Vermont School Library Association

A Collaborative Approach to a Red Clover Book

This year, for the first time, our Art Teacher Kate Townsend and I sat down with the Red Clover books to select one for a collaborative approach.  Our goal was to reach 4^th and 5^th graders in a more meaningful way.  At Dothan Brook I do the Red Clover program with the 4^th graders.  This year I decided to include the 5^th graders with some of them.  One reason for this was our school district’s approach to bolstering reading with Fountas and Pinnell.  At recent discussions, the picture book has been emphasized for use with older students.

The Red Clover book we selected was Sandy’s Circus by Tanya Stone.  I did research on the internet to find two You Tube sites to show students after reading the book to them.  The first was an old black and white video of Alexander Calder actually performing his circus and the other was a kids’ Art Display made by K-5 students in Calder style with wire circus figures and mobiles after Tanya Stone had come to their school.  My students found it totally fascinating.

During Art Class in the following weeks, Kate had the students make wire circus creations with fanciful odds and ends.   Among the materials Kate used were twisteez wire, pipe cleaners (regular and shiny), wire edged ribbon, buttons, beads, feathers, toothpicks, pencil eraser heads, pom poms, marker caps, and shish-ka-bob sticks.  Large detergent bottle caps and styrofoam were used to stand up figures.  Styrofoam used in packing allowed for the display of several youngsters’ work in one scene. Several students got so excited about the project that they worked on ideas at home.  One class’s work was on display in the library.  Many students wanted to take their work home to give as holiday gifts.

Kate also had the book Roarr: Calder’s Circus, by Maria Kalman (copyright 1993 so it needs to be found in an out of print book source).

Kate and I also used this project as one our Professional Development goals for the year.
Pat Cook, Librarian at Dothan Brook School, Wilder, VT (Hartford School District)