In the book, Teaching With Favorite Newbery Books, author (and teacher) Lori Licciardo-Musso has developed a variety of creative curriculum ideas to be used concurrently with 25 Newbery Award-winning books. The following activities obtained from this book will hopefully inspire some profound results in your classroom.

Walk Two Moons

by Sharon Creech

Summary

Walk Two Moons is two stories woven into one. Salamanca Tree Hiddle tells her grandparents about her friend Phoebe Winterbottom. As Sal tells Phoebe's story—a story that is sometimes funny but deeply emotional—her own story is revealed. Both girls experience the loss of their mothers—one permanently, the other temporarily—and must come to terms with the loss and the changes it brings.

VOCABULARY

Chapter by Chapter

This story unfolds so quickly and is so engaging that your students will want to move through it quickly. There are 44 chapters in the book, and if students have to stop at each chapter to do an activity, they may resent it.

Here's an idea that will help them process each chapter without being tedious. Ask students to make a symbolic pizza of Walk Two Moons. First they cut out a large tag board circle. The circle should be at least 8 inches in diameter. On one side of the tag board, have students make a collage from pictures cut out of magazines. The collage should represent the themes and events in Walk Two Moons. Be sure to have students leave room along the edge (crust) to write the title of the book and their own names. Have them divide their circles into 6 equal parts. Each slice of the pizza will contain a summary of seven chapters; for example, one slice for chapters 1–7; one slice for chapters 8–14, one slice for chapters 15–21, and so on. Stopping after every seventh chapter for a review is not too tedious and provokes deeper thought about the text.

Into Ideas

Map of the United States

In this novel, Sal and her grandparents take a long trip across the United States. To help students prepare for the novel, I give them outline maps of the United States and ask them to label the places:

Students can use these maps to trace the route that Sal and her grandparents took on their journey.

Travel Brochures

Ask students to create travel brochures highlighting some of the places that Sal and her grandparents visit. Travel brochures can easily be created by folding an 8 1/2- by 11-inch piece of paper into three equal parts. Students can use photos or magazine pictures to represent the sites at each attraction and write a catchy paragraph that would entice people to want to visit the place. I bring in several brochures from travel agencies to give students some ideas as to content and layout. Another great way to do this is to use the computer program Microsoft Publisher to make your brochures. The computer program is easy to use, and it makes the brochures look very professional. When students arrive at each destination in the book, they will be reminded of what each site has to offer and will have a better picture of what's going on.

Through Ideas

Murals

Five mysterious messages are left for the Winterbottoms.

1. Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins.
2. Everyone has his own agenda.
3. In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?
4. You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.
5. We never know the worth of water until the well is dry.

I divide my class into five groups and give each group one of the messages. Each group is to interpret the meaning of its message in a mural. The mural must include the message and symbols or pictures that convey its meaning. Students can also write what they think the message means or paraphrase it to go along with the pictures.

Drawings of the Soul

In the book, the students in Sal's class are asked to draw their souls. The results are profound and say a lot about the students. After my students have read that part of the book (page 129), I ask them to draw their own souls. We follow the same procedure as the book does by displaying the pictures without names and trying to figure out which picture belongs to which person.

Venn Diagrams

Have students make Venn diagrams comparing Mrs. Winterbottom's departure to Sugar's leaving. They can also do Venn diagrams comparing Phoebe's response to her mother's leaving with Sal's response to her mother's departure. Another idea is to compare the Hiddles to the Pickfords or to compare the Winterbottoms to Sal's family. All of these make for interesting discussions.

Poems

Have on hand the poems mentioned in the novel—the e.e. cummings poem “the little horse is newly” and Longfellow's poem “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls.” Discuss students' responses to the poems.

Beyond Ideas

What's in a Name?

The meaning of names is very important in Sal's family. It is always fun to ask your students to find out the meaning of their own names and any stories that go along with them. Many parents have beautiful or funny stories to share with their children about what their names mean and how the names were chosen. I also have on hand several books about the meanings and roots of names for students to examine. I give students the opportunity to make fancy nameplates for themselves that include the meanings of their names

Personal Journals

I ask students to keep their own personal journals so that they can have records of their personal journeys in life. They can bring in their own journals, or I provide them with composition books to be used as journals. Since these journals are private, I don't read them. I do, however, provide students with one period of sustained silent writing time once a week to work on journals (for my class, it's every Friday for 15 minutes). At the end of that time, I simply walk around the room and check to see that students have written in their journals. I encourage them to write about the trials and triumphs of the past week. I also suggest that they follow Oprah's advice and write about what they are grateful for in the past week. My students look forward to this time. I store the journals, but students are free to take them home to work on as long as they bring them to class each Friday.

Writing Ideas

1) Walk Two Moons is about the importance of family and friends, and there is a special emphasis placed on mothers. This is a nice time to ask your students to write about what their own mothers mean to them. Have them mail their finished work to their mothers. You'll get a lot of positive feedback from moms. I am always concerned when I give an assignment like this because I do have students who have lost their mothers or find it difficult to write about them, so I give the option of writing an essay about grandparents or a best friend. Both of these characters were important in the novel also.

2) Someone was placing mysterious messages in white envelopes in front of Phoebe Winterbottom's front door. Pick one (or more) of the following quotations and brainstorm what they mean to you. Write a short story or a personal anecdote.

• Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins.
• Everyone has his own agenda.
• In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?
• You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.