Sara de Waal was my classmate in UBC's Creative Writing MFA program, and she is also an elementary teacher! This beautiful picture book authored by Sara is about a girl who makes her own "friends" using recycled materials, and, in the process, develops a friendship with a boy who lives in her apartment building. I love this story's message about the value of creativity and community-building.

 One of my favourite ADST lessons is to have students make their own friends just as the book's protagonist does. This also presents an opportunity to tie in some SEL concepts by discussing what a friend needs, e.g., ears to listen, eyes to see how others are feeling, hands to play clapping games, etc. It's always sweet to hear what the students come up with! 

I also like to show the students the first few minutes of this video (up to about 3:15), in which Sara discusses her background as an artist and author as well as her motivation for writing this book. 

This story is about the value of gathering around a table as a family (or friend group) to connect, enjoy time together, and truly listen. After sharing this book with my class, I had the students make family conversation starter jars, as outlined below. This idea is from Laurie McIntosh, co-author of Teachers These Days (@mrsmacskinders on Instagram). 

This was the process for creating the jars:

Prep for lesson 1: I prepared two pieces of paper with 11 blank rectangles each. 

Lesson 1:

I had the students sit at the carpet, where I shared with them some examples of conversation starter questions. Then, I had each student think of their own conversation starter question and typed them up on my laptop, which was projected onto the whiteboard.

Then, I had the students silently read. As they were reading, I called them up one by one to my desk. Each student used a fineliner to copy the question they had thought of into one of the rectangles on the two pieces of paper I'd prepared.

Prep for lesson 2: I made 22 copies of the two pieces of paper. Also, I had each student bring a glass jar from home. 

Lesson 2:

I had each student draw a picture of their family on an index card and write "Welcome to our table!" They drew and wrote in pencil first, then finelined. Then, they taped the index cards to the glass jars they'd brought in.

Next, I gave each student a copy of the photocopied conversation starters. They cut them out into 22 separate rectangles, each with one conversation starter question written on it. Then, they curled them around their pencils and dropped them in the jar.

This project can make a great family day gift in February! 

"Taan" means "bear" in the Haida language. Taan's Moons, inspired by the Haida people's understanding of seasonality, describes 13 moons over the course of the year, each connected to the bear's annual journey. 

Based on this book, I had my students think of the "moons" of their own journey through the year. For example, they thought of the Leaves Falling Moon, the Polar Express Moon, the Flowers Blooming Moon, and (my favourite!) the Ice Cream Truck Moon. Students drew and wrote about their moons using a template developed by Adrienne Gear (fun fact: Alison and Adrienne Gear are sisters!) which you can find on page 35 of this pdf (lots of other great lessons in this document, too!). Another fun idea would be to cover cardboard circles in tin foil and have students use coloured Sharpies to draw images that represent the moons they thought of! 

This story is about a Metis girl named Awasis who accidentally drops her grandmother's world-famous bannock off a bridge! She goes on a journey through the forest where her animal friends give her all of the ingredients she needs to make a new batch of bannock. The duck gives Awasis margarine, the frog gives her sugar, the rabbit gives her flour, and so on. 

I'm planning to do a two-week unit on this book with my class this year, which will include an author visit (over Zoom) with Dallas Hunt! Infusing Indigenous Literature has some great templates for activities to go with this book. A few activities I like to do with my class that connect to this book:

• Creating maps of Awasis's journey. You can use the template in the bundle linked to above, or you could just have students complete this activity on blank printer paper.

• Writing code to represent Awasis's journey. Again, there is a template for this in the bundle linked above. I tried this with my summer program class and it went pretty well. I'm looking forward to diving into this more deeply with my class next year.

• Making bannock, of course! There's a recipe in the back of the book. This is great activity for a parent (or other adult family member) volunteer to help with. Be warned that your students' hands will get very sticky! Also, as always, be mindful of allergies or other dietary restrictions in your class and make accommodations accordingly. 

This book is perfect for Orange Shirt Day. It's about a girl who is taken to residential school and brings along a bag of special items from nature such as a flower, a leaf, and a fir sprig. There are two activities based on this book that I like to do with my class:

1. I have each student bring a memory bag of their own special items to school - one student per day for the month of October. This is a great community-building activity that helps students get to know each other. I share my own memory bag with the students, too!

