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

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.

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.

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.

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.