Just a *Few* of My Favourite Picture Books

I am going to link up with Lindsey from The Teacher Wife for must have picture books. I have narrowed it down to my top 5...

I have a {slight} problem with buying picture books. I love them and can't seem to get enough of them. Love. them. Oh well...I think I am in good company :)
Here are a few of my favourites...

Max Lucado is amazing. I read this book to my kids when they were little and my middle daughter still reads it to herself (she's 14). A truly heartwarming story with a great message. It has definite religious undertones, which meant that I couldn't read it at school :(   BUT I thoroughly enjoyed it with my own little family.

 Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse is a great story. It has a powerful message and the kids can relate to it. This one is a definite favourite of my class. Lilly is an engaging, enthusiastic character who makes a mistake and then must face the consequences of her actions. She loves her teacher, Mr Slinger, but gets in trouble for disrupting the class. When Mr Slinger takes away her possessions for the day, Lilly tries to "get even."

Love.

Another Kevin Henkes book. Chrysanthemum is an excellent cross-curricular book as it lends itself well to math (graphing) activities. It also has a powerful message and is a great read aloud for the beginning of the year. In a nutshell, it's about a girl who is teased about her name because it's different. Chrysanthemum teaches the other characters a lot about being brave and standing up for oneself. A wonderful story!

Okay. Had to include this one. Honestly, I never read this book until this year when I was inspired by all the bloggers who had a Dr Seuss themed week during Read Across America. My kids LOVED it. It was their favourite read aloud and one that they could make lots of connections to. At the end of the school year, I still had kids coming up and telling me that certain things reminded them of the Lorax. Awesome.

This was my favourite, favourite, favourite book when I was growing up. It got this for my birthday when I turned 5 and read it so many times over the years that it fell apart. It doesn't have a powerful message, but it is fun and engaging. I love the pictures...there is a subplot happening in the illustrations. The story is about a man who is very proud of his new top hat and searches EVERYWHERE for it when he loses it. He ends up with a new friend and his hat.

What are your favourites?

***************My GIVEAWAY ends at midnight tonight...****************

100th Day FUN!

We celebrated our 100th day of school last week. I paired up with our fabulous grade 1 teacher and we had a day of 100-themed literacy, math and craftivity centers. Kids were separated into five groups with 8-9 students in each. Grade threes were our leaders; they did a fantastic job. Each group spent 30 minutes at each center. We started centers after our literacy block and kids completed five rotations. It was a very, very exciting day-made more so because I mixed up the schedule. I accidentally overlapped two groups on half of their centers...WHOOPS! Luckily, I teach with wonderful people (kids included, of course) and everything worked out just fine. We scrapped the rotation schedule and just went with a clockwise rotation instead!

Ms L had a limbo line, 100 year-old-person art, and other 100 theme activities in her room. I had 100 Lego, 100 Froot Loops necklace, 100 picture and a 100 steps estimation/task (which I TOTALLY underestimated).

The 100 Lego center was a crowd-pleaser. The night before our celebration, I counted out three piles of 100 Lego. Then, I put each pile into large size Dollarama-brand ziploc baggies. Kids worked in pairs or triads to build a structure from the Lego. Everyone was engaged...awesomeness.

I used 100 charts for the 100 Froot Loop necklace task. Kids first had to use the chart to make sure that they had 100 pieces of cereal. They then strung the Froot Loops onto string. The first group tried to make a pattern, but this turned out to be too hard to do in the 30 minute block. It was interesting to see that some kids thought HUGE piles of cereal would be needed for their 100 chart, while others thought a small handful would be enough.

sorting out cereal

starting to string it on 

lovely, delicious necklace is almost finished

As a home-to-school connection, each student in my class was instructed to bring a bottle filled with 100 things. I bought a case of water and sent home a bottle with each child along with the instructions for this activity (which I found at Read-Write-Think). MARVELOUS! I love, love, love this idea. Kids hid their bottle in a brown paper bag and read three clues about their collection. The class then had three chances to guess it. Objects included; Kibble, toothpicks, beads, spaghetti noodles, cereal, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, popcan tabs...and more! We ended our day with this task, so it was just our class and not the grade ones. I will definitely do this one again. The day after our party, the kids wrote a reflection about their bottle. They had to include what material they used, why they used it and something about it. We used paper with a bottle embossed on it (once again, thank you Dollarama) for the good copy. Kids sketched a picture of their bottle and I took a photo of each child holding their bottle. We'll be gluing the photo beside the drawing, laminating each reflection sheet, and binding them into a class book.

 100 pieces of Kibble

100 Lego

 And, at the end of the day, I went home and had a looooong nap. Any suggestions for next year? I tried to mix things up and have something for all learners but am thinking that some kind of song could be added?

Finding the Main Idea using Emotional Literacy Read Alouds

Our board does learning pathways. As a class, with input from the kids, we are expected to write a reading goal and establish success criteria. Since coming back from the holidays, our class has been learning how to find the main idea in the text and to use supporting evidence to prove their idea. It has been a pretty smooth learning goal, the kids are engaged and excited to learn.

