The Invention of Hugo Cabret

I am reading to the class a fantastic book by Brian Selznick called, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret". I wrote about this book last year on my teacher's blog Simply Teaching.You can find the post here. The post describes the book and also has videos of an automaton, the Georges Melies movie, "A Trip to the Moon", a video of the author descibing the story, and a video on special effects in the movies (related to Georges Melies). 

Here is the official website for The Invention of Hugo Cabret. You can find lots of additional information about Georges Milies, automatons, Paris, the train crash (one student already checked on his own online to see if it was real), the author and other background information. There are also more links to interviews and videos. Have fun exploring!

Shang Ya! Friendship Oath Poetry

Oath of Friendship

Author Unknown

Shang ya!

I want to be your friend

For ever and ever without break or decay.

When the hills are all flat

And the rivers are all dry,

When it lightens and thunders in winter,

When it rains and snows in summer,

When Heaven and Earth mingle---

Not till then will I part from you.

On Friday the class read an old Chinese poem called "Shang Ya". It is an Oath of Friendship written 2000 years ago. We used the poem as an inspiration to write our own oaths of friendship. We also used charcoal, water color paints, and markers to create our own style of Chinese art on which to write our poems. Here is an animoto video of the process and finished results.