Patricia Polacco is one of my favorite children's book authors. Her word choice is second to none, and she creates such vivid images for the reader. I also love the way her illustrations perfectly capture the spirit of the text. She is just brilliant!
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The Bee Tree is no exception. In this story, Mary Ellen becomes tired with her reading, so her Grampa takes her on a search for a bee tree. The entire town joins in, and after the fun is over, Mary Ellen learns that we must sometimes persevere to find the enjoyment in our tricky tasks.
This is an excellent book to use in almost any subject area. It is a great read aloud and can be the center of a lesson on author's purpose or identifying the lesson in a book.
I also love it as a mentor text for writing. Here are just a few possible teaching points:
- Using words other than said
- Relating the ending to the beginning
- Including a moral or lesson
- Using dialogue to drive the action
The Bee Tree works brilliantly for Guided Reading, as well. Here's a lesson I've used. In fact, I even used this as a Guided Reading demonstration lesson, because I knew I would be excited to share this book with others. It went beautifully, and I'm loving my new job! :)
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