March 2022

Trivia Tidbits

March is Women’s History Month, a month dedicated to recognizing women’s contributions to history and society. Join us in helping to create a world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination, a world that’s diverse, equitable and inclusive. Together we can #BreakTheBias!
Who said it? Share these inspirational quotes with the women in your life to build community, camaraderie, and maybe even a little friendly competition! See how many of the notable women behind these quotes you can name. Then check your answers here.

“I raise up my voice—not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard…We cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”
“Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.”
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you couldn’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time when the tide’ll turn.”
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
“There’s something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge.”
“The question isn’t who’s going to let me. It’s who is going to stop me.”
“There are two kinds of people—those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group. there is less competition there.”
“The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another.”
“A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.”
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
“For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it. If only we are brave enough to be it.”

Book Bag

This month’s book is perfect for Learn About Butterflies Day on March 14th, International Read to Me Day on March 19th, or any other day that could use some Butterfly Magic!

This humorous story is grounded in a situation all kids can relate to—dealing with grouchy grown-ups—which presents authentic opportunities for social-emotional learning.

Like all the Read Aloud Books in JillE Literacy, this one features vibrant, captivating art and an engaging story that will have students laughing from the edge of their seats.

Every JillE Literacy Read Aloud Book also includes Teacher Notes on the inside front and back covers, with tips and prompts for supporting the read aloud plus six response activities for extending the read aloud for more literacy and social-emotional learning.

Butterfly Magic comes from the Grade 1 Whole-Class Resources kit but is appropriate for children and teachers of all ages (especially the grouchy ones!)

Poetry Power

The first day of spring is March 20th this year, and World Poetry Day follows on March 21st. Why not celebrate both—and foster a spirit of gratitude—with this poem from JillE Literacy?

Poetry is an effective way to engage reluctant readers and build reading fluency through short, repeated, shared reading experiences that develop essential literacy skills in a low-stress context. The poems in JillE Literacy help all students feel successful and build their identities as readers.

The built-in five-day lesson plan on the back of every JillE Literacy poem makes it easy to read and reread the poem over the course of a week, focusing on a different literacy opportunity each day:

DAY 1 Comprehension
DAY 2 Vocabulary
DAY 3 Fluency
DAY 4 Phonics/Phonemic Awareness
DAY 5 Creating

Pocket PD

At JillE Literacy, we care about equity. We care about diversity and representation. We care about stories.

Why stories? Aren’t stories just for entertainment? Or at most, a vehicle for capturing students’ attention while we teach those vital literacy and social-emotional skills?

But stories are not frivolous. They are how children learn about the world. They are how children learn about themselves.

No one makes this point better than Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story. In it, she talks about reading British and American children’s books and coming to believe that books could only have white characters who ate apples and played in the snow. Reading these books as a child presented a single story about what books were—and, by extension, about the people who deserved to be represented in them.

We believe children deserve to experience diverse stories, stories from many perspectives, stories with characters, cultures, and topics that both reflect and expand their worlds. That is why Jill Eggleton, since the earliest days of her teaching career, has created books and poems that help make all students feel represented and included, that help them feel safe to take learning risks and make mistakes, and that help them effectively collaborate with others in the learning process. In her words,

“I felt the stirrings of something in my soul—a realization of the need to make my teaching practice reflect the needs, passions and cultural backgrounds of the children who bounced eagerly through my classroom door, trusting me to teach them.”

You can read more about Jill’s teaching journey in her article, My Awakening to Equity.

Visit our Free Tips and Takeaways page for these and other free lessons and resources!

We welcome your questions, news, or success stories that you would like to share. Please send them to us at scoop@jillelit.com. We would love to hear from you!

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JillE Literacy is a unique collection of K-3 resources created to empower teachers with engaging texts and science-based literacy instruction that together make learning to read easy, effective, and fun. JillE Literacy supports teachers with built-in tools and strategies that show how to teach essential literacy skills in the context of vibrant, engaging, humorous texts that children actually want to read. With guidance from educator, author, and international literacy consultant Jill Eggleton built into every page, it’s like having a master teacher and literacy coach beside you every step of the way.

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