|ABOUT THE BOOK
Arizona was born in a log cabin her papa
built. She grew into a tall girl who liked to
sing, square-dance, and-most of all-read and
dream of the faraway places she would visit one
day. Arizona never did make it to those places.
Instead she became a teacher, helping generations
of children in the one-room schoolhouse which she
herself had attended. When Arizona married and
had a daughter, the baby went to school with her.
For fifty-seven years Arizona taught not only
reading writing and arithmetic, but how to make
dreams come true even if they aren't exactly the
dreams one started with.
Objectives: Students will
1. Ask questions and support answers by
connecting prior knowledge with literal and
2. Create a paragraph with a topic sentence and
supporting facts and details.
3. Write descriptions that use concrete sensory
|A. Introducing Vocabulary:
Use as many words as you can in one sentence to
describe the cover of the book. Add other words
as needed. Cabin, meadow, creek, mountain,
mailman, bridge, horse, letter, brother, apron,
braids, petticoat, fiddler, barefoot, tadpole,
bucket, students, lessons, village,
faraway,teacher, chalkboard, sawmill,
|B. Extracting Appropriate Information
from the Text.
As students read the story they list
three things Arizona did at home as a child and
three things she did at school as a teacher.
Write two verses and sing the song to the tune of
Growing up in the mountains
Teaching in the mountains
|C.Visit the internet site: http//funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~estes/appimages.html
to find Images of Appalachia. The student chooses
one image and lists as many words as possible
related to the image. Use the words to write a
five senses paragraph describing the image.
Include sights, sounds, tastes, smells, feelings.
D. Visit this web
This site describes a day in a one room
schoolhouse. Using a Venn diagram, compare this
school day with a typical school day in Arizona's
|E. Sometimes we get discouraged if we
don't do as well at our lessons as we would like.
If you have a friend who needs
encouragement, send him or her a "Goat for
It" musical card from the Blue Mountain web
Note: These web sites were checked for
availability and readability. However, because of
the changing nature of the web, if these sites
are not found, direct students to www.ajkids.com
to find information on Appalachia and one room