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Seedfolks
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
29 posts | 42 read | 12 to read
A vacant lot, rat-infested and filled with garbage, looked like no place for a garden. Especially to a neighborhood of strangers where no one seems to care. Until one day, a young girl clears a small space and digs into the hard-packed soil to plant her precious bean seeds. Suddenly, the soil holds promise: To Curtis, who believes he can win back Lateesha's heart with a harvest of tomatoes; to Virgil's dad, who sees a fortune to be made from growing lettuce; and even to Maricela, sixteen and pregnant, wishing she were dead. Thirteen very different voices and perspectivesold, young, Haitian, Hispanic, tough, haunted, and hopefultell one amazing story about a garden that transforms a neighborhood. Chosen as a state and citywide read in communities across the country, including in Vermont; Racine, WI; Tampa, FL; Newburgh, NY; and Boca Raton, FL. Supports the Common Core State Standards
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staci.reads
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

A beautiful little story about community. It's a wonderful allegory about teamwork.

sarahbellum Wow, this takes me back! I bought this book as a kid through those Scholastic flyers they pass out in school. Hadn‘t thought about it in a loooong time 2y
55 likes1 comment
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Tera0707
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

I read this for class and I really liked it. People of all ages, from various cultures, and different walks of life come together to create a garden. The chapters are super short, there‘s not much character building, but the story itself leaves an impression. Now to make connections using this story and my own personal stories and thoughts, the world, and other texts/media (that‘s the assignment).

Eggs Love this book 💞💞 3y
Nute I like books with a premise such as this. Stacking! 3y
26 likes2 stack adds2 comments
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dimedgirl
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

A wonderful tale that takes the perspective of multiple different kinds of people living in Cleveland, Ohio, coming together to create a community garden. I read this in 6th grade and still treasure seeing all these characters work together. I especially enjoyed looking at the mode meshing used to represent each voice from different races. I‘m glad I got to reread it again for this readathon!

5/5🌟
#reversereadathon #readathon #deweysreadathon

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SistaPip
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

This is just the sweetest little story about a city community garden -- each chapter is told by a different character, and reflects the different connections that come about between the gardeners. The story is short and simple but I found myself thinking about it a lot after reading.

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megnews
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

The short story of a community garden and a neighborhood springing to life, told through the varied voices of immigrant neighbors who lived near each other but never got to know one another until a child plants some seeds. This was delightful!

#Cleveland

cozypunk I dug it too! 4y
41 likes1 comment
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gpraytor
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

This book RF is great for a fifth grade class, and emphasizes diversity and community. Follow multiple stories based around one community garden, where characters of many generations learn the importance of working together.
#ucflae3414su20

Educators will find that UDL Principle 8.3: fostering collaboration and community will work well with this piece of literature.

gpraytor Also, ESOL Strategy 24: incorporating the culture and the language of second language learners in the curriculum will work effectively while reading this book and conducting the lesson below because of the emphasis of diversity and multiple cultures. 4y
gpraytor https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plans/teaching-content/seedfolks-less... This lesson plan is a great one, as students explore what a community is and how each students thoughts on community impacts everyone. 4y
DrSpalding The book itself has a theme of fostering collaboration and community. Excellent universal design alignment here. 4y
2 likes3 comments
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LauraLeighn
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

SeedFolks
Written by Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by Judy Pedersen
Genre: Realistic Fiction (RF)
Awards: Newbery Award
In the divers and busy streets of Cleveland, Ohio sat a vacant lot filled to the brim with garbage, until one day a young Vietnamese girl named Kim decided to plant some beans. SeedFolks is a beautiful story about the transformation of a smelly eyesore of a lot into a vibrant community garden.Every chapter is from the point of view

