Kids Wings Activities for Laugh with the Moon by Shanna Burg

Death often sends waves of sadness, denial, anger, and grief through the persons who must face it. For 13-year-old Clare Silverman, death blurs the memory of her mother and anger with her father coils itself around her like a python. After all, he IS a doctor, isn't he? He should have been able to save her mother. Now he has ripped her from what is left of her home in the United States and has dragged her to Malawi deep in the jungles of Africa to serve as a hospital doctor in the Global Health Project, away from her friends and all that is still familiar. In Laugh with the Moon, Clare struggles to survive, to find meaning, and to regain joy, once part of every moment, but anger and grief have swallowed up every hint of a smile. Surrounded by dense jungle, confusing culture, sickness, and a house "half the size of a PopTart," she is determined to make her father so miserable that he will take her back home.

Clare begins the story through the rebellious, though often humorous voice of a teenager attempting to make the "silent treatment" work for her. Has her father even noticed? Does he even care? If he cared, would he take her to the village school, the Mzanga Full Primary School? Would she have to learn Chichewa, their second language? Besides, if English is their first language, why wouldn't Clare get a new uniform instead of having to wear the same old one that is five sizes too big and that only gets washed on Tuesdays? Is she really supposed to be happy that they have a enormous housekeeper (the "intruder") whose cheeks swallow her face when she laughs in her deep roar of a laugh.

What can possibly happen to cause a change in Clare? Will it be going to the village of mud huts where she meets a girl named Memory who has recently lost her mother, too? Will it be at school where she finds herself sitting between Memory and a "satanic" girl named Agnes? Is it seeing the wild animals at the outing to Liwonde National Park that her father takes her to? Is it the deadly snake wrapped around her ankle or the chicken named Fred that was left as a gift?

Laugh with the Moon is a story unlike any you have ever read. It will lead you deep into Malawi where you will get to know the people, the problems, the challenges, and the opportunities available only through imersion in the new culture, holding the hands of people who may be very different from you on the outside but who are surprisingly the same on the inside. It is a book you won't want to end, filled with surprises, laughter, bitter sweet stories, and lessons you won't want to forget.

Figurative language frames Laugh with the Moon in hyperbole, simile, metaphor, and personification. Without an illustration in the whole story, the language will sparkle in your mind to create vivid pictures of animals, people, and events you have never imagined living through.

The Kids Wings unit provides opportunity for discussion, drama, math skills, reading strategies, writing, solving logic and crossword puzzles, research, and problem solving. In addition, a 50-page Jeopardy-type game will challenge the class to compete in interactive fun.

A 48-page Kids Wings Literature Guide PLUS a 50-slide interactive Jeopardy-type game, perfect for lesson plans, handouts, or projection on your SmartBoard for Laugh with the Moon by Sharon Burgi are now available for instant download!

The Activity Guide Contains:
Pre-reading Discussion Cards
Anticipation Guide
2-Page Introductory Readers Theater Script
Vocabulary List by Chapter
Preparing Your Intellectual Tools, Dialectical Journal
Map Activities: Where in the Worls is Africa?
Vocabulary, Prediction and Grouped Chapter Questions with Quick Write Prompts
An Expert in Class: Chichewa Vocabulary
Our Malawi Names
The Research Song
Research The Baobab Tree
Research Malaria
Making Connections, Quick Writes, and Prediction Chapter Questions
Quick Write Treasure
Landing in a New Life, Ch. 1-4 Multiple Choice Comprehension
Crossing the Story, A Crossword Puzzle
Visualizing Chapter 11
Visualizing Chapter 1-14
Turning Point, Chapter 15
Healing Words, a Fallen Letter Puzzle
Creating Compound and Complex Sentences, a 3-page lesson
Storms and Flowers, Multiple Choice Comprehension, Chapters 16-17
The Dream, Teaching, and The Start to Lake Trip
The Emergency--a Comic Strip Summary
Visualizing the Text, Chapters 29-32
Secrets to Writing a Persuasive Letter, a 3-Page Guide
Making Amends, Projects, and All, Chapters 33-38 Short Answer Comprehension
The Play, a Logic Puzzle
Write an Expository Composition
Character BioPoems
Exploring Fiction Set in Other Countries
Answer Pages
Plus, a BONUS Interactive Jeopardy-type Game

Laugh with the Moon is one of the 27 units in the Kids Wings
Literature Collection, Growing Young Americans

"Even the mourner must stop and laugh with the moon." Memory in Laugh with the Moon

"Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5

"When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure." Author Unknown

"It is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life; 'tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living; a man is not completely born until he be dead: Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals?" Benjamin Franklin, February 22, 1756

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. William Penn

A special thanks to Jalal Ali at Laura's Midi Heaven for allowing us to use his original composition, "Rejoice My Friend" as our background music!

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