You are my I Love You

I have recently come to appreciate children's literature.  I enjoy the illustrations in the books as much as the words.

One of my favorite children's books is called "You are my I Love You" written by Maryann K. Cusimano (illustrated by Satomi Ichikawa. Published by Philomel Books, New York.)

I love the pace of the language, the parallel structure of the sentences and the profound meaning in the simple phrases.  The water colors are equally simple but full of warmth and emotion.   Below are several phrases and illustrations from the book followed by my own version at the end of this post.

YOUR ARE MY I LOVE YOU by Maryann K. Cusimano

I am your parent; you are my child.

I am your quiet place; you are my wild.

I am your calm face; you are my giggle.

I am your wait; you are my wiggle.

I am your audience; you are my clown.

I am your London Bridge; you are my falling down.

I am your open arms; you are my running leap.

I am your way home; you are my new path.

I am your dry towel; you are my wet bath.



I am your bedtime; you are my wide awake.

I am your finish line; you are my race.

I am your good-night kiss; you are my I love you.


I was so moved by this book, that I was inspired to write my own version using the same repeating sentence structure.

Gigi's Version

I am your parent; you are my child.

I am your eat your vegetables; you are my can we have ice cream.

I am the start of your after-school play date; you are the end of my work-day.

I am your social secretary;  you are my social butterfly.

I am your hair color, skin tone and eyebrows;  you are my hair color, skin tone and eyebrows.

I am your cheekie; you are my pooka.

I am your role model; you are my hope and dream.

I am your driver; you are my passenger.

I am your photographer; you are my subject.

I am your dress buyer;  you are my canvas.

I am your childhood 1.0; you are my childhood 2.0.

I am your hurry, hurry, hurry; you are my slow, slow, slow.

I am your long days;  you are my short years.

I am your tired and overwhelmed parent;  you are my caring and comforting child.

The Electric Company

About a year ago, Emma started watching The Electric Company. I am not sure how she first got started, but Emma was immediately smitten with the show (um, so was I).    New episodes would air on Fridays.  She would look forward to the new episode as soon as she finished watching the Friday show.  During the week, she would request to watch older episodes which were saved on the DVR. When we discovered that PBS posted all of the episodes on their website, Emma started watching the The Electric Company on the Internet. We have a "one show a day policy." She used all of her TV show time to watch old episodes of The Electric Company.

The Electric Company was a popular children's show in the 1970's. As I remember, it was faster moving version of Sesame Street targeted to older kids.  For what ever reason, I never watched The Electric Company very much when I was growing up. Perhaps the show just came on at an odd time.

 I do remember that The Electric Company, like Sesame Street, was a peek into a world very different from my world as a kid.  Both shows had diversity -- Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians. I didn't call it diversity. I just knew that the people on these shows looked different than most of the people in my world on the rural plains of Eastern Colorado. I was both curious and fascinated by the seemly happy mix of people.

Now PBS has created a new version of The Electric Company.  The approach of the show is the same--music, dance, celebrity visits and animation to teach the basics of phonics. The current show still has the same iconic elements from the 70's version (i.e. the "Hey you guys" call to action and the blending of words by the silhouetted face people). But now the show has been updated to include elements from popular culture that resonate with the kids of today.  This means PBS added hip-hop and beatbox, plus slick music videos and a story to entertain the audience into learning basic phonics.

Here are some of our favorite clips from the show. Let's start with the show's opening sequence.  Each of the characters have a special multi-media super power to help them with words and reading.  The show is filmed on the diverse streets of the Bronx in New York City.

ELECTRIC COMPANY INTRODUCTION




Below is Emma's favorite music video from the show.  I often look across the living room as I am cooking dinner to see Emma dancing and singing along to this video. The video is about Electric City, a place "where you can be anything you wanna be."  After the show is over, Emma frequently gets a worm in her ear and repeats the "two steps to the left electric, two steps to the right electic" part over and over and over again.

WYCLEF JEAN SINGS 'ELECTRIC CITY'





Now here is my favorite video. (I actually have lots of favorite videos. It was a hard choice.) Bless the woman that gave birth to the PBS writer that came up with the idea of mixing classic Bollywood dance ensemble choreography and 70's hippy hair/clothing together with a catchy song to teach word decoding word strategies.

After watching this dance video,  you might want to do the "Slide and Drop" dance at home. Here is the link to the YouTube 'Slide and Drop" Instructional dance video .

DO THE 'SLIDE AND DROP'




I am fascinated how The Electric Company uses fun, memorable song and dance to teach rather dry and tedius spelling rules.  (I often think I should take a page from the Electric Company's teaching pedagogy and burst into song and dance myself when I stand in front of my own classroom of college students.)

To demonstrate The Electric Company's teaching method, let me show how they approach one concept from a phonics curriculum: R-controlled vowels.  Here is the R-controlled vowels phonics rule:

R controlled vowels occur when an "r" changes the way the preceding vowel is pronounced. R-influenced vowels are neither long or short. When vowels follow the "r", the sound is blended with "r" to form a new special sound (or phoneme) as in car, fern, bird, fork, spur.

Appropriately, The Electric Company calls this rule, 'Bossy R.' The rule is illustrated in four unique, entertaining ways during "curriculum commercial breaks." I have posted all four below.


Annie's Prankster Cam's approach is the most straight forward.

PRANKSTER CAM:  ANNIE'S 'BOSSY R'




This is how the 'Bossy R' rule is interpreted by show's resident beatboxer, Shock and his guest beatbox partner, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

'BOSSY R' BEATBOX 




Now for the classic back and forth interaction of the face people doing their take on the 'Bossy R.'

'BOSSY R' SILHOUETTE BLENDS

This is the version of the 'Bossy R' that Emma and I like the best. Emma refers to it as the one with the dancing mommy and daughter.

'BOSSY R' DANCE VIDEO 



Thanks to Beth for the prompt regarding The Electric Company. (See comment on previous blog entry).