Rainbow Fish

Rainbow Fish is a great story with many hidden meanings. It helps to teach children life lessons and gets them involved. It has beautiful illustrations.

I found this great web site that has lots of hands on activities for different ages that go along with this story. It is also a great start of the year book in a classroom.

http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/fish.html

What "Click, Clack, Moo" , By Doreen Cronin Can Teach

“Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type” is a great book for a Readers’ Theater activity, as you can see from out podcast. However, I wanted to point out to all of you just how many notions this books presents to young emergent readers.
This story can be implemented for several different content areas. The book presents and interesting introduction to conflict resolution. The cows desire blankets which they are not being provided with and deny the farmer of milk when he does not comply with their demands. With a natural third party both the farmer and cows reach an agreement and both receive something they desired out of the situation.
I think this can show children that in life everyone has disagreements, and sometimes in order to solve a problem each side needs to give and take a little. A third part can help in resolution. Conflict resolution needs to be taught to children. They need to learn that disagreements do not need to be harsh or even violent. This text can help them see that conflict can be resolved peacefully. In addition, it would a great read for a unit on farms.
A website with other lesson ideas for this book that you bloggers may find useful!

http://www.teachingheart.net/clickclackmoo.html

Tuesday by David Wiesner

Tuesday by David Wiesner is a wordless book that can be applied to many grade levels. This book is about the events that occur on one Tuesday in a town where the frogs start to fly because their lily pads begin to float around. This book allows for work on comprehension, the book can work on measuring students ability to make practical predictions based on the pictures and scenes of the book. One of my favorite activities in the book is have the students write what will happen when the pigs begin to fly at the end of the story. Depending on your grade level you can adapt this story to meet the needs of your students. http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/wiesner/ is the the link to the authors website where you can view biographical information about the book and see what other books the author has available.

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type - Readers' Theater

ATTENTION BLOGGERS!

My group and I would like to thank you for your insightful comments. We enjoy hearing from all of you. Please remember that we would love to hear more from you. Having good background knowledge of good books that are out there to use in the classroom, can make instruction and lesson planning so much easier and effective. Know we are all here to help each other. Teaching is a learning experience in itself and we want to make that experience a positive one!

We Planted a Tree

This book is about- you guessed it, children planting trees. It's a great story about why we should plant trees. The children in the book learn how trees help the environment and us. I read this to my 3rd graders as part of our Earth Day week in school and they absolutely loved it! Afterwards we were able to actually plant trees and clean up the area around our school. It's a great book to use if you are trying to introduce basic information about our environment, seasons, or healthy eating. It's written as a poem, so you can also use it in a poetry unit if you'd like.

My Dog ate my Homework!

This book is really fun! It is a collection of silly poems that both children and adults will find amusing. Here is an example of the title poem.

My Dog Ate My Homework
My dog ate my homework. That mischievous pup got hold of my homework and gobbled it up. My dog ate my homework. It's gonna be late. I guess that the teacher will just have to wait. My dog ate my homework. He swallowed it whole. I shouldn't have mixed it with food in his bowl.
--Kenn Nesbitt

As you can see the poems are really fun and can get students engaged. Poem units can be a challenge sometimes because the children either love poetry or hate it. Usually there is no happy medium, but incorporating this text can break that cycle. This collection of poems can help children see that poetry can portray even the silliest of emotions. That makes the reading and writing of such poems, a really fun experience for all!

Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse

I love this book and I found a great web page that has everything you would ever need when reading his book to children. It offers so many great ideas. It also gives great print off in pdf that all you have to do is print how easy is that! I hope you love this web page and the book Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse as much as I do!! Happy Reading http://www.teachingheart.net/kevinideasl.html

Gingerbread Friends

This is a great book to read for the winter holidays, about a young Gingerbread baby and its adventures to find some new friends. Gingerbread and Friends is a beautifully illustrated book with all the water color painting done by the author Jan Brett. The site http://www.janbrett.com/ is the Jan Brett author site and offers a plethora of activities to go with her many books. Jan's books are aimed the lower elementary level grades Pre-K to grade 3. The site has a large selection of videos to go with Jen Brett's many books. One of the many videos shows how Jan Brett creates the Gingerbread Baby in a step by step process so you and your class can make you own Gingerbread Baby.