Our overall theme has been accepting people for who they are...a pretty big idea for seven and eight year olds! As a baseline, I used the picture book "The Crayon Box that Talked" to see if they understood the underlying theme. Some did, many did not. 

After the baseline was completed, we talked about the story and read a poem inspired by the book. I downloaded the poems and writing paper from The Bubbly Blonde's tpt store for free (click on link to go straight there)! Thank you so much to Alisha. If you haven't checked out her blog, you should.

Our next read aloud was "Crazy Hair Day" by Barney Saltzberg. It was very difficult to find this book (even Chapters didn't have it). Plan B: I used Barney Saltzberg's website and played the clip of him reading his book! Talk about engaging. I love to find books that author's read and play them for the class. This story is about a little animal who mistakenly wears crazy hair day on picture day. It is a heartwarming, fun read that shows kids the value of making everyone feel good about themselves. After listening to the story, we talked about the main idea, recorded it on chart paper and did a craftivity. Kids used as many different lines (ie dashed, curvy, spiral, straight...) as they could think of to decorate a picture of a face without hair of its own. Click the picture to check out this fantastic resource...

We also listened to the song "Crazy Hair Day," which is fun and entertaining! Click on the picture below to go to the art activity that I used with the kids...they absolutely LOVED it. Another suggestion that I liked was using paper plates for the faces and stapling/gluing noodles, wrapping paper, ribbon etc on for the hair.

 Of course, Todd Parr is an excellent author/illustrator when learning about differences and what better book than "It's Okay to be Different." He has videos that go with his books, which I am looking for.

We started by brainstorming ideas of what this could be about (making connections to the books we have already read). I made a web on the SmartBoard so that I could check off the ideas that turned out to be accurate. After reading, the kids completed an activity where they filled in a four block GO chart with the sentence "Everyone is Different and That's OKAY." They had to use one idea from their life, one from another book and one from the world. The final box was their chance to express their feelings.

If you're not sure what this is, here is a picture. Click on it to go to the awesome blog "Fabulous in Fourth."

For my class, I filled in the centre and wrote a title in each of the supporting squares.

We will be reading this story on Monday. I love Max Lucado.

Any suggestions about how to tie this unit up?

Back to School...Thank Goshness for Pinterest and Blogs!

So, today was my first day back after the holidays. Last night, I couldn't sleep...which made for a grumpy tired Keri this morning. Two coffees and a looooong shower helped to revive my spirits and I felt pretty close to normal by the time I got to school. The kids, surprisingly, were very subdued/quiet/sleepy. Perhaps there will even be tears tomorrow; hopefully not mine.
I took the advice of many bloggers and decided to slowly transition the kids into the normal school routine. In Reading Workshop, we are starting our unit on MAIN IDEA & supporting evidence. I also wanted to incorporate the holidays into our work this week...so I read the story "Whistle for Willie" by Jack Ezra Keats. It is the story of a little boy who desperately wants to be able to whistle. Throughout the book, Willie practices and practices until he achieves his "goal" of whistling.

I highly recommend this book if you are working on perseverance as a theme. We then talked about the main idea and how we know this is the main idea (evidence). Tomorrow we will make a GO chart.

The second task that I introduced was the 2012 Resolutions Flip Book from the fantastic blog Views from Room 205. Mrs. Lamb has created a great activity that incorporates goals into the digits of 2012. My kids LOVED it. 

Thank you so much to Mrs Lamb for a truly enjoyable, engaging activity that suited all the learners in my class.

Well, back to planning, planning and more planning. Unless, of course, I have a little nap instead!

Linky Party-Beginning of the Year Read Alouds

New Read Alouds for the Fall Linky Party

I am joining my first Linky Party. I hope I have done it correctly :)

Here are my top read alouds for September.

1. First Day Jitters by Julie Dannenberg

The kids get a kick out of this story as it has a surprise ending...the teacher is nervous about starting school! We all enjoy the story so much it has become a staple in our class library.

2. Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London

I was a little very skeptical about this book as I thought it might be a little babyish for grade 2/3. It is HILARIOUS and appropriate. I read it every September and LOVE it!

3. How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague

This story is wonderful to use for a Writing activity. The boy in the book has a vivid imagination and kids get a kick out of hearing what he says happened during his summer.

4. Wemberley Worried by Kevin Henkes

Actually, many of Kevin Henkes books are perfect for September. They really appeal to kids and provide a great jumping off point for discussions.

5. Wilson and Miss Lovely by John Stadler

A story about starting school. Another theme of being worried about the first days of school but it is definitely worth the read!

* For the first time ever, I had the kids complete an activity at the end of June that I will also use as a read aloud in September. Each student traced their hand and wrote one piece of advice for the upcoming kids. I cut out the hands and glued each one to a piece of cardstock. I then glued a picture of the child who wrote the advice beside the hand. Finally, I laminated the pages, bound them and am ready to go!