Wednesday, October 10, 2012

By Any Other Name


Philip Stead's A Home for Bird is the read-aloud book for primary children this week. The story begins with a heavily-loaded green truck scooting down a road - and a drawn-out "Cuckooooooooooo" sounding in the truck's wake. As Vernon (a frog) attempts to help Bird find home, Bird remains silent and compliant. Observant readers notice that the green truck later pulls up in front of a home...the same home where Vernon and Bird go at the end of a long journey. They got there with help from a kind stranger who pointed the way. When I ask about that stranger, all the kids know what it is, its function, and that it usually has N, E, S, and W on it, but their words for it never quite get to the real term: a weather vane.

They suggested it was a wind pointer, a direction giver, a wind mill, a cupola (Wow!), a rooster, a chicken, a wind direction.

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