Seedfolks, Paul Fleischman

Seedfolks is a novel written by Paul Fleischman.  It is about how different people started a community garden and it brought them together despite their diverse backgrounds.  Each chapter is about a different character, how they found the garden, and how the garden affected them.  The book is about different cultures and people of all different ages.  It would be a great book to use in the classroom to teach about culture and coming together as a community.

While we read Seedfolks we were told to use sticky notes and write notes and stick them in the book as we read.  When I did this I did one or two for each chapter or character since each chapter was about one character.  I wrote down multiple facts about what was going on and who the character was.  I did those using green sticky notes.  Then with pink sticky notes I wrote how the characters knew each other.  This book was kind of confusing because you had to figure out how the characters knew each other.  I would use this book for upper elementary aged students and have them take notes on sticky notes as they read so they can keep up with what is going on in the book.  As an extension activity I may have students create a class garden where they each have a plot in the lot.