Read Aloud Books for June 29

The Fabulous Bouncing Chowder is the sequel to the book "Chowder" that we read last week. In this story, the bulldog named Chowder learns how to jump on a trampoline and ends up teaching other dogs to use the trampoline too.


Let's Do Nothing is a great book to jumpstart a discussion about imagination. In this story the two main characters realize that it is impossible to do absolutely nothing, but they tried really hard! I spoke to the children about how, during the summer, there may be times when they are bored, and this book gives some ideas for imagination games.


The afternoon class had a chance to watch a video of the California Raisins. It was a funny story filled with classic R & B music. The video is no longer available, but the 30 minute movie is available on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ld_zlbrz18 (part 1 of 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebS3ZVA5xNo&feature=related (part 2 of 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrFqVXGuyOc&feature=related (part 3 of 3)

Read Aloud Books for June 24

Chowder the bulldog, is a lovable character that works hard to fit in. In this adventure he has some problems that he tries to overcome. The children like this book because Chowder does not think he is a dog. After all, he likes to dig for fossils, use the computer and use the toilet!


How Pizza Came To Our Town is a story that challenges students to try to understand a time before pizza was readily available. In this story, the young characters greet a visitor, Mrs. Pellegrino, from Italy. They try very hard to make her happy but realize in the end that the only thing that can bring a smile to her face is when she is making pizza. It's fun to talk to the class about living in a world without pizza and how the children did their best to treat a guest properly.


The Boy With Square Eyes is a book I read to the class to remind them that over the summer they should not spend all their time in front of the TV and computer! The boy watched TV all the time and his eyes became square and his whole world looked pixelated, or square-ish. The cure was for him to play outside, read books and go to visit new places.

Read Aloud Books for June 17

The Butterfly Alphabet is a very cool book of closeup photos of butterfly wing patterns that look like letters of the alphabet. It's an opportunity for the children to learn how the patterns are made (little pieces called scales) and to see the huge variety of butterflies in the worlld.


Butterflies is a non-fiction book of butterfly facts that is very accessible to the kindergarten child. It has clear pages which help to illustrated some of the characteristics of the life cycle. This book became a popular book to read at the science table during our butterfly project.


Grumpy Bird is a funny story that the children love. The bird is very grumpy at the beginning of the story but with the help of his friend, he becomes much happier. It is a good book to discuss how and why, a character changes from the beginning to the end of a book. It also illustrates clearly, the power of friendship.


The Baby Blue Cat Who Said No is a great book, with repeated prose that the children like to read along with. It also builds up to an ending that the students do not expect.

Read Aloud Books for June 10

The Runaway Beard is a funny story that all children love. The absurd notion that a beard can get off a man's face and run away always makes the children laugh. It is also the only time when I read aloud a story, wearing a false beard!

Bee Gets a Sweater is a fable explaining how the bee got it's yellow and black striped body. I like to read this book because, at this point in our discussion of insects, we have read a lot of non-fiction and it's good to go back to fiction stories. It helps the children really understand the difference between fiction and non-fiction.


Thing-Thing is an interesting story about a stuffed dog that gets thrown out the window by a poorly-behaved child. I like to read this story, because it allows the children to understand the perspective of the dog as it looks at things as it falls down 6 stories. I also had the children make a comparison to the similar children's book that we read a few months ago, "Corduroy the Bear".

Read Aloud Books for June 3

The Alphabet Tree is another "thinking story" from the author/illustrator Leo Lionni. (We read his book Swimmy at the beginning of the school year.) In this story, the letters in the alphabet tree are not very stable and the wind can easily blow them off. Then two insects come along to help the letters. The word-bug is a bee that shows the letters how to become stronger by working together to make words. The caterpillar comes along and shows how to put the words into sentences to make thoughts. The message of "peace on earth, goodwill toward men" is also a wonderful way to continue our ongoing discussion of how to treat others. This is a great link to our current study of insects through fiction. We will also be doing an activity linked to this book next week.

Bugs is a great non-fiction resource to read to young children to teach them about insects. We read this book over several days. The clear illustrations and easy language help to convey complex ideas easily. The children learned about where insects are found, what they eat, what they look like and what makes an insect different from other animals. This came in handy when a child called one of our caterpillars a "worm" and the class used what they learned to reason why a worm is not an insect.

