1. We began the next sub-unit that discusses the imagination of childhood and how we were in awe at that age of the types of adventures in our roleplaying or books we read. We discussed the contentment and comfort we felt when we were read to as children and that, for some reason, that feeling changes as we grow older. If I were to read them a story, their attention span is different, their interest in sharing that experience together is nill, and they don’t slow down and enjoy shared time with others like that in a similar way that they used to. That was the past.
2. To help them understand and go back to a time when someone would sit down with them to read them a story, we watched a video of a woman reading a storybook and she recorded it because she loved having that story read to her. There’s something very comforting about listening to a story being read and watching them turn the pages. The story was “The Giving Tree” (a poem, actually) by popular children’s author / poet Shel Silverstein.
3. We talked about children’s poems soon after and went on a short field trip to the Gr 3/4 classroom where the kids demonstrated for the Gr 11s (unknowingly of course) how much  enjoyment can come, at that age, from simple things like screaming out a poem in unison.
4. They later began reading an article titled “For Reading Out Loud” that details the ten reasons why reading to children out loud has such benefits. They were to make a list of the ten reasons and be prepared to discuss them next class.

Here is our video of “The Giving Tree”. Enjoy it!!