ON TRANSITIONS

by Mei-Yu Lu

Dear Readers,

The fall is here! Has the chill in the early morning air made it more difficult for you to get out of bed in the morning? Just as the fall is the transitional season between summer and winter, your children are also going through a transition in their school learning process during this season. The beginning of a new school year finds your children advancing a grade. Some of them remain with the same classmates but have a new teacher. Some have different teachers, classmates, and also study different subjects than during the previous year. Some children even move to different school districts, due to parent's job change, graduating from one level of education (i.e. from preschool to kindergarten, elementary to middle school, etc.), or other factors. As children experience transitions in their life, it provides them an opportunity to learn to cope with change, which will strengthen their ability to adapt to different environments, their flexibility in handling various issues, and their ability to make decisions for themselves. The learning process, however, may not occur without stress and challenge. Therefore, it is critical that parents help their children deal with the issues they encounter in the various transitions they experience in their life.

In this issue of PCTO, we would like to share some resources, both for parents and children, on dealing with transitions in life. These resources will include web-based materials, organization contact information, and children and adolescent literature. We hope these materials will prove helpful to you and your child as you embark on a new school year. Enjoy this beautiful season and have a smooth transition!

WEB SITES

ORGANIZATIONS

RELATED CHILDREN'S BOOKS

WEB SITES

Transition to Kindergarten/Elementary School

Transition to Middle School

Transition to High School

Transitions for Children with Special Needs

School Transfer

Other Topics

National Association for the Education of Young Children
1509 16th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
Phone:(202) 232-8777
(800) 424-2460

Association for Childhood Education International
11501 Georgia Avenue, Suite 315
Wheaton, MD 20902
Phone:(800) 423-3563

National Middle School Association
4151 Executive Parkway, Suite 300
Westerville, OH 43081
Phone:(800) 528-NMSA (6672)

National PTA
330 N. Wabash Avenue, Suite 2100
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone:(312) 670-6782
(800) 307-4PTA (4782)

CHILDREN'S BOOKS ABOUT SCHOOL TRANSITIONS

Going to School for the First Time

Kevin Henkes. (2000). Wemberly Worried. Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688170277. A mouse named Wemberly, who worries about everything, finds that she has a whole list of things to worry about when she faces the first day of nursery school. (Age 4-6)

Kevin Henkes. (1991). Chrysanthemum. Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688096999. Chrysanthemum loves her name, until she starts going to school and the other children make fun of it. (Age 4-6)

Sonia Levitin and Jeff Seaver. (2001). When Kangaroo Goes to School. Rising Moon. ISBN 087358791X. Kangaroo learns the proper way to behave on the first day of school. (Age 4-6)

Audrey Penn, Ruth E. Harper, and Nancy M. Leak. (1993). The Kissing Hand. Child Welfare League of America. ISBN 0878685855. When Chester the raccoon is reluctant to go to kindergarten for the first time, his mother teaches him a secret way to carry her love with him. (Age 4-6)

Joseph Slate and Ashley Wolff. (1996). Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. Dutton Children's Books. ISBN 0525454462. Introduces the letters of the alphabet as Miss Bindergarten and her students get ready for kindergarten. (Age 4-6)

Back to School

Marc Brown. (1986). Arthur's Teacher Trouble. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0871130912. With the strictest teacher in the school, Arthur is sure that third grade spells trouble. (Age 6-9)

Marisabina Russo. (1994). I Don't Want to Go Back to School. Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0688046010. Despite his older sister's dire warnings of all the terrible things that could go wrong on his first day in the second grade, Ben has a wonderful time. (Age 6-8)

Paula Danziger. (1995). Amber Brown Goes Fourth. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0399228497. Entering fourth grade, Amber faces some changes in her life as her best friend moves away and her parents divorce. (Age 8-10)

Barthe DeClements. Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade. Viking Press, ISBN 0670517410. A fifth grade class, repelled by the overweight new student who has serious home problems, finally learns to accept her. (Age 10-12)

Ann Hodgman, Patty Marx, and Mena Dolobowsky. (1994). How to Survive Junior High. Troll Associates. ISBN 0816730334. This book offers humorous "advice" on what to do when you forget your locker combination, suspect your teacher is an escaped convict, or need a new and improved excuse to get out of gym class. (Age 12+)

Transfer to a New School

Julie Danneberg and Judith Dufour Love. (2000). First Day Jitters. ISBN 1580890547. Sarah is afraid to start at a new school, but both she and the reader are in for a surprise when she gets to her class. (Age 5-8)

Kate Banks and Isaac Millman. (1999). Howie Bowles, Secret Agent. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374335001. Third-grader Howie Bowles copes with having to change schools twice in one year by pretending to be a secret agent named Agent Bean Burger. (Age 7-10)

Vaunda M. Nelson and Leonard Jenkins. (1993). Mayfield Crossing. Putnam. ISBN 0399223312. When the school in Mayfield Crossing is closed, the students are sent to larger schools, where the black children encounter racial prejudice for the first time. Only baseball seems a possibility for drawing people together. (Age 8-10)

Elisa Carbon. (1999). Starting School with an Enemy. Random House. ISBN 0679886400. Worried about finding friends when she moves from Maine to Maryland, ten-year-old Sarah gets off to a bad start by making an enemy of a boy. (Ages 9-12).

Jerry Spinelli. (2000). Stargirl. Knopf. ISBN 0679886370. In this story about the perils of popularity, the courage of nonconformity, and the thrill of first love, an eccentric student named Stargirl changes Mica High School forever. (Age 12+)

**Levels indicated in this list are interest levels.

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