LauraLeighn of a different person and tells the story of how each of them comes together to plant and maintain a garden in the heart of the concrete jungle. Seedfolks effortlessly demonstrates how a community of vastly different people can all work and coexist as one large unit. The community garden brings people of all ages, different ethnicities, opposite backgrounds, and various motives together and shows how working together can truly accomplish anything. 4y
LauraLeighn This book is full of beautiful sentiments and realizations “watching him carefully sprinkle them [seeds] into the troughs he‘d made, I realized that I didn‘t know anything about growing food and that he knew everything”.This is an amazing book for the classroom and is a fantastic addition to not only lessons on diversity but lessons on science and social studies. This book can be used easily with the Storytelling (S) teaching Strategy(TS) while 4y
LauraLeighn reading the book one chapter at a time and discussing the events that occurred. Students can discuss experiences they have had that relate to the story and draw deeper connections. This book is also a good base to work with students on UDL 8.3 Foster Collaboration and Community. By having students work in groups to care for plants, they can learn a sense of community and learn how collaboration can make a difficult task easier much like how 4y
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LauraLeighn characters in the book work together to solve garden problems. Students can also collaborate between chapters to solve issues that are being debated in the book. For the ESOL students, this book can be very confusing so by implementing ESOL strategy 21. Record your lectures, presentations, or stories on audiotape, especially for new students who have very limited exposure to English you can provide a resource students can relisten to. Recording 4y
LauraLeighn each chapter allows students to easily return to points in the book that may have issues to solve, information they can use in their garden, or just to relisten to.
Website https://growing-minds.org/steps-to-a-classroom-garden/ has a wonderful breakdown on how to start a classroom/school garden. The website is dedicated to getting students and schools into gardening, it has many how-tos and resources that make school farming easy! #ucflae3414SU20
4y
gpraytor I loved reading this book, and I think you picked a fabulous website for educators to go to for a potential lesson. 4y
JoslynB I absolutely adore that you mentioned how science can be incorporated through this book. Science is important as is reading, so the opportunity to combine them together is excellent. The resource you provided is exactly how I would go about it: a classroom garden. Students can apply what they read to a hands-on activity and see how plants grow themselves in real time to then draw comparison later on. 4y
DrSpalding This is a fabulous post. The integration of literature and science is wonderful and I love the idea of the garden. Storytelling may be difficult but reading aloud a chapter after lunch each day would be wise. 4y
4 likes8 comments
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Keishla.O
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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This RF book would be best used as a RA. This book follows 13 people from a small community in Ohio. Each member narrates their own chapter where they reveal how the community garden is apart of their lives. Some plant in the garden in memory of a family member and some plant to make money off their crops. The story starts with one person and a vacant lot and ends with a whole neighborhood and a beautiful garden. #ucflae3414sp20

Keishla.O UDL 8.3 (Foster collaboration and community) can be met by having the students work together to determine the community aspects of this book.
ESOL strategy 11 (Place language in meaningful context) can be met by stopping after every chapter to discuss with the students what they had just read and ask if they have questions.
The resource below provides a free PDF copy of the book.
https://blindhypnosis.com/seedfolks-pdf-paul-fleischman.html
5y
DrSpalding I believe this is historical fiction… Take a look at it again. Excellent resource. Fleischman is a multi award winner. 5y
3 likes2 comments
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Madelpadel
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

Sat down and finished this book in two hours without stopping! A great read that makes you feel good and has you dreaming for Spring even more than you already were 🌱

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Eggs
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

This book!!!!! Quick read and so full of wonder, serendipity and authentic humanity❤️❤️❤️

kspenmoll Definitely a good one!!! 5y
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hkeiger
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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In my RED class, my professor read this book aloud. This was the first time that a teacher read a book to me in a long time, and I LOVED it. In this RF short novel, award winning Paul Fleischman tells a story about how a community garden brought together a neighborhood. Each chapter is told from a different characters POV which I found really interesting. I would use this as a LC in my class! #LAE3414sp19

hkeiger Throughout the LC discussions, it would be helpful to provide strong questions to help guide the groups! KWL, anticipation guides, and self assessments are all helpful as well! Luckily, this link has a ton of examples pre-made for you: http://novelinks.org/pmwiki.php?n=Novels.Seedfolks (UDL 9.2, ESOL 50) 6y
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lbilski
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
Pickpick

I absolutely love this book. Made me feel a warm part of Cleveland that I hadn‘t experienced before.

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Karisa
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

Our school's most likely pick for One Book, One School next year.

This sweet, fast read chronicles the first year in the life of a fictional community garden as seen through the eyes of different neighbors.