Read Aloud Books for May 27

The class now has started a unit on caterpillars.

Casper the Caterpillar is a fun book for the students since there are cut-out holes for the "googly eyes" of the caterpillar. In this story, Casper asks his friends what costume he should wear to the costume party. His friends shared their ideas but in the end Casper changes into a butterfly so he no longer needs a costume!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is another classic story from Eric Carle. Since most students have read this story before, I chose to show the movie version. Before I showed the movie, I asked the students to pay attention to what the job of a caterpillar is (that is, to eat and eat!) This is important because over the next several days the caterpillars will change dramatically in size, because they eat and eat and eat!

The Bookshop Dog is a lovely book to launch discussions about the role of dogs in people's lives and about the proper treatment of animals. This latter point has been a the topic of several teaching moments in the last several weeks. A funny, sentimental book to share with the children that has a very, happy ending.

Read Aloud Books for May 19

Moira's Birthday is a very funny story by Canadian author Robert Munsch. The children love this story of a little girl who wants to invite all 200 students in her school to her birthday party. Solving the problems of having 200 children at her house, plus 200 gifts and feeding them all proves to be the beginning of some very funny events. The students love to read along to the repeated sentence:

"I want to invite grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, grade 6 aaaannndddd kindergarten!"


The video version of Moira's Birthday is always a hit with students. After reminding the class that a movie is another way to tell a story, I instruct the children to watch the video and look for ways that the movie is different from the story book. The video of course, has music and no written words, but the frantic elements of the story come alive in the movie as the 200 hungry students descend on Moira's house for her birthday party, with hilarious results.


Reading the fairy tale, Jack and the Beanstalk was a logical choice this week, since the students planted their sprouted bean seeds in soil. Because beans are an integral part of the story, the children could relate much better to Jack's story since they have examined bean seeds, witnessed them sprouting and know what the resultant plant looks like. The story does have some scary elements, with the mean orgre always chasing Jack, but that is often one of the elements of fairy tales and the children know that in fairy tales, everyone always lives "happily ever after".

Read Aloud Books for May 13

Hey Little Ant is a great teaching tool to explain empathy to young children. I chose this book this week because the children were looking at ants on the playground and the issue of how to treat them came up. This book turns around the issue of a boy who is about to squish an ant. The ant cleverly demonstrates what it would be like if the ant was a giant and the boy was the size of an insect. Both classes understood the lesson and when we were outside in the playground you could hear the conversations that contained respectful language. For example, "Remember don't touch the ants, just look with your eyes."


Something From Nothing is a classic Canadian children's book. It has a wonderful lyrical quality to it that has the children reading along with the repetitive text. In the story a young boy has a special blanket that his grandfather made him. As he grows older, the blanket grows older too and he does not want to part with it. His grandfather makes new things out of the material until only a piece the size of a button is left. The students and I had a great discussion about memories ("Can you hold a memory in your hand?") This is a real thinking story and we took two days to fully talk about this book.


Seeds is a great non-fiction book to introduce children to the different kinds of seeds and the ways that plants have adapted to make sure that its seeds are distributed far and wide. I used this as an introduction to our plant unit. The children learned how to sprout seeds and we even examined, and ate, corn seeds (as popcorn), sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. The favourite part of this book for both classes was learning that when birds eat berries, for example, blackberries, the seeds are not digested and the seeds are distributed to different places through the bird's poop!

Read Aloud Books for May 6

Up, Down and Around is a informational text that was read as part of our new unit on plants. It categorizes vegetables by how they grow: above the ground, below the ground and above ground, on vines. I used the "big book" format to read to the class so the children could get a really good look at the illustrations. Specifically, our class was interested in the picture of the fully-grown bean plant as this week the students studied the seeds for green bean plants.


Mom and Me is a great book to read to the class around Mother's Day because it relates all the ways that children appreciate mothers. This book uses photographs to illustrate the stories of three children and their mothers. I think it is a good book because it shows different parenting styles. This book was a good introduction for our discussion about all the ways that children love and appreciate their moms.


Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big was a book chosen by our student teacher Ms. Griffin, to read aloud to the class. Basically this book is about honesty and why it is so important to have honesty in our world. The story is challenging, but with the guidance of Ms. Griffin, the students grasped the storyline and message.

