Summer's Cool

A great great book. And though it's for elementary-level readers, adults can enjoy it, too. The reading program we were involved with at our church last week, Summer's Cool, dove into this book. There were daily readings of the book, then the students were split up by grade-level to do activities and discussions associated with the book. Raul and I were particularly excited because the book was written by a Chinese American and is about China...it incorporates Chinese folktales and culture into a fantasy story that's very well-written. We worked with the 3rd grade students, and the teacher we aided is an ESL teacher who did her student teaching in China. Go figure :) So we had a great time getting to know her and teaching our students about China. At the end of the week, parents were invited to see what the children had been learning about and take part in kite-flying, eating with chopsticks (that was fun to teach!), origami, and writing Chinese characters. It was such a fun day...and I missed China a little bit :) The week was a great experience for us and something we really loved being involved in. Getting kids excited about reading and learning, and helping them expand their worldview and learn about another country...that's pretty great :)