Tomie dePaola is one of my favorite authors. To start out mini-unit, I chose to use the old stand by---the KWL. I had previously read Oliver Button is a Sissy, which I adore!!
Next, I asked the kiddos how could we find new information about Tomie. Of course, they directed me to google.com and we ended up on Tomie's website--tomie.com This is a terrific website and we learned lots of information about Tomie dePaola. The children were also able to make connections between Tomie's real life experiences and his books. For instance, Oliver is a tap dancer and tap dancing was one of Tomie's biggest passions. The kids inferred that Tomie is the real Oliver Button.
We also enjoyed watching an interview with Tomie where the children discovered that he had twin cousins, Fuffy and Fanny, that were artist just like him. Here is the link to the interview: http://bcove.me/vvtn3s85
I gave each child six post it notes and the children took research notes about what they learned. Below are some of the interesting things that the children learned.
My school district has also organized our curriculum around specific themes for each six weeks. This six weeks was all about "relationships" and the concepts on the chart were were highlighted. These were prevalant themes through out The Art Lesson too. So , I thought "Let's give it a try!" Now, I always get nervous when trying to teach theme to little kiddos, because I think that it is too complex of a skill for them to master. But guess what? They come through everytime!!!! They are such smarties. As you can see from the chart below, I wrote the three big ideas. Now we had discussed these ideas a few previous times too, so they were familiar with them. I asked the kids to give me text evidence that yes, these were themes throughout the book.
Sometimes, theme and main idea can be confusing. What's is the difference? Well, fiction literature has a theme and informational text has a main idea. Once I heard that it made complete sense. "OHHHHHHH!"
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