Read Aloud Books for April 29

Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel was written in 1939, but it is still a great read aloud book today. It is an engaging, informative story that illustrates many themes but the notion of Mike and his steam shovel (named Mary Ann) digging the cellar for a new town hall in one day drives the story as Mike says "Mary Ann can dig as much in a day, as 100 men can dig in a week (although he wasn't really sure that this was true)". Of course, the story all ends well. I take two days to read this story to young children so that they can really understand what is happening in the story.

Join In is a compiliation of stories in a "big book" format. This format allows for all the children in the class to read along together. It also allows for the discussion of book features (e.g., table of contents) and to read and discuss the elements of a variety of genres (fiction, non-fiction, poetry). This book can be read using individual stories, or the complete book if read over several days.

Read Aloud Books for April 21

The Matzah Man is an excellent adaptation of the classic story, The Gingerbread Man, for the Jewish holiday of Passover. The story incorporates many of the details of the Passover celebration, so this is an excellent multi-level book to work with a variety of ages. My classes were also able to make a connection with another book we read aloud, "A Fly Went By" since both books employ the device of a cumulative chase. This book also has a very catchy refrain, that is repeated often throughout the book. The children loved to shout out these words as they read along with me:

Hot from the oven, I jumped and I ran,

You can't catch me, I'm The Matzah Man!

The Easter Egg is a book written and illustrated by Jan Brett (best known for her book, The Mitten). It is a beautiful book with lovely, detailed pictures. The story is about Hoppi the rabbit who wants to win the egg decorating contest and he goes around looking at what the other rabbits are doing. The winner of the contest gets to help the Easter bunny deliver his eggs. I like to use the story to emphasize with children all the creative ideas. There are painted eggs, wooden eggs and robot eggs! Also, every illustration has pussy willows framing the page and this is an excellent link to our discussion and investigation of actual pussy willow branches in the classroom.

Read Aloud Books for April 15

Skip Through The Seasons is a good book to review the seasons, the months of the year and the changes that happen in each. The story is written in rhyme and the illustrations are very detailed so that when a child reads this book in the reading corner it is easy for them to pick out the different activities for each month.

Lego House is an adult book that I chose to show to the class because we were talking a lot about lego this week. The photographs document the life-size house made out of lego that includes everything in the house made out of lego (chairs, tables, sinks). I used this to show the children two things. First, never give up on your dreams (James May faced many obstacles in getting this project finished) and second, how many people worked together to get the house finished. (If you are interested, youtube has many short films on this project. Just search "James May Lego House")

Chicken Soup With Rice (A Book of Months) is a Maurice Sendak classic from 1962. I remember reading this book as a child. It is a great read aloud because of the engaging cadence of the rhyming text and the repeated words encourage the children to read aloud with me. Ask your child to finish the following : Sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice!


The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree was another of my sons' favourite read aloud books when they were little. It follows the adventures of Arnold, a little boy who loves an apple tree in his backyard. The text details the different things he does through the seasons (for example, he gathers apples to make apple pie and apple cider). I really like how the text is written to clearly demonstrate the cyclical nature of the seasons, as this is a concept that is difficult for small children to understand.

Read Aloud Books for April 8

Let's Look At Spring is a good non-fiction book for talking about the spring season. In class, we have been talking about the different changes that are happening as winter fades into spring. When we are outside each day, we are watching the buds on the shrubs around our playground to see when they change from brown to green (not yet!). This book talks about other signs to look for, like seeing robins.

What! Cried Granny is another of my all-time favourite stories. I have the text memorized because this was another of my son's preferred bedtime books and we read it every night for ages. It was also one of the first books that he could read completely by himself. This is a funny story about a boy staying overnight at his grandmother house and finds all kinds of ways to delay going to bed. The text has several repeated phrases that allows for a enjoyable read along style read aloud. The students love to yell out "What! Cried Granny". Whenever, I read aloud this story to a class at the end, there are always pleas for me to read it again. So, of course, we did!

Read Aloud Books for April 1

This is the House That Jack Built is a new version of the nursery rhyme written over 200 years ago. The modern, cartoon like pictures are very appealing to the students as they learn the cumulative rhyme that tells the story. It also links nicely to our current unit on building and structures. We read this story twice and then condensed the words so the children could learn the poem. The students also used word cards to stand up and "act out" the rhyme. That is Jack held the "Jack" card and the cheese and so on. The class looked forward everyday to the time when we acted out and recited the rhyme and were eager to be a part of the performance.


