An Interview with Sarah Campbell on Poetry Friday!

It's Poetry Friday, but it's also my turn to interview Sarah Campbell on her blog tour. Sarah's new book, Growing Pattern: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature, is a beautiful exploration of the connection between math and nature.



But first...


Before I post the interview, I want to share a poem I stumbled upon this week in my library wanderings. It is poetry Friday, after all. This poem is from another children's writer who loved nature and numbers and patterns, Barbara Juster Esbensen. Here, from her collection Echoes for the Eye, is a poem about...You guessed it. Fibonacci Numbers!

from "Spirals"

In summer gardens
sunflowers
hold
yellow faces
to the sky
their stiff-crowned seeds
hardpacked
in flying spirals
curving
clockwise and counter-
clockwise Count
the whirling 55 the
dizzy spinning 89 --
the rows and
rows of old Italian
arithmetic!

And now, here's Sarah.

I'm sure every blogger has asked, but would you explain Fibonacci numbers to our readers?

Actually, you are the first to ask. Fibonacci Numbers are the series of numbers created when you start with 1 and 1 and then, in order to get the next number, you add the two previous numbers. So, 1 plus 1 equals 2. 1 plus 2 equals 3. 2 plus 3 equals 5. Do you get the idea? These numbers, then, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, … are called Fibonacci Numbers.

When and how did you learn about the concept?

I remember reading about and hearing about the concept about six years ago in a novel and on a documentary television program. (You can read a more detailed description of this on Elizabeth Dulemba's blog)


It's easy to see how this book could be used by many grade levels and across the curriculum. How would you suggest teachers use it in kindergarten to second grade classes? How about third to fifth grade? And middle school, too?

I'm glad you asked about this. I hope teachers of students at all levels will do hands-on activities with their students – both outside observing nature and inside with natural objects.

K-2

I have created two very simple printable sheets for teachers. One re-creates what I call the Fibonacci grid, which features prominently in the book's design, with empty boxes. I suggest teachers ask their students to fill in the squares with the appropriate numbers from the Fibonacci sequence and/or draw a picture of a flower with the requisite number of petals.

The second printable sheet is essentially a black-and-white reproduction of one of the book's pages. It shows the Fibonacci grid filled in with our photographs of flowers. The teacher would cut the grid apart and let students put it back together like a puzzle.

3-5

I am working on a photography lesson for this group. Each student would take a digital image of something outside. The student would then write a Fib poem (a six line, 20 syllable poem with a syllable count by line of 1/1/2/3/5/8: credit to Gregory Pincus) to accompany their photograph.
My friend Julie and I have designed a special accordion book for each student to make to display the photo and poem.

Middle School

I suggest teachers ask their middle school students to write a picture book to explain a math concept.

Have you worked on a teacher's guide?

I am indeed working on a teacher's guide. It will be ready very soon on my website.

Do you know what the AR level or Guided Reading Level is for the book?

I do not know. For my first book, Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator, the AR level is 4.4 and it is worth .5 points. It has appeared on summer reading lists for kindergarten through fourth grade. This shows an interesting paradox with my books. They include challenging words (which kicks up the reading level), but the challenging words are well supported in the text with images and context clues so teachers and librarians tell me they have many students in earlier grades who read the book with interest.

Can you give us examples of what you might include in a school visit focused on Growing Patterns?

I will read the book, share a multi-media presentation that includes a behind-the-scenes look at getting the photographs, and entertain questions from the students. If we have time and I am working with a small group, I like to get the students looking at some of the objects from the book (pine cones, nautilus shell) through tiny jewelers loupes and writing down their observations.

Many thanks to Sarah for taking the time to visit and answer my questions.

Springmingle and Jane Yolen

I attended the Springmingle writer's conference this weekend in Atlanta, sponsored by the Southern Breeze region of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Jane Yolen was the keynote speaker. I am in awe of Jane's beautiful way with words. She has published 300 books in the field, including the Caldecott Medal winner, Owl Moon. It was a treat to sit and listen.

























