This week's Monday Mix features three female illustrators, three of my favorites, who were a part of the Golden Age of Illustration: Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley. The women were nicknamed the Red Rose Girls by Howard Pyle, master illustrator and their teacher, after the place they lived and worked in together called the Red Rose Inn. The name also reflects the nature of their art - their subjects were mostly women and children, very feminine (although some of Violet Oakley's work stands out against this generalization). I've collected some of my favorites here for you... click Read More to see! Illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith Jessie Willcox Smith Elizabeth Shippen Green Violet Oakley Violet Oakley's painting of the Red Rose Inn

This old black and white photograph pops out at me every now and again on the internet, and it just about sums up my feelings on what my education should have looked like. The photograph was taken in 1957 in the Netherlands where open air schools were quite popular at the time. The idea of an al fre

Hey guys! Be prepared, this is a very SPED kind of post, but it would really work in any class with a student who struggles emotionally. Thi...

Rhymes and silly phrases can really help you remember spellings. For example, 'Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move' helps you to spell the word rhythm.

A badger sees a boy drop his sandwich & the race is on to get it! But it's sandy, squashed & slimy. Will badger eat The Disgusting Sandwich?

Making coffee ice cream was one of my top to-do items for the summer last year, regardless of my weight loss goals at the time. I started off with the

These pictures are used to help students decide if an action is a good choice (giving a high five) or a bad choice (throwing books). This can be done with individuals as well as a small group for social skills. There are good choice and a bad choice sorting mats that can be printed on green and re...

(1871-1954) American Illustrator.

The Green Ember book series creatively introduces children to the idea of vocation and calling.

Before I bring out “The Green Ribbon” for a lesson, I always have to ask myself two questions, the first being “Are the student old enough for this story?” The second question is “Will the parents forgive me for potentially traumatizing their children?” “The Green Ribbon,” originally published in Alvin Schwartz’s In A Dark, Dark Room and Other Stories, is the age-old horror myth of a harmlessly ordinary young girl with an extraordinarily bizarre quirk, an elegant velvet ribbon tied around her neck that she never takes off. The origin of “The Green Ribbon” stretches much farther past Schwartz’s collection of spooky folktales, but in his volume, she is at least given a name, Jenny. If you’ve ever sat around a campfire with your friends as a child, or gone to a slumber party where the flashlight got passed around for ghost-story-swapping-time, you’re probably already familiar with this creepy piece of fiction’s infamous ending, and Jenny’s bloodcurdling, horrifying secret. I personally enjoy watching the looks on my students’ faces when I have them read the ending line aloud in class. “And Jenny’s head fell off.” I love this ending. There’s no complication to it, no long-winded explanation for Jenny’s strangeness, and no warning whatsoever. Her husband just tugs off her ribbon and off comes her head, leaving behind in the reader’s mind the mental image of it rolling across the bedroom floor. My students’ reactions to this ending have been mixed. There were some whose hands shook as we drew nearer to this, forgive the pun, cut-throat final line. Some were upset by it, which is fair enough. Others were just plain baffled. “Why did her head fall off?” they ask me, almost demand of me, as if Jenny’s head falling off was my fault. As if I’d pulled the ribbon myself. Shrugging nonchalantly, I respond with, “Why not?” When teaching the horror genre to my students, both privately or in groups, what I really try to communicate to them is that the horror genre is not subject to the same rules of logic and character/setting background as, say, fantasy and science-fiction. “The Green Ribbon” is not required to offer any backstory as to why Jenny needed a ribbon to keep her head attached to her body in the first place. If it were a typical fairy tale, then yes, the writer would be expected to add an introduction at the beginning where Jenny gets cursed by a witch, attaching magical elements to both her ribbon and her unusual predicament. But the goal, with horror, is simply to get a response out of your readers. I’ve told my students, you don’t have to woo your readers with world-building when you’re writing horror. You just have to scare them. Some of my students have found this concept difficult to grasp. Many of them are devouring fantasy and science fiction books series like Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and The Maze Runner where the allure is the imaginary world the author creates, not a one-time jump-scare thrill, which is what a quick scary story is meant to offer instead. When criticizing my students’ horror fiction, I’ve had to suggest on several occasions that they spend less time developing the eerie setting and more time building suspense in their storyline. I remember writing once, in the comments section, “I want to meet the ghost, not get lost in the woods,” for a student who filled up too much of the homework word limit with lengthy descriptions of a haunted forest. Granted, they were impressively good descriptions, just better suited to a different genre, or a novel. Not a short story. Another aspect of “The Green Ribbon” that makes it perfect for a horror genre lesson plan is that it’s an ideal way to introduce students to plot twists. A good plot twist, from both my teacher’s and voracious reader’s perspective, should have the physical and emotional impact of accidentally sitting on a pin, in that it makes you jump out of your chair and yell. Sometimes the reader subtly expects it, in the back of their thoughts, especially if the writer decided to add foreshadowing, but ultimately it should be shocking. After reading “The Green Ribbon” I usually ask my students to write on the subject of plot twists, and to tell me whether or not this one shocked them the way it was meant to. At least, I will jokingly remind them as they write, you weren’t nearly as shocked as Jenny’s husband. Emily Zarevich lives in Burlington, Ontario. She attended Wilfrid Laurier University, where she studied English literature, and went on to Humber College where she studied TESL/TEFL (Teaching English as a Second Language). She's previously been published in Dreamers Creative Writing, Understorey Magazine, Living Education, and Quick Brown Fox. See Brian Henry's schedule here, including online and in-person writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in Algonquin Park, Alliston, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Southampton, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Back in the day, a little green owl called Duo used to hog the Duolingo limelight. In many ways, I guess he still does. And who am I to question it! But

The new novel

An inner-city Cleveland community is drawn closer together as it works to transform a dirty vacant lot into a lush communal garden in Seedfolks. Author Paul Fleischman says the title came from an old word meaning "ancestors."

