Take a selfie! Take your picture as you're reading about Ivan and his friends. Bring a copy or email it to us at [email protected] so we can add it to our Ivan bulletin board.
Let's see how many family selfies we can collect! |
Try out some of these fun activities. Keep them in a notebook or journal. Better yet, share them with us at [email protected] so we can share them with our school community.
Paint Like Ivan – Invite children to paint like Ivan. Give them finger paints, and ask them to start by drawing items in their domain. (Banana, anyone?) They can draw like themselves, or they can channel their inner Ivan and draw in a more basic style.
Patience – Early on, Ivan reports that gorillas are “patient as stones” – and much more patient than humans. Why? Why do gorillas need to be patient? In the jungle? In the zoo? What are you patient for? Are there things you could be more patient for? If you could learn from Ivan, in what situations or scenarios would you be quieter and more patient?
Maximized Maxims – There is a lot of wisdom lurking in a book like The One and Only Ivan. Locate that wisdom – the wittier the better – and bring it out. Call attention to this wisdom. Put these maxims on banners and display them in your home. We'll be hanging them around WES. Some wisdom is more playful, like when Ruby says, “Quiet is boring.” Put that on a poster with a picture of Ruby. Bob says, “I am untamed, undaunted.” Who wouldn’t want to see a poster of that?
Feel the Quiet – Give children an opportunity to feel what Ivan feels when he paints. Ivan says he “feels the quiet.” Let them draw – quietly. Enforce the silence, and let them feel it. Debrief afterwards to give the students a chance to discuss how the silence felt to them.
The Elements of Stories – Katherine Applegate describes them as “colorful tales, black beginnings, stormy middles, cloudless blue-sky endings.” Ask children to pick their own favorite stories – they can be picture books, movies, or chapter book novels – and identify each of these elements in them. Are there other ways of describing the elements of stories?
Wasted Words – Ivan claims that humans waste words. He mostly says this because gorillas communicate differently, and he spends a lot of time listening to humans jabber. Stop and think about your world: your home, your classroom, your friends. Who do you know who “wastes words”? What words do they waste? What kinds of conversations can take place with fewer words? Do you waste any words? Which ones? Which topics? Think about it.
Communicate Like a Gorilla – This playful and perhaps a little risky. It could be another opportunity to let children experience patience and quiet – like Ivan. Invite children to spend a short time – or a day – communicating like gorillas. Can children learn how to communicate “Enough!” through judicious grunts? How often will they resort to chest thumping? What other gorilla communication techniques will they develop when they get frustrated? Discuss afterwards to see what they learned.
Homework Is… – Ivan vicariously describes homework as “sharp pencils, thick books, and long sighs.” When you think about it, this is pretty poetic. Ask children to define/describe homework in three succinct phrases. That’ll work. You can also ask them to describe many other things in the same fashion. School is… Home is… Recess is… Family is… This is a great budding writers exercise that teaches economy and precision – a hallmark of Katherine Applegate’s technique in The One and Only Ivan. Why use three sentences or three paragraphs when one sentence and three choice phrases will do?
Ivan’s Keepers – An excellent way to keep track of a book or a series or a character’s chronology is to find something that is consistently present but keeps changing. Then ask children to name all the examples of that phenomenon. For example, can you name all seven Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers in the Harry Potter series? (That’s one way to keep track of the seven books in the series.) For Ivan, ask students if they can name all of Ivan’s keepers? [A: Karl Juan, Katrina, Gerald, Mack, George.] This rewards seriously attentive listening.
Patience – Early on, Ivan reports that gorillas are “patient as stones” – and much more patient than humans. Why? Why do gorillas need to be patient? In the jungle? In the zoo? What are you patient for? Are there things you could be more patient for? If you could learn from Ivan, in what situations or scenarios would you be quieter and more patient?
Maximized Maxims – There is a lot of wisdom lurking in a book like The One and Only Ivan. Locate that wisdom – the wittier the better – and bring it out. Call attention to this wisdom. Put these maxims on banners and display them in your home. We'll be hanging them around WES. Some wisdom is more playful, like when Ruby says, “Quiet is boring.” Put that on a poster with a picture of Ruby. Bob says, “I am untamed, undaunted.” Who wouldn’t want to see a poster of that?
Feel the Quiet – Give children an opportunity to feel what Ivan feels when he paints. Ivan says he “feels the quiet.” Let them draw – quietly. Enforce the silence, and let them feel it. Debrief afterwards to give the students a chance to discuss how the silence felt to them.
The Elements of Stories – Katherine Applegate describes them as “colorful tales, black beginnings, stormy middles, cloudless blue-sky endings.” Ask children to pick their own favorite stories – they can be picture books, movies, or chapter book novels – and identify each of these elements in them. Are there other ways of describing the elements of stories?
Wasted Words – Ivan claims that humans waste words. He mostly says this because gorillas communicate differently, and he spends a lot of time listening to humans jabber. Stop and think about your world: your home, your classroom, your friends. Who do you know who “wastes words”? What words do they waste? What kinds of conversations can take place with fewer words? Do you waste any words? Which ones? Which topics? Think about it.
Communicate Like a Gorilla – This playful and perhaps a little risky. It could be another opportunity to let children experience patience and quiet – like Ivan. Invite children to spend a short time – or a day – communicating like gorillas. Can children learn how to communicate “Enough!” through judicious grunts? How often will they resort to chest thumping? What other gorilla communication techniques will they develop when they get frustrated? Discuss afterwards to see what they learned.
Homework Is… – Ivan vicariously describes homework as “sharp pencils, thick books, and long sighs.” When you think about it, this is pretty poetic. Ask children to define/describe homework in three succinct phrases. That’ll work. You can also ask them to describe many other things in the same fashion. School is… Home is… Recess is… Family is… This is a great budding writers exercise that teaches economy and precision – a hallmark of Katherine Applegate’s technique in The One and Only Ivan. Why use three sentences or three paragraphs when one sentence and three choice phrases will do?
Ivan’s Keepers – An excellent way to keep track of a book or a series or a character’s chronology is to find something that is consistently present but keeps changing. Then ask children to name all the examples of that phenomenon. For example, can you name all seven Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers in the Harry Potter series? (That’s one way to keep track of the seven books in the series.) For Ivan, ask students if they can name all of Ivan’s keepers? [A: Karl Juan, Katrina, Gerald, Mack, George.] This rewards seriously attentive listening.