Polar Express 30th Anniversary Edition: A Christmas Holiday Book for Kids

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When Ben passes the Sphinx, he sees another house. Who do you think is in the window? Why do you think that?

Christmas Eve" ( Noch pered Rozhdestvom, 1832) by Nikolai Gogol (from Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka) Van Allsburg based the story on a mental image of a child wandering into the woods on a foggy night and wondering where a train was headed. [4] Van Allsburg lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife Lisa. They have two daughters, Sophia and Anna. Van Allsburg converted to Judaism, his spouse's faith. [7] Works [ edit ] Twas the Night Before Christmas: Edited by Santa Claus for the Benefit of Children of the 21st Century" (2012) being Pamela McColl "smoke-free" edit of Clement Clarke Moore's poem At the end, we learn that Ben and Margaret have had the same dream. Do you think it was really a dream? How could two people have the very same dream?The Polar Express is an amazingly writtenbook. VanAllsburg's launguage is beautiful. The use of text painting and similes make the text vivid where the pictures are not. His use of language fits perfectlywith the perspective of the boy because they were descriptions of candy and things that a small child would be thinking of, the style of writing although from the boy’s viewpoint is sophisticated and uses proper grammar. The descriptions are what make the text appealing. A) I write for what’s left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head. I think it’s a mistake to try to create something for a particular audience. You end up spending more time wondering what they like and less time wondering about what’s really important to you as an artist.

This lesson can be presented as a read-aloud within the context of either a reading or writing workshop, but it can also stand on its own. It is helpful if children are used to being read to and to discussing books as a whole class. You will want to organize your students into talk partnerships so they are able to turn and talk to each other when you ask them questions about the text. Kaczmarczyk, Jeffrey (November 17, 2015). " 'Polar Express' author Chris Van Allsburg on how Christmas in Grand Rapids inspired beloved book". The Grand Rapids Press . Retrieved October 20, 2017.The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (TBA), film from Walt Disney Pictures & 20th Century Studios based on children’s book The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (in development)

Ben and Margaret ride their bikes home from school as rain clouds gather over their town. Although they were hoping to play baseball that afternoon, they decide instead that they will each go home and study for tomorrow’s geography test. Ben, after learning that his mother has gone shopping, settles into a chair with his geography book just as it begins to rain. The rain hitting the windowpanes makes Ben very sleepy. Van Allsburg struggled for a time with his sculpture studio. At home, Van Allsburg began a series of sketches that his wife Lisa thought would be suitable for children's books. She showed his work to an editor who contracted his first book, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, in 1979. [6] Have children draw what they would see out the window of the Polar Express on its way to the North Pole. So here’s a little something about me… there are two movies I love.love.love to watch around the holidays. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone and The Polar Express. Yes, I’m a kid at heart and there’s just something about those two movies that, for me, make it feel like Christmas. Because this is the beginning of a project that will take several days, children may need a bit of extra time to think through how they will begin. As you confer with them individually, you will want to help them follow the structure of journal entries that you have noticed together during the lessons and make sure that they are including historically accurate facts.Collect a list of all that students notice about the entries. Tell them that when they go off, they will begin a project in which they will be writing several journal entries as though they lived during the historical period that you are studying in social studies. Tell them they will need to imagine themselves in that time period and include things they have learned about the way life was then, as well as including the things they have noticed about structure through studying The Wretched Stone (for example, dating the entries).

A young boy is awakened on Christmas Eve night by the sound of a train. To his astonishment, he finds the train is waiting for him right outside his house. He sees a conductor who then proceeds to look up at his window. He runs downstairs and goes outside. The conductor explains the train is called the Polar Express, and is journeying to the North Pole. The boy then boards the train, which is filled with many other children in their pajamas being served hot chocolate by the train's staff. Although I really do much appreciate both the story (the presented narrative) and the accompanying illustrations, Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express ultimately does indeed feel but mildly entertaining and actually also manages to leave me rather flat and strangely unsatisfied. As is often the case when teaching more sophisticated ideas to less experienced writers, it can be quite helpful to undertake an activity as a whole class as opposed to sending children off to try the activity alone. Younger children will be able to understand the concept of telling a story through letters or journal entries but may find it more difficult to undertake the process by themselves. You may do this as a daily group exercise, eliciting ideas from the children and recording them yourself on chart paper. A) I grew up just outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. There were open fields, trees, and unpaved roads. The houses weren’t big — they were nice, small houses for families of four or maybe five. There were still places nearby where I could catch tadpoles. There were places to go sledding, and fields where you could play baseball — not someplace surrounded by a fence, just open fields. I rode my bike to school.

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There remained many open fields and streams and ponds where a boy could catch minnows and frogs, or see a firefly at night. It was about a mile and a half to Breton Downs School, which Chris walked to every day and attended until 6th grade, when the Van Allsburg family moved again. When you have made your list, remind your students that Van Allsburg blends these real facts about space into his fictional story about the Budwings’ adventure. Tell them that in their writing today, they will have a chance to try out the same thing. You may want to ask them to make a list of scientific facts before they begin to write. You may also want to encourage them to use facts they have been recently studying in class. (For example if they are learning about insects, insect facts might play heavily into their lists.) Collect the stories into a “friendship book” so that your students have plenty of examples for how conflicts can be resolved.