Irene Trivas, friend and illustrator of many books, including 16 of mine, passed away on April 21, 2012.  Irene was an enormously talented and very prolific illustrator.  To all of her art, she brought incredible drawing skill, a ferocious intelligence, a wonderful sense of humor, and deep compassion.  

I think the best way I can honor Irene is to show you these qualities in the covers of our books.  If you want to see more, here’s good news.  Last year Irene agreed to let me put up our books for parents and teachers (with the exception of Learning Though Play and Fathers & Babies) FOR FREE on my website.  I feel at peace knowing that as you browse through Irene’s illustrations in these books, her artwork lives on.  

http://jeanmarzollo.com/ebooks.html

Books for Parents and Teachers

1972 Learning Through Play, co-authored with Janice Lloyd, Harper & Row

1977 Supertot: Creative Learning Activities for Children One to three
          and Sympathetic Advice for Parents, Harper & Row

1981 Superkids: Creative Activities for Children 5-15, Harper & Row

1983 Birthday Parties for Children*, Harper & Row

1987 The New Kindergarten: Full Day, Child Centered, Academic, Harper & Row

1994 Fathers & Toddlers, HarperCollins

1993 Fathers & Babies, HarperCollins

Books for Children

1975 The House That Dreams Painted, Macmillan

1989 The Green Ghost of Appleville, #1 in the “39 Kids on the Block” series, Scholastic

1989 The Best Present Ever, #2 in the”39 Kids on the Block” series, Scholastic

1990 Roses Are Pink and You Stink! #3 in the “39 Kids on the Block” series, Scholastic

1990 The Best Friends Club, #4 in the “39 Kids on the Block” series, Scholastic

1990 Chicken Pox Strikes Again, #5 in the “39 Kids on the Block” series, Scholastic

1990 My Sister the Blabbermouth, #6 in the “39 Kids on the Block” series, Scholastic

1994 My First Book of Biographies, Scholastic

1997 Soccer Cousins, Scholastic

*Many of the illustrations in this blog were done by Irene Trivas.

Counting Parts of Plants

Look at real flowers together. Record what the flowers look like with “scientific” drawings. Count the petals and leaves on flowers, and write the numbers on the drawings. If the flowers have too many petals to count, write many on the picture. Save the pictures, using them to practice classification. Ask the children: How many ways can you classify the flower pictures? Some ways are by number of petals, by number of leaves, by color, by shape, and by size.

Grow a Number

Have the class pick a lucky number. (Perhaps it should be five or six, the age of most of the children.) Wet a sponge and set it in a shallow dish. Sprinkle cress seeds in the shape of the lucky number on the sponge. Set the seeds in indirect sunlight. Have the children take turns checking the sponge each day to make sure it is damp but not too soggy. Teach them to water the dish, not the sponge, so that the sponge can soak up the water it needs. As the seeds sprout, they will lean toward the light. Ask the children why. (Seedlings like light; they need it; they seek it.) Turn the dish around every so often to keep the sprouts growing up straight. If any seeds grow out of place, weed them out.

http://jeanmarzollo.com/KINDERGARTEN/kindergarten_index.html

Excerpted from “The New Kindergarten” by Jean Marzollo, illustrations by Irene Trivas (c) 1987-2012.

Measure Real Plants

Have the children measure real plants as they grow with small blocks. Legos are good because they stack. Teach the children to stack the Legos next to the plants, count the Legos, and transfer the amount to a graph.  Change Lego colors every five Legos so you can count the Legos by 5’s.

A graph is a picture of “how many.”

Measure a Magic Beanstalk

Plant a magic seed in class. Have the children think of what the seed should be (perhaps a small ball) and where they should plant it (perhaps in a basket of toys). Each day, ask a child to paint a new segment of the magic plant on a twelve-by-eighteen-inch piece of green construction paper. Hold the paper horizontally so the new segment is twelve inches (one foot high). This will make it easy to count how many feet long the beanstalk is each day. Tape the paintings together on the wall so that the beanstalk climbs up and around the room. Have the children write stories about their magic beanstalk. Be sure to read them “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

http://jeanmarzollo.com/KINDERGARTEN/kindergarten_index.html

Excerpted from “The New Kindergarten” by Jean Marzollo, illustrations by Irene Trivas (c) 1987-2012.