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emilykwilkins
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

In this Golden Kite award winning, RF book, you go through the viewpoints of 13 different people about how a garden was started in their neighborhood. This book would be ideal for LC or IR. The link will take you to an example of a lesson plan that sparks discussion among students about what they have read
#ucflae3414f17

emilykwilkins https://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aitc/presentations/Session%205/Read%20Before%20y...
EL 6 Continually monitor students‘ comprehension UDL 8.3 Foster collaboration and communication
7y
EricaG My RED3012 professor is reading this book to us and it‘s great! And it would be the perfect book to teach point of view. 7y
DrSpalding So many of you have enjoyed this. I must tell Mr. McManus that this book was a hit! 7y
1 like3 comments
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brittanyg
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

This is a Newberry award winning book. This story tells the same situation, but from each neighbors point of view. It‘s a RF novel that I was use as IR and would have a lesson about point of view. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plans/teaching-content/seedfolks-less... UDL 3.1 activate or apply background knowledge and EL 1 teach questioning for clarification. #UCFLAE3414F17

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Teresaj
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Mehso-so

This RF book would be great for IR! This book gives you a glimpse into many peoples lives who all live in the same neighborhood and all take part in the community garden. I would recommend this for High school students! UDL 4.1 Vary the methods for response and navigation. ESOL 9 Teach note-taking strategies; T-lists, time lines, etc. #UCFLAE3414F17

Jaquessial I definitely remember this book. Loved it so much. It is a great book for ESOL students and do science experiments with it. 7y
4 likes2 comments
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farynantenucci
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

This is a RF novel by Newberry Medal-Winning author, Paul Fleischman. Each chapter introduces a new character that lives in the community and plays a part in the overall story. Great for LC where students can take roles on what to read for in the text. I like it as a different take on a novel EL 38 assign short readings for homework. UDL 8.3 foster collaboration and community. #ucflae3414f17

farynantenucci http://www.nettelhorst.org/ourpages/auto/2015/9/18/58495684/2015-16%20Seedfolks%... this is a fantastic teaching resource for Seedfolks. It is a study guide including daily writing prompts, journaling, HOT questions, and a final project. You could even just take some activities from the guide and not use the whole thing if it makes sense in your classroom. 7y
cheyennewilliams Love this book! I read it for another class this semester. It‘s great for PR, RA, LC and IR. You can also utilize SO many different graphic organizers to help students identify and analyze themes and characters from the book. 7y
brittanyg I was weary about reading this book but it was actually really good. I would recommend in the classroom for sure. 7y
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kenyanellie
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

Seedfolks is a Newberry Award winner that follows 13 people from different walks of life coming together as a community to transform a vacant lot into a beautiful garden. This book would be a great RT to have groups of students create a script for a character and act it out in front of the class. The activity I found is here: seedfolks-poster.html UDL 5.1 and ESOL 32#ucflae3414f17

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emily_minnear
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman is a Newberry award winning book that would be great used in the class as an IR novel. This book teaches a great lesson about different perspectives. Each chapter is written about the same event from the viewpoint of a new character. #ucflae3414f17

emily_minnear https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plans/teaching-content/seedfolks-less... provides an excellent activity for teachers to use while their students read this book. 7y
emily_minnear UDL 8.3 EL 29 7y
DrSpalding I'm guessing that you also heard of this in your RED course? Many of your peers enjoyed this text. 7y
1 like3 comments
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Karlee.Diamond
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

Seedfolks is a Newbery award winning RF novel written by Paul Fleischman. This story would be great as a PR, partners could alternate chapters. Each chapter of this story is written from a different neighbors point of view. This story teaches a lot about perspective- as each neighbor is talking about the same events but from their POV. UDL8.3 Foster collab./comm. EL11 Place lang. in meaningful context. #UCFLAE3414F17

Karlee.Diamond https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plans/teaching-content/seedfolks-less... this link takes you to a scholastic lesson plan for Seedfolks, which focuses students on sequencing of events. 7y
DrSpalding Another student said this had been read in another course. RED? I love it when you all are inspired to look further into these books and find valuable resources to go along with them. Well done. 7y
DeannaT96 I️ haven‘t heard of this book before you reviewed it, but now I️ want to see if my library has a copy free. It seems so interesting! I️ love the lesson plan you found that works with sequencing. Can‘t wait to read it! 7y
2 likes3 comments
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MeganMc
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

Seedfolks is a Goldenkite award winning RF novel about a young girl, Kim, who plants Lima beans in an abandoned lot on the anniversary of her fathers death. This simple act sparks the interest of the community and causes a chain reaction. I read this book in my RED class and thought it was great for any classroom. It would work well as an IR or SR to get students used to reading novels. #UCFLAE3414f17

