Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion

As a child, I used to sing this song in Girl Scouts:

HAPPINESS RUNS
Performed by Christine Lavin
written by Donovan Leitch
Happiness runs in a circular motion
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea.
Everybody is a part of everything anyway,
You can have everything if you let yourself be.
http://glasshalffullcd.com/happiness-runs/

When I Googled the lyrics, these weren’t exactly the ones I remembered . . . but this song runs through my head as we explore “circles” and “connection” during the month of March!

My current FAVORITE book when thinking of circles, is Circle, Square, MOOSE by Kelly Bingham.  Moose is BACK!  He made his debut in the alphabet book Z is for MOOSE in 2012.  This wonderful story explores anger management and how to be a good friend to those who struggle with it.  Although Moose continues to be challenged by self-regulation skills in this new book introducing shapes, he now has an opportunity to be a friend (and clean up the mess he creates when he’s out of of control)!

Wanna make some pictures with shapes?  This would be a fun creative expression extension to your class!  Lois Ehlert’s brightly illustrated Circle Zoo and Circle Farm are springboards for how to get started.  These are oldies (©1990s), but goodies!

Do you know Kathryn Otoshi’s work?  She first wrote One in 2008, followed by Zero in 2010 and Two in 2014.  The circles in these stories represent numbers and are all about connection and the lack of.  When I share One with young people, I ask who do  they think they are in the story?  These stories provide a beautiful avenue for discussing kindness, why some folks choose unkindness, friendship, and how EVERYBODY “counts!”  Simple, clever and powerful.

Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece is another twist on the circle theme and  may be fun for your advanced participants. This book delves into deeper topics like fulfillment, happiness, perfection and how it’s more about the journey! In the sequel, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, the story explores the missing piece’s point of view.

And finally, circle stories!  These are stories that end where they begin!  Some of the most familiar are Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, and  If You Give a Dog a Donut. Create your own circle story in class!  Have fun weaving the story up and down and around and back again.

Check out Elephant and Piggie’s We Are in a Book to be reminded, books are to be read again and again! 

The connection you create when you share a story is a low cost, great investment.  May that fabulous circle of sharing a good story again and again be unbroken.  Happy Reading~db