Today I'm excited that the teaser post for my keynote - Kindness is the real global warming! - is now posted at the Character Education Partnership's site {here}. I'm also delighted to share this beautiful PPBF with you.
Title: Out of the Ocean
Author/Illustrator: Debra Frasier
Publisher: Harcourt Brace & Company
Date: 1998
Suitable for: ages 4-8
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Themes: nature, hidden treasures, gratitude
Brief synopsis: This beautiful tribute to the gift of the water challenges its reader to discover things to treasure, both tangible and much more abstract. Journey along the shore as mother and child help each other look.
Opening page: My mother says you can ask the ocean to bring you something. If you look, she says, you might find it.
Resources: Visit the author's page {here}.
Find an Inspiring Ideas lesson plan from Loving2Learn {here}.
Read a review at Connecting Family & Seoul {here}.
After a read-aloud, discuss with your readers what they think
the author means by this:
What natural treasure is so big that they might forget to see it?
Why I like this book: For me, there's a personal connection that's so very close to my heart. My mentor and friend, Sally, used to savor her time at the shore, and, as a result, I have these amazing treasures and the notes that she'd leave when she'd sneak by with her surprise. Ms. Frasier's book brings Sally back,
if only for a bit.
"It's not the asking. It's the remembering to look."
Sally knew what to look for, on the beach, and in people.
She saw the gift in everybody and everything.
And she was grateful. Always grateful.
This gem has become a personal favorite,
because of that connection to Sally and her heartbeat.
It's also filled with possibilities for extension. Three ideas:
Sometimes what the ocean has to offer isn't worth treasuring. My daughter helped with a creek clean-up last year and they got 1427 pounds of trash, including 62 pounds of recycling from Waller Creek. Yuck! If you're near a body of water, this book could easily springboard a clean-up effort.
This story pairs a mom and her child on a special daily outing to the beach. Have your students talk about, write about, or draw a special outing that they've had with one of their parents or caregivers. Where are they? What are they doing? How does it smell? What temperature is it outside? What season are they in? What are they wearing? What colors do they see? What is so special about the memories they making?
You could also use it to show how kindness and/or peace ripple out. Ask students to bring in a river rock, maybe something they've found at the shore. Clean the rocks up and let students write a character value on one side (kindness, gratitude, generosity, charity, love) and draw a peace symbol on the other. Bring a big bowl or a bucket and fill it with water. One by one, students can drop their character rocks into the water and watch how their messages of kindness and peace make a splash and ripple out.
Click {here} for some of my other ideas for Character Rocks. Then head to Susanna's blog to read today's other PPBF picks.