Here are copies of the activities I did during my novel study of Ramona Quimby, Age 8 , by Beverly Clearly. We focused on vocabulary, sequen...

I hope you haven't been bored with all the attention paid to Howard Pyle. He was not only one of the very best illustrators of all time but he generously shared his talent and knowledge with his younger peers. Nobody...

As most of you know I have been following this book closely with the hopes that I am lining up my curriculum as closely as possibly with other teachers in other Common Core States. We are a bit behind at my school in starting the units so we are just now starting Unit 3--Building Bridges. So, all of the books below are a part of this unit. They are already linked to Amazon, so if you want one, just click! Stories Henry and Mudge: The First Book by Cynthia Rylant The Fire Cat by Esther Holden Averill Read Alouds The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden and Garth Williams Charlotte's Web by E.B. White and Garth Williams Zen shorts by Jon Muth Pop's Bridge by Eve Bunting and C.F. Payne Mackinac Bridge: The Story of the Five-Mile Poem by Gloria Whelan and Gijsbert van Frankenhuy One Green Apple by Even Bunting and Ted Lewin Snow in Jerusalem by Deborah da Costa, Ying-Hwa Hu, and Cornelius Van Wright The Day of Ahmed's Secret by Florence P. Heide, Judith H. Gililand and Ted Lewin My Father's Shop by Satomi Ichikawa Silent Music by James Rumford The Little Painter of Sabana Grande by Patricia Maloney Mrkun and Robert Casilla

I posted earlier about my introduction for inferencing with my friendly dog, Scout. This is what we've been up to since then! Inferring ...

‘River-land - a story for children’ by Robert W. Chambers; illustrated in color by Elizabeth Shippen Green. Published 1904 by Harper & Brothers. See the complete book here.

Manchester Art Gallery hosts a major showcase of the work of children's author Lauren Child. Here we introduce you to some of her famous characters

Brenda's Notebook Specifications; 150 Dotted grid and numbered cream 90g/m2 pages.Perfect matte 220g/m2 soft cover with clean design.\"If Lost contact...\" pageCustomised design for: Brenda6\" x 9\" dimensions; fits backpack, school, home or work. Good compromise between size and portability.Can be used as a notebook, journal, diary, composition book for school and work, and any other practical application where a medium sized notebook is required.Perfect gift for adults and kids for any gift giving occasion ( Christmas, Birthdays and other festive occasions. )Designed with Love by the team at 2Scribble.

Violet Oakley [American painter 1874-1961] Illustration for the Encouragement of Reading Oil on canvas Private collection

The cool kids from Elena in Montreal know how to hunker down and cook.

Ben Elf is the main protagonist in the series alongside Princess Holly, who is his old pal. He is a young elf and lives with his parents in The Great Elf Tree., Ben wears a blue shirt, a blue pair of shorts and blue shoes. He has short ginger hair and a blue triangular hat with a green oak leaf sticking out, which during the autumn and winter seasons is red. Miss Cookie (Lucy’s school teacher), describes him as being a handsome elf (as well as describing Holly as "the pretty fairy princess", Nan

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“‘We is now having a swiggle of this delicious frobscottle and you will see the happy result.’ The BFG shook the bottle vigorously. The pale green stuff

I absolutely LOVE a good children's book about "art" and when I find one that I can do a lesson with I LOVE it even more. If you have not seen or read the the "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" by Karen Beaumont then you are seriously missing out. You can find it on amazon :) I already had the book when I stumbled upon a post on pinterest but of course I cannot find it**, even with my EPICALLY organized pinterest boards. **FOUND IT! This project kicked off my portrait unit with K-6. I knew it was going to be my last display so I wanted things to be very colorful! There is a slight variation between Kinders and 1st..... Kindergarten was basically a 1 day because it was just their heads. 1st grade took two classes because we did whole body. These two made it into the spring art show! Kindergarten! Day 1: Started off the day with reading the book and a little drawing demo of how to draw yourself. My favorite part of the intro was making them put their hands on their heads and running their hands down their face and figuring out what shape our heads were. NOT CIRCLES--was the point of that. We talked about all the parts of our faces and I mentioned how people forget eyebrows and ears a lot when they draw, so our rule became if you have it draw it! That was it applied to glasses, hair length, etc. The silliest part was that I showed how to do a bunch of different hair on one head so my portrait had like five different hair styles in one. Perfect for when it was crazy hair day on the same day I did this with one of the kindergarten classes. After the discussion and demo I sent them off to work, first drawing in pencil, then tracing in sharpie. For painting with the watercolors the only rule was to paint in rainbow order so we did not have to change our water. We wanted our pictures to look like our character all messy with paint and no "real colors" just like our illustrator did. Some kiddos just couldn't handle the chaotic-ness of the paint anywhere any color, and had to paint things "correct". Type A and B personalities in the making :) Day 2: At the start of class, before I introduced the next project, we cut out our portraits and glued them to black paper! First Grade! Day 1: I talked about the same things with the 1st graders as I did Kindergarten, but added drawing the body. We talked about how we are not stick figures and have different sides to all of our "parts" my favorite accidental word choice explanation that I needed up sticking with was that our "armpit shape" happens three times when we draw us. Better than saying CROTCH! Drawing and sharpie took the whole class for these guys. Day 2: Painting! Same exact thing as Kindergarten. Day 3: Cut and glued to black before the start of our next project! 100% I will be doing this project again!! Any great children's books to recommend that make a great portrait project? I'd love to hear from you!