MeganMc https://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aitc/presentations/Session%205/Read%20Before%20y... This website takes you to an amazing lesson plan to do with your students. It gets the students reading together and filling out character charts to get them engaged in the main idea. 7y
MeganMc The UDL strategy I would use is 3.3 guide information processing, visualization, and manipulation. The EL is 6 continually monitor students‘ comprehension. 7y
jvinas2 Oh I remember this book! Love the resource and description; great book to post about! 7y
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ChristinB I remember this story! We did read aloud and whole class literature circles! I️ will most definitely have this in my library! 7y
DrSpalding Who is your RED instructor? This author has won multiple awards. Good choice. 7y
MeganMc @DrSpalding professor McManus! 7y
DrSpalding I told him! 7y
3 likes1 stack add7 comments
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WendyP
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Seedfolks is a RF Golden Kite award winning book by Paul Fleishman. This novel is perfect for grades 4-8 and would make a great IR or PR. I read this book in my RED class and fell in love with it, the story is about a little girl who looses her father before she was born and the only way she knows how to connect with him is by planting seeds, so she begins to do so and slowly the entire neighborhood joins her.

WendyP I would use ESOL strategy 44 and would have students predict the different characters just by the way they look on the first page of the chapter. I would also have hem compare characters and then summarize each character after reading a chapter. With the UDL guideline 9.3, I would have students self-asses when summarizing the chapter. A link that I found useful is one from scholastic, it will take you to a lesson plan. 7y
DrSpalding This author is a multi award-winning author! Who was your RED professor? Excellent resource! 7y
JordanD I am reading this book in my RED class as well! I am only a few chapters in as we are reading with the class for activities but such a great read so far! I like your strategies- good job! 7y
1 like4 comments
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jhudson
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

What a feel good RF. This book tells how a run down neighborhood becomes a community and family. A brave little girl wanting to honor her father's memory plants some beans and unknowingly starts a garden of hope for many. A class science project (planting seeds) would be a great way to tie in this book bookrags.com/lessonplan/seedfolks #UCFWalterslit

CWalters Did you read this book? 7y
jhudson @CWalters I did read this in RED3012. I was very intrigued by this book. 7y
CWalters Awesome! Yes, it really goes beyond the idea of building a class garden and speaks to the need for cultural responsiveness and acceptance. Beautiful book that I believe is very relevant at this time!! 7y
1 like3 comments
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Paperback.Propensity
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

Just devoured this book. It touches me so deeply. I feel a little emotional because humans are amazing and this book reminded me of that truth. Instant favorite.

12 likes1 stack add
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MrBook
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Just finished a 2nd book during #24in48! Paul Fleischman's "Seedfolk". On audio. Wonderful! I'll post a review at some point soon. 2 books down, working on the 3rd, ohhh yeeaaahhh. ???

ReadingSusan Yay!! So mad that my stop watch quit at some point. 8y
MrBook @ReadingSusan I hate when that happens 😩! 8y
LitsyGoesPostal 😊👍🏻 8y
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kchace
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

Short and sweet!! Great book to pickup for a quick read. Amazing what a garden can do in a diverse neighborhood. I enjoyed the way he used all the gardener's perspectives to tell the story of the garden. 🌽🍉🌶🍆 Everyone should read it at least once!

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CherylDeFranceschi
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

More of a mid-grade to YA novel about growing a community garden. So much beautiful diversity here! A lovely, fulgent story, interweaving many cultural points of view. I've handsold many many copies of this little gem. It's a steal at $1.99! #WeNeedDiverseBooks

Melkyl Great book for middle school students 😊 8y
BookBabe I really enjoyed this one. 8y
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NotYourHandmaid
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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A nice summer listen! The language was a little outdated but the message of neighborly action and non-judgement was lovely. As urban community gardeners, we really related the relationship-building.

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capriciousreader
Seedfolks | Paul Fleischman
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Pickpick

This little audio packs such a punch. A community garden brings together more than just plants. So beautiful.

ramyasbookshelf Oohhh! I want to read this now :) 9y
[DELETED] 1983927587 A real favorite of mine! 9y
capriciousreader @Porchreader Me too! I think I loved the audiobook even more! 9y
14 likes3 stack adds3 comments