by annie barrows + sophie blackall

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

IVY + BEANNO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

TEACHER’S GUIDE

1-3GRADES

Dear Teacher: The newest Ivy and Bean title, No News Is Good News, is a celebration of friendship,

enterprise, and writing. Ivy and Bean are desperate to earn money in order to purchase

the wax-wrapped cheese everyone in class enjoying. Acting on an idea from Bean’s

father, they settle on selling subscriptions to a neighborhood newspaper they

will produce. However, in typical style, the girls cause a significant commotion

as they navigate the perilous waters of journalism by trying to get the scoop on

their neighbors, stepping on the toes of their neighbors. Students will shudder (and

giggle) as they witness the girls’ failure to honor the journalist’s code of ethics,

which requires clarity, accuracy, fairness, truth, independence, and public service.

And they’ll rejoice as the girls land on their feet, with new knowledge, confidence,

and enough money to purchase the coveted Belldeloon cheese!

In addition to reading and writing activities inspired by the journalism theme of

the book, you’ll find many other ways to extend student learning as they enjoy Ivy

and Bean’s journalistic adventures.

Article Title Who What When Where Why How

1 ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT

Five W’s and One HIntroduce the six essential questions each news article must answer in the headline and first sentence (lead):

WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? HOW? Carefully select several news articles from a local paper that are both interesting and easily understood by young

children. If your newspaper has a children’s section, select articles from it.

Using a document camera (for paper news articles) or a data projector (for online news articles), read the headline

and lead aloud to students. Challenge them to identify the five W’s and one H in each article. As a class, fill out a

chart like this one:

Once students are able to identify the five W’s and one

H in news articles, turn their attention to the articles

from Ivy and Bean’s The Flipping Pancake newspaper.

On pages 107-109, author Annie Barrows tells us about

the contents of the newspaper including:

Re-read the chapters that relate each of these stories

and invite students to identify the answers to each of

the six questions. Then, invite students to help you to

write a headline and lead (or caption, for the picture)

that include these answers, also noting the questions

for which they do not have answers. Finally, pose as

an expert who can supply the missing answers. Invite

students to rewrite the headline and lead (or caption)

incorporating answers to all six questions.

If time allows, invite students to work in teams and

write a short article for each of the three topics in The

Flipping Pancake, incorporating the headline and lead

the class has created for each.

Article: “Mr. Columbi’s Secret” about the (possible) rats and salami in Mr. Columbi’s House

Picture: Sophie’s mom with her hair in a bag and blue goo on her face

Article: About the fire at Trevor and Ruby’s

Article: About Ball Control

News Around the SchoolIf your students are developmentally ready, you

may propose that the class write its own one-page

school newspaper similar to The Flipping Pancake.

Assign each student, or team of students, to find one

story idea that they are interested in writing about,

whether it is a new student, a change in the cafeteria

menu, new books in the library, or an upcoming fair

or other school-wide event. Discuss how they will

obtain the answers to the five W’s and one H. Send

them off to obtain answers from personal or informa-

tional interviews. Once all information is gathered,

help students to compile it into a single paragraph

article with a strong headline and lead that answers

the six questions.

Younger students may not be ready to write an ar-

ticle but you can produce a photographic newspaper

with them by accompanying them to take digital

photographs of newsworthy stories around the school

and helping them to conduct brief interviews to ob-

tain answers to the six questions. Then help them to

write an informative caption for each photograph. If

you have older reading or learning buddies for your

young students, they will make perfect partners for

your students in this activity.

Ivy and Bean love to enjoy snacks together. When

Bean’s mom offers them fruit, they say that cheese

would make a better snack, or even fruit with cheese.

They are correct that fruit with cheese is a nutritious

snack, but we know from the first page of the book

that it’s not the cheese they are interested in eating,

but the wax around the cheese they want for molding.

Ask students to make a list of the lunch and snack

foods that Ivy and Bean eat or discuss over the course

of the book. Using the knowledge they have about nu-

trition, engage them in a conversation about healthy

lunches and healthy snacks. Ask them whether they

think Ivy and Bean are healthy eaters. If so, ask them

1 ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT (continued)

The Journalist’s CreedJournalist and Professor Walter Williams penned

“The Journalist’s Creed” in the early 1900’s, and

its core principals are still in practice today: clarity,

accuracy, fairness, truth, independence and, public

service. Unfortunately, Ivy and Bean have never had

instruction in journalism.

Introduce your students to the six core principles of

journalism, taking care to clarify each term thor-

oughly for them. Then, retrace the girls’ steps as they

search for stories to include in their newspaper. For

each story, ask if it was clear, accurate, fair, truthful,

independent, and served the public. Ask students to

support their claims. If the answer is no, challenge

students to explain how could the girls have changed

their behavior or the article so that the answer would

be yes.

2 ALL THE FOOD THAT’S FIT TO EAT

to support their claim by referring to the book. If not,

ask them to make suggestions for improvements in the

ways that Ivy and Bean eat.

