Using the most recent research findings on resilience, William Nicoll, PhD, provides educators with a much needed conceptual framework for creating transformative schools and effective classrooms. Developing Resilient Youth suggests that resilience is the missing fourth R in education. When combined with reading, riting and rithmetic, resilience can lead to improved academic and social adjustment in our youth. Developing Resilient Youth is the first book in a series designed to help teachers, counselors, and administrators to develop the skills and strategies necessary for creating truly transformative schools. Such schools strive to develop in students both the academic and the social-emotional skills necessary to succeed and make positive contributions to society. One key component in the overall process of developing transformative schools is the teaching of the five essential social-emotional competencies associated with resilient youth: understanding and respecting self and others; empathy; positive communication; cooperation; and responsible contribution. In Developing Resilient Youth, teachers will find fifty classroom learning activities designed to teach these competencies. Each activity is accompanied by suggestions for follow-up classroom learning activities that integrate the concepts with academic subject area instruction as well as parent homework activities so that parents and teachers can begin to collaborate in the process of developing resilient youth. Working together, teachers and parents will learn to effectively assist children and adolescents to become responsible, cooperative, caring, and contributing young adults, ready to succeed in our global society.

The Common Core in Grades K–3 is the second in a series of comprehensive tools to tap into the vast flow of recently published books for children and teens, offering recommendations of exemplary titles for use in the classroom. Currency meets authority, brought to you by the editors of the highly regarded review sources School Library Journal and The Horn Book Magazine. This guide includes hundreds of selections for grades K–3 published since 2007 recommended by The Horn Book Magazine. The titles are grouped by subject and complemented by School Library Journal’s “Focus On” columns, which spotlight specific topics across the curriculum. Providing context for the guide, and suggestions on how to use these resources within a standards framework, is an introduction by Common Core experts Mary Ann Cappiello and Myra Zarnowski. These educators provide perspective on the key changes brought by the new standards, including suggestions on designing lessons and two sample plans. Following the introduction, you’ll find a wealth of books, by category. (Note that the guide is Dewey-Decimal based, so you may want to dig around, for example, in “Social Sciences” to find some titles that you might first seek in “History” or “Science.”) Each section includes a listing of the top titles with brief, explicit annotations, and key bibliographic data. “Focus On” articles are appended to appropriate categories to support in-depth curricular development. Each of these articles includes a topic overview and list of current and retrospective resources (including some fiction) and multimedia, enabling educators to respond to the Common Core State Standards call to work across formats.

Folktales come alive in this unit as students are taken on a tantalizing trip to the humorous world on tall tales. The lesson starts off with a teacher-centered approach focusing on the general characteristics of tall tales from different cultures and lands. Optional activities are included to build flexibility into the lesson. Comprehension questions surround the unit on American Tall Tales, while a selection of well-loved tall tales is included in conjunction with the unit to supplement the lesson plan. This Folktales lesson provides a teacher and student section with a variety of reading passages, creative writing activities, crossword, word search, colouring book and answer key to create a well-rounded lesson plan.