Scholastic’s website has I SPY worksheets for teachers.  Use the worksheets from the link below to make your own I SPY pictures and write good I SPY riddles. Draw your own pictures or use the pictures on the cutout page.  This link will also take you to a guide for teachers, containing suggestions for helping students look at the world more carefully, use language more vividly, and think more creatively.

http://www.scholastic.com/ispy/parentsteachers/teachers.htm

Over the years I have received many letters from kids.  These days of email, twitter and Facebook, I’m impressed and glad that teachers are still teaching letter writing skills.  Most of the letters I receive by mail are set up exactly the way I learned when I was a child.  In a recent letter from South Africa, an 11-year-old girl asked a question about a riddle on page 19 of I SPY SPOOKY NIGHT.  She noted that in the riddle I ask for “a big red box with a rebus clue.”  She found the box but needed help reading the rebus. I wrote back to her that a rebus has pictures that stand for words.  Since she wrote such a lovely letter to me, I told her what the rebus clue said, but I’m not going to tell you.  I will, however, give you a clue.  The first word in the rebus message is “Go.”

In 2011 I received a letter from an 8-year-old boy who lives in the Midwest.  He wrote these profound words that I often quote:  “I like I SPY because it is very hard.  Some things are very close to other things. It is a really big place.”

My favorite recent letter is from a child in South Dakota named Riley.  I don’t know if Riley is a boy or girl, and I don’t know Riley’s age.  I think that Riley’s teacher suggested that students writing to authors ask interesting questions.  Riley wrote:  “I love your books.  The I Spy books are hard and cool.  Do you like mustard on your hamburger?  Do you like baby pugs?  Do you like pizza?”  I wrote back and answered no to the mustard, and yes to the pugs and pizza.

Each of these three letters is written from the heart.  I commend the teachers and students because that’s one of the most important qualities in good writing.

Some teachers find it interesting to review at this time of year facts that children are learning (or have learned) about dinosaurs.  Children can draw pictures to illustrate the dinosaur facts below or act them out in dramatic play.  I am impressed that today kindergarten kids know the words “fiction” and “non-fiction.”  As a class project, you could make fiction and non-fiction books about dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Facts

Dinosaurs hatched from eggs.
Some dinosaurs were big. 
Some dinosaurs were small. 
Some walked. 
Some flew. 
Some swam.
Some dinosaurs ate meat.
Some dinosaurs ate plants.
Some dinosaurs ate both. 

Simple Simon

Simple Simon met a pie man
Going to the fair.
Said Simple Simon to the pie man,
“Let me taste your ware.”
Said the man to Simple Simon,
“Show me first your penny.”
Said Simple Simon to the pie man,
“Indeed, I have not any.”

Ask the children to retell in their own words the story of Simple Simon.  Can they do it using the word zero?  Explain to the children that the word ware can mean “things that are being sold.”  In class discussion, elicit that the pie man was taking his pies to the fair and sell them.  He would sell each piece for a penny.  How many pennies did Simple Simon have?  The answer is zero.  Ask the children to help you think up more verses to the poem so you can discuss more numbers.  For example,

Said the man to Simple Simon,
“Show me pennies two.”
Said Simple Simon to the pie man,
“Here are two for you.”

The number zero is featured in my new books, Help Me Learn Addition, and Help Me Learn Numbers 0-20.

http://jeanmarzollo.com/books/help_me_learn_addition.html

http://jeanmarzollo.com/books/help_me_learn_numbers.html

Excerpted from “The New Kindergarten” by Jean Marzollo, illustrations by Irene Trivas (c) 1987-2012.

The book is available online for free at:
http://jeanmarzollo.com/KINDERGARTEN/kindergarten_index.html.

I Skyped with a wonderful class in Maine last week, and they reminded me that Pierre the Penguin is nominated for the 2012 Chickadee Book Award: http://www.chickadeeaward.org/.   Children in Grades K-4 vote on their favorite book, thanks to the Maine Association of School Libraries.  The winner will be announced in April.  Good luck Pierre!

Pierre the Penguin, published by Sleeping Bear Press: http://www.sleepingbearpress.com/

I’m very excited about my latest book Help Me Learn Addition!  I wrote this book in easy, rhythmic and rhyming verses to help young children learn basic addition concepts. This book relates to the Common Core Standards in Mathematics for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and Grade 1.  Please let me know how this book works with your students.  (jeanmarzollo@jeanmarzollo.com)

Published by Holiday House: http://www.holidayhouse.com/