Civil War unit after students have built some schema on the Civil War and slavery.  They could write the words to this book as a class activity!

Comprehension Strategies: Determining Importance, Inferring, Synthesizing (as there are no words, my thoughts were constantly changing trying to make a cohesive story)

Topics: Civil War, Slavery, Escaped Slaves, Doing What’s Right vs. Doing What’s Lawful