Sundays on Fourth Street
Presented by Allyson Ottensmeier
Book Information
Sundays on Fourth Street
Author: Amy Costales
Illustrator: Elaine Jerome
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Topic of book: Time spent with loved ones is the most important.
Awards nominated or received:
- Named to the 2011-2012 Tejas Book Award List
Costales, A.(2009).Sundays on fourth street.Houston, Texas: PiƱata Books.
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Criteria for Highly Quality Multicultural Literature
Themes should be consistent with the values, beliefs, customs, traditions, and conflicts of the specific cultural group. Spending time with family is important for the Hispanic culture. The tradition of going to visit Fourth Street every Sunday is a tradition that many families share. Fourth Street is full of vendors, dancing, and food. The traditions and customs of the Hispanic culture is seen throughout this picture book.
Language should reflect distinctive vocabulary, style, and patterns of speech of the cultural group. This book is a bilingual book that allows for Spanish speaking children to read and understand the content. The vocabulary and speaking style of the Hispanic culture is seen on each page. The speaking style can heard when reading aloud, because the words that are to be read are carefully put together for the reader to get a full sense of the Hispanic speaking culture.
Lesson Plan Idea for Sundays on Fourth Street
Objective: The student will interpret the illustrations to describe the Hispanic culture.
Lesson Procedure:
- Lesson begins by having the children draw their family, house, or something that relates to their home life. The drawings should be shared to the class. While they are sharing the children should make inferences about certain things they see in their peer's pictures that could help us describe what the student is trying to portray.
- The teacher should share with the students that as we read our story they should look for key descriptions from the illustrations that could help us describe the Hispanic/Mexican culture. They should look for things that is especially relevant to the Hispanic/Mexican culture (dancing, food, how characters are dressed, street scenes etc.)
- Read aloud the children's book and pausing every so often to draw student's attention to the illustrations. Help them pick out key details the first couple of times, and then allow the students to take over that role. They should notice the Hispanic sense of decorating, family time, key foods , wearing boots/sombreros, fiesta signs, the band in the streets, key outfits the characters are wearing, and the Pinata. When the students take over noticing the details in the illustrations, have them point them out so that other students can notice them, too.
- After reading the story, students should fill out an Exit Slip. The Exit Slip should have some sort of writing prompt at the top (I learned, based off the illustrations in Sundays on Fourth Street, that the Hispanic/Mexican culture has/does....) The students should try and write down at least three things they have gained from the illustrations to relay the details of the story.