Jane has several new books available. I am the proud owner of an autographed copy of All Star! Honus Wagner and the Most Famous Baseball Card Ever. I bought it for my husband, but the inscription is for me.

Another of Jane's lovely picture books just out is My Father Knows the Names of Things. Delightful!

So check these new books out. Your students will definitely enjoy them.

So I Can't Count

It has been brought to my attention that I can't count. Okay, I never claimed to be much with numbers. Words are much more fun. Spring is still officially three weeks away, but the phlox and daffodils blooming in my yard don't seem to care that I can't count either. They're blooming their little heads off whether it's officially spring or not!

Gotta Keep Reading!

Students at Ocoee Middle School in Florida created a very cool video to inspire students to get excited about reading. Take a few minutes to watch it. These kids must have had a blast with this. It makes me want to join in.

Black History Month

It's the final week of Black History Month. I was in a school last week in Columbus. The fourth graders lined the hallways while the kindergardeners marched through them to the music of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" piped over the loud speakers. It was a delightful celebration.

If you're looking for some of the best books written by people of color, truck on over to The Brown Bookshelf. I wish I had discovered this blog earlier in the month. It's a treasure trove of interviews with well-known and not so well-known authors, complete with images of their books. A great resource.

Three more weeks until spring. I'm counting!

Is it Spring Yet?

It's the middle of February, still four full weeks before the official declaration of spring, but I'm counting the days. Counting the flowers--a few pink and white phlox struggling to cover the rocky bed by the mailbox, the green tips of bulb foliage pushing through the cold ground, a yellow daffodil considering whether to seek the sunshine, one fresh fern frond unfurling (say that three times fast) over the dead stubble. It's time for spring! I don't care what the groundhog saw. It's just time.

I'm drooling over my perennial flower catalog, reading old gardening magazines, and wishing I could plant something. I'm not very good at indoor gardening, so I'm waiting impatiently for the temperatures to rise and the ground to warm up.

If you're interested in gardening books for kids, here are some good ones. They are Robbie Readers from Mitchell Lane Publishing. The set had good reviews by both School Library Journal and Booklist. Various authors. AR levels are from 5.2 to 5.7.


The set includes these titles:

A Backyard Flower Garden for Kids
A Backyard Vegetable Garden for Kids

Design Your Own Butterfly Garden

Design Your Own Pond and Water Garden

A Kid's Guide to Container Gardening

A Kid's Guide to Landscape Design

A Kid's Guide to Making a Terrarium

A Kid's Guide to Perennial Gardens

Organic Gardening for Kids

For the younger crowd, Capstone has just come out with a set by Mari Schuh called Gardens.

Titles include:
All Kinds of Gardens
Animals in the Garden
Growing a Garden
Tools for the Garden

AR levels are unavailable yet, but they are Pebble books, so reading levels will be low.

Dori Reads

Thursday night I spoke at the PTA meeting at Hannan Elementary on the importance of reading aloud to your children. It was a good group of parents, a variety of children, and of course, the teachers and principal. The statistics show clearly that reading aloud with your children gives them a head start on learning to read. We read a few pages from one of my family's all-time favorites, Tales of the Kingdom by Karen and David Mains. It's a fairly high level read aloud, but it captured the attention of the adults and even most of the youngest children there.


I spent the rest of the week with my grandchildren who were here from Texas. Dori is my grandmother name. As you can see, I still love reading aloud, even when their choice is a Little Golden Book about Scuffy the Tugboat.



Scarboy's mother is dead. Her last instructions were to take Little Child and escape from the Enchanted City. The enchanter rules Enchanted City with fire. Jealous of the sun's powerful light, he has declared day to be night and night to be day. As orphans, the brothers are doomed to stoke the fires beneath the city's streets. Escape is their only hope.

Excellent read aloud.