Week of December 8, 2009

Our good friend Biscuit celebrates it all!  Kindergartners will learn about Christmas and Hanukkah traditions when we read Happy Hanukkah, Biscuit! and Merry Christmas, from Biscuit by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.

For first graders, author Eric Kimmel has not only the dreidels spinning, but he also spins quite a tale in The Magic Dreidels. This tells a great story while teaching about the traditions of the Hanukkah holiday.  We'll also revisit our favorite friends by Cynthia Rylant when we read Henry and Mudge and a Very Merry Christmas.

A favorite Hanukkah story is Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel. Second grade will hear how Hershel perseveres and saves Hanukkah for his village.

I mentioned last month that we would read many Patricia Polacco books throughout this year and this week it will be The Trees of the Dancing Goats. This is a beautiful story of a family who celebrates Hanukkah but when they find that their neighbors who celebrate Christmas become very ill with scarlet fever, they do what they can for them so they will be able to celebrate their holiday too.

Fourth graders have a tall order to fill...next week they will be teaching the teachers! So we'll use this week for research and preparation.  They will be using the internet, books and any other reference material that they can find to research wind turbines, hydro-power, solar power, alternative fuels, recycling and anything else about going green! And why are they teaching their teachers?!! I think it has something to do with their musical that is coming up next week!

Week of November 30, 2009

Several weeks ago I went down to the Books By the Banks event at the convention center and had so much fun seeing new books, meeting authors and illustrators and getting autographed books for our library. Some of our lessons this week feature these new books:  Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep! , Dewey:  There’s a Cat in the Library! and  One Fine Trade. 

Kindergartners are going to be exploring the alphabet in the library for a while. We’ll start off with the fun and interactive book Amazing Alphabet! With Fantastic Flaps written by Richard Edwards and illustrated by Susan Hendra.  Students always have enjoy this ABC lesson!  And we have lots of wonderful alphabet books that your child can choose from to check out of the library.

 

           

Bears, bears, bears! It’s almost wintertime and our bear friends should be bedding down.  First grade classes will read some hibernation non-fiction and then Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep! by Maureen Wright and illustrated by Will Hillenbrand and also Bear Snores On written by Karma Wilson with pictures by Jane Chapman.

 

Dewey: There’s a Cat in the Library! co-authored by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter is irresistible even to a dog lover like me and I think the second graders are going to love it too!  This is based on the non-fiction version of the adult book Dewey.  Author Bret Witter tells me that soon we should be seeing a teen version of this book on the shelves too. And for the record, I’m an animal lover, but terribly allergic to cats!

 

 

 

We will hear one last Native American story in third grade.  Reading Rainbow featured The Gift of the Sacred Dog by Paul Goble so we’ll get to watch that on video and then it is followed by a real pow-wow that the students will see.  I know that they have learned so much in this unit from their studies in the classroom, the speaker that came to visit and the field trip that they went on last week. 

 

One Fine Trade retold by Bobbi Miller and illustrated by Will Hillenbrand is the story that fourth graders will hear this week.  We will be paying close attention to the illustrations in this book and how Mr. Hillenbrand portrays actions, thoughts, size and conversation in this hilarious tale.

 

 

 

November 18, 2009 - November 24, 2009

Thank you for your support of our Scholastic Book Fair! This has been the most successful book fair that we have ever hosted!!

It's all about Thanksgiving this week!!!

In Kindergarten we will read If You Give a Moose A Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff and one of my favorite Eve Bunting books, A Turkey For Thanksgiving with wonderful illustrations by Diane deGroat.

Last week in first grade we met Marc Brown, author and illustrator of the Arthur books. We learned that Mr. Brown hides the names of his children in the illustrations of his books. This week we will read Arthur's Thanksgiving and then we'll take some time to find Tolin, Tucker and Eliza's names in the pictures. We will also read the final chapter of Henry and Mudge Under the Yellow Moon by Cynthia Rylant.

 

 

Second graders will be revisiting Dav Pilkey when we read 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. We will also read the very funny book Sometimes It's Turkey-Sometimes It's Feathers by Lorna Balian. The children are always fascinated by the lack of color in the illustrations-just brown, black and white, but still such great pictures!

We are continuing with Native American stories in the third grade. This

week we will discuss pourquoi stories, that is a story that explains why something is the way it is. For example, this week we will learn How Chipmunk Got His Stripes by Joseph and James Bruchac

Who wrote two dozen books? Who wrote hundreds of poems including Mary Had a Little Lamb? And who wrote thousands of letters to many politicians including President Zachary Taylor, President Millard Fillmore, President Franklin Pierce, President James Buchanan until 

finally President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a National Holiday? Sarah Hale did! Fourth graders will learn of this ambitious woman in Thank you, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, a distant relative of Sarah Hale's.                                  

Week of November 9, 2009

Each week for our kindergarten lessons we usually have a combination of fiction and non-fiction. This past week the students were encouraged to choose a non-fiction book to check out of the library. They were amazed at all the different subjects there were! This week our lesson is going to be all non-fiction just to try to help them grasp the scope of topics. We'll read Sea Horses by Lola Schaefer, Ohio by Christine Taylor-Butler, Being Active by Mari Schuh and because we strive to be topical, Thanksgiving by David F. Marx.

In first grade we'll meet author and illustrator Marc Brown, creator of Arthur. We'll watch a short video segment of Marc Brown explaining what it takes to be an author and illustrator, how he gets his ideas and what he hides in his illustrations. We'll then take a look at his biography and read Arthur's Nose, the first book that Marc Brown wrote.

'Tis the season to talk about germs!! In Germs Make Me Sick! by Melvin Berger we will learn how we get germs and how they travel through our bodies and from person to person. We'll also review what we can do to stay healthy. And then for fun we'll read Farm Flu written by Teresa Bateman and illustrated by Nadie Bernard Westcott.

In the third grade classrooms the students have been studying Native Americans. Anytime that we can tie into the classroom curriclum, that's a positive. We will be looking at several Native American legends. These are multi-tiered lessons because it allows us first to define a legend and then to revisit our cataloging system in the library and where we would find legends and fables in our non-fiction collection. This week I will read Sootface:  An Ojibwa Cinderella Story by Robert San Souci and illustrated by Daniel San Souci.

The fourth graders have done a terrific job learning how to navigate the world atlas! We will review the atlas later in the year, but we're going to put it to rest for a while. They've worked hard so this week they will get a bit of a break and read the book The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller. We'll also watch a short video This Land is Your Land sung by Arlo Guthrie. This is followed by a biographical section about Woody Guthrie who wrote the song This Land is Your Land, narrated by his daughter Kathy Jakobsen.