A Fellow Traveller

A "good fit" book is one that is at just the right reading level for the reader; one that a student wants to read independently and can comprehend. I found a read-a-loud book last week that was just right for an unexpected teachable moment with my primary class. I can't remember exactly why I first chose the book five months ago, but there it sat buried in a pile on my desk at school. Because of the three months away from the classroom, I had totally forgotten it was even there. After telling the third installment of my baby bird story (as in previous posts), I realized that I needed to follow up on the death and dying theme. As I prepared my lesson plans for the next day, I wondered where to go next. I moved some things to be tidied up and found the book "Good-bye Vivi". This surprising find turned out to be an amazing perfect fit. In the picture book, Grandma and her pet bird move in with a family with young children. One day the bird takes sick and dies of o...

(Read the previous two posts for background to this one. Start with Mothering from Outside.) Because I've been talking about the baby birds, my students keep asking for more of the story each day. I had shared the discovery of finding the birds joined together, but had downplayed the certainty of their deaths. Yesterday I decided to make it a teachable moment, not waiting for the inevitable questioning. My daughters were the ones to remove the birds from the nest while I was at school. In the process of lifting them out, the nest was destroyed. Some kind of nesting material must have been wrapped around the bird's legs, causing their legs to fuse and "grow" together. They possibly died of starvation, although the stronger one probably tried to get free of the other. Even though my girls had cared for the birds, I had a need to see them for myself. It was as if I needed closure. It wasn't enough to forget and move on, telling myself they were just birds. ...