Tomie dePaola Books

My Students

Since my students are very limited in their resources for quality literature at home, I want to enrich their experiences here at school and get them excited about reading! dePaola writes books about growing up and books about various cultures which our diverse class can relate to easily.

Our school is in an urban area of IA.

Over 85% of our families live in poverty and over 50% of the families do not speak English at home. We are challenged to provide many experiences to build students' background knowledge and give them opportunities to build their vocabulary and comprehension as well as give them glimpses into worlds they don't know much about. I have taught for 20 years, 10 years in the classroom and the past 10 years as a special education teacher and am now back in the classroom again teaching 2nd grade. Our district is proactive and have reduced class sizes so that no class from kindergarten-2nd grade has more than 20 students in a class. This gives us a wonderful opportunity to really get to know our students and better assess their strengths and their areas of need. For many children, we are teaching them much more than academics, we teach social skills as well as values. I feel very fortunate to work with these enthusiastic children.

My Project

Since my students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, I want to be able to educate the whole child and have the opportunity to do this with the assistance of wonderful children's literature like the books that Tomie dePaola writes. He speaks to children, their strengths and their insecurities and how to change those into opportunities. I had the privilege to meet Mr. dePaola and sensed that his mission is to speak to the whole child in approaching subjects that foster discussion and reflection. His autobiographical stories are ones that children can easily relate to and the cultural stories give our diverse population something familiar to hold onto and share with the rest of us. Having this classroom library will enrich the lives of countless children for many years to come, thank you so much.

Think about what your life would be like without the magic of books, a chance for you to be excited about learning something new or having a totally unique experience transport you to another place.

Think of the books you loved as a child and read over and over again. For many of my students this has not happened for them yet, be a part of developing these young minds and get them to fall in love with reading!Thank you!