2. I have students draw and label the items in Shi-shi-etko's bag using this template from Adrienne Gear. Another option would be to use the same template and have students draw and label the items in their own memory bags.

This book provides a great opportunity to broach the topic of truth and reconciliation in a sensitive, age-appropriate way. 

This beautiful book includes black and white pictures and students' writing about their favourite body parts. After reading the book, students can write about their own favourite body parts. Kindergarten or early Grade 1 students might just write one sentence, while older students can write longer compositions. I still remember how one Kinder student I taught years ago wrote, "I love my legs because it could run, walk, and jump. I love my eyes because I could see some beautiful stuff." It's so wonderful to see students embracing body positivity and celebrating everything their bodies can do! 

These books are ideal for ADST projects. 

For It's Not a Stick, I buy a pack of skewers from the dollar store - a pack of 100 will only cost you a toonie (just remind the students not to poke each other with the sharp ends!). An even more affordable alternative is to have students find sticks outside.  

First, I have students create a page saying "It's not a stick! It's a...magic wand/sword/mobile, etc." and draw a picture of what they plan to create using only black and blue markers (since the illustrations in the book use black and blue only). Then, students decorate their skewers using craft materials (I ask the parents in advance to send in materials such as beads, pom poms, pipe cleaners, etc.).

The It's Not a Box project is the same idea. Students use red and black markers to create their "Not a box" page and then decorate cardboard boxes they brought from home to turn them into castles, rocket ships, monsters, or whatever else they can dream up!

The students LOVE this project! If you plan to do either the box or stick lesson, I'd recommend allocating at least 80 minutes. 

When I taught Kindergarten, we had a box station open in our classroom during play centres for at least a month, and students spent many happy hours playing there, developing skills in the areas of collaboration, communication, and creativity! I also shared the book The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield with that Kinder class, which is about Hadfield as a kid building a cardboard box rocket ship, and they really enjoyed that story as well! 

I'm a huge Henkes fan! This book is about a girl's imaginary garden featuring chocolate rabbits, flowers that change colour, tomatoes as big as beachballs, and more.

The visualization chapter of Writing Power by Adrienne Gear includes an imaginary garden writing lesson that would go perfectly with this book.

Also, here's an imaginary garden collaborative art project to try with your class:

1. Have students practice making different types of lines using this handout. 

2. Give each student a piece of printer paper. Tell them to draw a flower. Make sure to tell them not to include a stem and to make their flower BIG so that it fills the whole paper. You can show them some examples - just Google Image search "Drawings of flowers". Tell students to draw in pencil first, then fineline.

3. Next, students decorate each petal and the centre of their flower using colourful lines as they practiced on the handout. They can get creative and have some fun with this!

4. Then, they cut out their flower.

5. Next, they use green construction paper to add a stem and leaves.

6. As students complete their individual flowers, I put them into groups of about 4-6 kids. Each group is given one piece of poster board. They glue their flowers onto the poster board. Then, the collaboration starts! Students can decorate the background of their flower poster to include as many magical details as possible!

Again, this is a time-consuming lesson, and I'd recommend allocating about 80 minutes. This lesson works well for Grades 2-5, and could also work well for K-1, maybe with a bit of additional scaffolding. 

This is a great book to go with the Grade 2 Science unit on chemical and physical changes to matter. As you read the book, students can use this free graphic organizer from iTeachSTEM to list the chemical changes (e.g., when the pancakes are cooked) and physical changes (e.g., when the dry ingredients are mixed together) that take place as part of the pancake-making process. For extra fun, make your own pancakes! This is a great activity to have a parent volunteer's help with! 

This is a great one for Kindergarten! It's funny, not preachy, while still sharing an important message through the refrain  "At Kindergarten, we share! We share EVERYTHING!"

As a follow-up, you could have the students draw and label the many things they can share at Kindergarten, like dolls, blocks, crayons, and so on.

One student in my Kinder class a few years ago took the moral of this book very seriously. Once, when another kid wasn't sharing, that student said very sternly, "HEY! At Kindergarten, we share! We share EVERYTHING!", then burst into tears. As I was comforting him, I had to hide my smile. Who would have known how much he'd take the message of this Munsch book to heart!