3 THE MATH BEHIND THE MONEY

How to Earn a DollarIntroduce a conversation about the many ways that

children can make money. Begin by making a list

of the way your students have earned money in the

past. When the list is complete, ask each child to esti-

mate how much money he or she made and how many

hours it took to make that sum (including preparation

and planning). Then, explore the idea of dollars (or

cents) per hour, making sure to take into account the

cost of any materials they purchased, such as lemons

and sugar for lemonade sold at a lemonade stand). Fi-

nally, discuss which methods of earning money were

most profitable and which were the most fun.

Newspaper Price Point

Ivy and Bean need $10.00 to buy two bags of Bell-

deloon cheese. This helps them to decide how much

to charge their customers for a newspaper subscrip-

tion. They settle on a dollar per subscription, which

means they only need ten subscriptions in order to

buy the two bags of cheese. Challenge students with

these other options:

The High Cost of CheeseIn the first chapter, Bean says, “Another day, another

dollar,” and Ivy points out that they don’t have a dol-

lar. Besides, she points out, they’d need more than

a dollar to buy the cheese. Point students to page 13

where Bean’s mother explains that her reason for not

buying the cheese is cost. “Lowfat Belldeloon cheese

in a special just-for-you serving size costs five dollars

for six little bitty pieces of cheese, so if you want it,

you can pay for it yourself.”

After discussing the girls’ problem, complete the fol-

lowing math activities:

How many subscriptions would they need to sell: • If they charged twenty-five cents per subscription

like Bean’s father did for his newspaper?

• If they charged fifty cents per subscription?

How many one-dollar subscriptions would they need to sell: • If the cheese cost $5.50 per bag?

• If each of the girls had a fifty-cents off coupon?

• If one of the girls had a half-price coupon?

How many subscriptions would they need to sell: • Invite students to determine the cost of each

piece of cheese, if a bag of six costs five dollars.

• If your state has sales tax on groceries, discuss

the sales tax percentage and help them to deter-

mine the total cost, with tax, of one five dollar bag

of Belldeloon cheese.

• Invite students to accompany their parents to the

grocery store to find the price of Mini Babybel®,

the actual wax-wrapped cheese sold in the

United States. Record the price on the chart

below. After you have prices from more than one

store, determine the cost of each individual piece

of cheese in each store. Then compare that cost to

the cost of Belldeloon in the book and to each

of the other stores.

Note: You can show students an image of Mini Babybel® athttp://www.mini-babybel.com/products/mini-babybel/

LocalStore 3

LocalStore 1

LocalStore 2

Price ofWaxed Cheese

per Piece

Belldeloon

4 WAX ENVY

The In CrowdAfter reading the first chapter of No News is Good

News, entitled “Squish, Squish, Squish,” open a dis-

cussion with your students about why Ivy and Bean

want Belldeloon cheese in a special just-for-you serv-

ing size. Do they want the cheese? Do they want the

wax? If so, why? Reread the first paragraph. What

is at the heart of their desire for that wax? Now ask

students whether they have ever been in a similar

situation and how they felt.

Belldeloon Wax ProductionsAsk your students to pretend that they work for the

Belldeloon cheese company in the marketing depart-

ment. They have been assigned to design a sheet of

suggestions for young customers who not only eat

their cheese but also play with their wax. Besides

the soccer ball, unicorn horn, dripping blood, and

mustache that Ivy and Bean’s classmates make, what

else might they suggest that students could fashion

out of the red wax? Make a list of as many ideas as

possible. If you have purchased modeling wax, allow

students to make a prototype for each idea. Then vote

on the best of the ideas. Finally, design a Belldeloon

marketing guide to wax productions.

Wax Without the CheeseIvy and Bean didn’t know that they could have

scooped everyone in their class without ever buying

a bag of Belldeloon cheese! Modeling wax is avail-

able for crafting all sorts of disguises as well as other

fabulous creations. Sheets of it are is available online

for purchase from Stockmar in an array of beautiful

colors. The warmth of the modeler’s hands warms

the wax enough to manipulate it. Cooled wax retains

the shape students have molded.

Supply your students with modeling wax and invite

them to create a variety of disguise elements. Then,

ask them to mold a mythical or real animal from the

wax, and stage a Zoological Wax Museum. If you are

producing a school newspaper, be sure to take photo-

graphs and interview students for an article.

Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go

Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter

Ivy and Bean Doomed to Dance

Ivy and Bean No News is Good News

Ivy and Bean Ivy and Bean Breakthe Fossil Record

Ivy and Bean Bound to Be Bad

Ivy and Bean What’s the Big Idea

For additional classroom activities, printables, worksheets and more, please visit chroniclebooks.com/ivyandbean

To request an author event please contact kids@chroniclebooks.com

about the author of this GuideToni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS is a certified school librarian, is the author

of fourteen picture books for children and eleven professional

books for librarians and educators.

www.tonibuzzeo.com

about the authorAnnie Barrows is the author of the best-selling

Ivy and Bean series. She lives in Northern

California with her husband and two daughters.

about the illustratorSophie Blackall is an Australian illustrator

whose work has appeared in many newspapers

and maga zines, including the New York Times.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York.