"Everybody Cooks Rice" 

    The tool I decided to research is a book called, :everybody Cooks Rice," by Norah Dooley, illustrated by Peter. J Thornton. The book is for prek-3rd grade, which is perfect because I am competing my P-3 certification. The book is about a little girl who goes to her neighbor's houses to look for her little brother. Where she finds that everyone is getting ready for dinner and all of them preparing rice in a different way to eat for dinner. This story is very cute and age appropriate in explaining cultural differences to children. It shows them differences in people but through food which I think is very clever and relatable for a child because who doesn't love food. It helps them see that all people are the same, they just may do things slightly different, like preparing rice. I also like that it shows students that all rice is the same but it can be prepared differently making it look or even taste different and that is kind of how we are as people. We are all the same but we may be raised with different beliefs and values  making us "different' but really we are all just people the same way its all just rice. 

 I have actually read this story before. I can't remember if it was to one of my classes or if my professor introduced it to us but I really enjoyed the story. If I were to read the book again to a class I would create cute activity to go along with the book. I would ask the kids questions before I began reading, like who has had rice before? What kind of rice do your parents makes? and then I would make connections through out the story. I would have students raise their hand during reading about each family to see who also makes rice in that manner. After the story I would have the students do a turn and talk, discussing not only different rice but other different foods they have at dinner. Once they share I would create an anchor chart documenting all the foods the children eat for dinner. Finally, I would have the students draw a picture of different foods they can find at their dinner table. Once the students are done with their pictures I would do a gallery walk where all of the students can look at their classmates work and each student would have an opportunity to tell us about the food they eat. 

A really cool extension that could be done with this story is doing a potluck. This would be a great way to increase family engagement in the classroom. I would send home a letter and an email asking parents if they have family recipes for different rice dinner and organize a day for all of the students to bring in a dish and try different families recipes. This would be a super fun way to try new foods and for children to be introduced to different culture's foods. All in all, I think the story has a really great message for kids and there are many activities that can be done to enhance the message within the story. Below is a YouTube read aloud of the story! Sometimes a read aloud is great use of technology in the classroom. It serves as differentiation of instruction for different learners.