The Sneetches

"The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss is a great book to read to children as an introduction to bullying or discrimination. The story follows the Star-Belly Sneetches who mistreat the Plain-Belly Sneetches. The town is thrown into chaos when Sylvester McMonkey McBean shows up and makes the Plain-Belly Sneetches Star-Belly Sneetches and the Star-Belly Sneetches Plain-Belly Sneetches. Dr. Seuss's site is a great resource for this book (as well as most of his other books), if you are looking for a full lesson, then click here.

The Giving Tree

“The Giving Tree”, by Shel Silverstein is such a beautiful story. This book can be shared a as a read-aloud for younger children, because the story presents powerful morals and life lessons. I am sure most of our viewers are familiar with this story, but is you are not here is a little background information. This book is about a personified tree that has deep love for a little boy and the little boy loves her. The boy grows older and older and every time he comes to visit her when he gets older, all he ends up doing is taking from the tree. Despite this the tree continues to love the tree and in the end they the boy is an old man and the tree is only a stump, but they end up together again.

The life lessons of love, happiness, and greed are obvious in this text. It will touch the heart of all readers young and old. It can be a text integrated for science and ELA. The book helps the reader learn about trees and what they contribute to the world and the powerful themes in the text can allow several writing prompt lessons for a third grade class. Another great idea would that would encompass writing, and science concepts, would be to also read “The Lorax”, by Dr. Seuss after reading “The Giving Tree”. Both texts present many on the same issues. Students could compare and contrast the differences and similarities between the two.

Skippyjon Jones

Skippyjon Jones author Judy Schachner has created a site a for her books. Skippyjon Jones is a series about a Siamese cat that is certain he is a Chihuahua dog and the many adventures he has. The site Skippyjonjones.com presents numerous activities for the classroom, using reader's theater or wordle.net (a site that allows the insertion of words and then creates various designs with the words) opportunities to practice Spanish, sing songs, and many printables. The Skippyjon Jones site offers many activites for students to use on-line, to help with comprehension or to dress up Skippyjon Jones in his many costumes. The Skippyjon Jones series can be used with grades 1-3. The Skippyjon Jones books are very funny and encourage students to use their imagination. The video displays a little about the Siamese cat/Chiuacha dog name Skippyjon Jones.

Mouse Paint

http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=115714

This is a video that gives you a great lesson plan for the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. It gives you objectives and even follow up plans. It is a great idea for an interactive lesson that children would love! This lesson would be a great introduction to primary and secondary colors.

Testing settings & features...

Hello Team-What-Can-I-Do-With-This-Book?

As you see, I've been playing with the design of your site. Of course, reject all additions and changes at will--I just wanted to see if the 'design' feature worked, and it did. I also wanted to be sure you could post so I tried my hand at a "book alert" post myself.

You'll have plenty of time to design, create, and add content in class tomorrow...

-Marta

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

I can't read this book anymore without hearing the song and seeing the faces of all of the kids I've watched perform this in reader's theater.

Have I taught it? No. I have just been trolling YouTube for examples of how primary teachers are using this book, and the more I find, the more I want to look!  It's infectious...the story is simple but the language ("Did he cry? Goodness no!") and the message ("everything's good") just grab me. It's about dealing with adversity, with a smile and a cool cat mentality.  Make the best of the next thing to come along.  Don't compromise ... but stay flexible.

I think it might be worth elevating this to "anthem" in my teaching.  Watch a great performance here and a variation on the theme by some pre-K, K, and first graders.

-Marta