Thursday, April 14, 2011

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.


Sunday, April 10, 2011

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

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

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.