Ideas for using

MAMA LOVES ME FROM AWAY

in the classroom

Listening to Mama's stories is Sugar's favorite time of the day. Then Mama went away and everything changed. But Mama figured out a way to have storytime with Sugar every night until they could be together again.

What are some of the stories your students like to hear their parents tell? What kinds of stories would they like to hear them tell? Have your students ask their parents for a story of when they were younger. Was there a time when they were sick, injured, or lost? Did something funny or unusual happen when they were young? Did they have an unusual way of saying things? Ask students to share some of the stories they heard from their parents.

What are some of the stories that Mama tells Sugar? Ask your students what events in their own lives they might tell as a story to their own children some day. Have them write it as though they were telling it many years from now. "I remember when I was in Miss Beck's third grade and I sat next to Earl Johnson. One day..."

Sugar's "favorite best" story is of the day she was born. Ask your students to write the story of the day they were born. If they're unsure of any facts, ask them to imagine what it might have been like and write that. Discuss some things they might want to include: What was their mother doing when she knew it was time for the baby to come? Who was with her? Who took her to the hospital? Do they think it hurt? What time of day was it? What was the weather like? How did the news of their birth get spread? To whom? Who visited them in the hospital? You might prefer to try this assignment as a tall tale and encourage them to be as fanciful as they want.

One in 40 American children has a parent in prison. These children experience feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, loss and anxiety but are completely innocent of any crime. Their families endure economic hardship and they are sometimes forced to move in with other family members or go into foster care.

Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else's situation and understand what they are feeling. Discuss with your students how they would feel if they had a parent in prison. Would they want other people to make fun of them, treat them differently, not play with them or not include them in their activities? How would their lives be different? How would they hope it would be the same?

Even though Sugar's mother is in prison, they still love and care for each other. But Pat Brisson never says in the story that Sugar's mother goes to prison. So how does the reader know that? This story is not about prison, but about separation. Parents can also be separated from their children due to business trips, military service, or illness. Your students are probably separated from some people that they love. What are some ways they stay connected to each other when they are physically apart? (Phone calls, letters, e-mails, post cards, reunions, meeting at a half-way point, sending photos, making audio or video tapes, sending a special gift to remind the other person of them when they use it are some they might come up with.) What are the advantages and disadvantages of these ways?

Pat Brisson's son Zachary was born on her husband's birthday, which gave her the idea to have Sugar and her Mama share a birthday. Do any of your students share a birthday with someone they know? You can check www.famousbirthdays.com to see if they share a birthday with a famous person. Ask your students to predict which season of the year has the most birthdays of people in the class. Make a chart of the four seasons and let students figure out where to add their name. Which season has the most?

On February 23rd (Pat Brisson's birthday) how many days of the year have gone by? How many are left? Let your students figure out the same for their own and each other's birthdays.

On what day of the week were your students born? Find out with a perpetual calendar at www.timeanddate.com/calendar. You can also check www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory for important things that happened on each day of the year. (The Tootsie Roll was introduced in 1896 on what eventually became Pat Brisson's birthday!)

Read the following Mother Goose poem to your students. Do they agree with what it says about the day they were born? If they could rewrite what it says about their day, what would they write?

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go.

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child born on the Sabbath Day,

Is fair and wise and good and gay.