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 [email protected]
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.