One of the most powerful ways we can connect with our students and normalize “big feelings” is by sharing quality literature with them. Often, they can identify with a character and label their emotions before they can label their own. Even if you’re not ready to add Social-Emotional learning to your daily or weekly lesson plans, bringing in powerful read-alouds is a great first step.
I am always on the hunt for books to share with you…I want you to feel confident bringing them in your classroom and not spend hours searching for the right book.
I was thinking about what skills are most important right now, and I think managing worry and anxiety are at the top of the list! While I try to bring you diverse authors as often as I can, Tom Percival is too good not to share.
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Ruby Finds a Worry is about a little girl who “finds a worry.” When she finds it, it’s nagging but small. As she worries about the worry more, it grows and becomes more distracting. It travels with her
At the end of the story, Ruby finds another boy with a worry. I love that the worries are different colors…it’s a simple but powerful representation of everyone’s different worries.
She learns that talking about our worries helps them shrink and get back to a more manageable size.
I wanted to share a few reasons why I love this book.
- Ruby is a Black character, but that’s not the focus of the book. So often diverse characters are only in books about diversity. It’s so important that our students find characters to connect with them that look like them and their peers.
- Ruby is dealing with a “big feeling” that’s deeper than being left out or sad. For a long time, most of the SEL books on the market dealt with kindness, manners or neatness. I’m always so glad when I find books that tackle different topics.
- It’s short and to the point. Sometimes books take SO long to get the message across and we lose our young learner’s interest. This book is a quick read.
- At the end, Percival reminds students that worries don’t go away. They hang around and even when we manage them, they might still be there. We will also find new worries. That’s just part of being human.
- Ruby realizes that talking about her worries helps it shrink. So many students don’t feel comfortable talking about their big feelings, and I love the way it normalizes it.
I wanted to make sure you can use this lesson tomorrow, so I made a few reading response pages for after reading. I’ve included printable and digital versions of the activities, as well as several types of handwriting lines and blank pages for students who are still drawing pictures.
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