Shape is a book that helped our class review the names of two-dimensional shapes and introduced the names of three-dimensional shapes. I used this book as a link to our unit on building and structures. I was also lucky enough to locate an unusual block puzzle that is featured in the book and the students had fun this week exploring/solving patterns using the six sides of each block.


The House That Jill Built is a fun version of the "Jack" nursery rhyme (see above) but with a girl as the main character. This story also links in several characters from other nursery rhymes. The students liked this version because there were little flaps on each page that, when lifted, revealed a picture of a character. The children really appreciated the end of the story because there is a pull and fold out page of the huge house that she built for her friends and then a 3-dimensional house that she built for herself and her cat. There was a lot of discussion around how this book was the same as the book "This is the House That Jack Built" and how the paper engineering of the book took her final house from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional.

Read Aloud Books for March 25

A Fly Went By is a great story to help the students develop their prediction strategies. It is written in cumulative rhyme and so the logic of the story line (What might chase a cat?) and the clues in the rhyming words help the children predict what will happen next. It also allows for a deep discussion of how the boy in the story can help the animals and solve their problem (which stems from a simple misunderstanding).


The Little House is a story by the wonderful author/illustrator Virginia Lee Burton. Even though this story was published over 65 years ago, it has a lovely, timeless quality that the children love. Her illustrations are designed to show what happens to the little house over time, as buildings/subways/roads are built around her and the position of the house remains in the centre of the page. When this book was put in the reading corner, students loved to look for the little house on each page. Burton even managed to subtly have the house look happy or sad by how she drew the windows ("eyes"). The class discussed the change of the house as the countryside was turned into a city and rejoiced as the story ended happily with the house being moved back to the country.


Tools is a very useful book for our unit on building and structures. It is not a story per se, as it simply lists and illustrates different kinds of tools that are used for different jobs (e.g., carpenter, chef, doctor). The book helps the students label and identify various tools. It also helped to start a discussion of the different kinds of jobs that people do.


Iggy Peck Architect is always a hit with students. Although the story, told in rhyme, can be difficult to follow for younger children, Iggy's imagination is very interesting to the students (hence several readings are recommended). Iggy is a child that uses almost anything to build structures (e.g., pancakes, chalk, diapers). He and his teacher disagree about building things in the classroom, but Iggy's abilities save the day at the end of the story.

Read Aloud Books for March 11

Monkey and Me is a lovely, lyrical book with predictable text and easily decoded words that the children really enjoyed listening to and reading themselves. I read this aloud to the class at the beginning of the week. All week I could hear children say aloud the refrain but adding their own words. For example, "Monkey and me, monkey and me, monkey and me we went to see, we went to see the 'sand table'."

Are You My Mother? is a classic book from the 1960's. I remember reading this book myself as a child. In this story, a baby bird asked various animals and things if they are his mother and in the end he realized that, of course, a kitten or an excavator cannot be his mother as he embraced the big mother bird. Children love the sense of the absurd in this story as the reader is challenged with questions like "could the cow be the baby bird's mother?" Of course they all shouted out "NO!"

The Mixed Up Chameleon is an Eric Carle book that has a great message. The class actually saw a video of this book. In this story, the chameleon was not happy they way he was and tried on different parts of different animals. Of course, he got all mixed up and in the end realized that he was happy being a regular chameleon.


I Wish That I Had Duck Feet was a book I read to the class in September. We read it again this week because the children made a connection between this story and the Eric Carle book, The Mixed Up Chameleon. Students are expected at all grade levels to make a connection between books, as in "This book reminds me of..." With this book I could model for the children how this is done. It is also a humourous book that is always great fun to share with a class.

Read Aloud Books for March 4

Sock Monkey Goes To Hollywood started off our "sock week" . In this story, a sock monkey is invited to a party but needs to be clean in order to attend. The trouble is, he hates taking baths! This is a great story because there is a twist at the end that the students don't expect. It's interesting, because children this age are starting to see patterns in the storylines of books and so they thought they knew how the story was going to end, but were surprised.

The Glass Doorknob is another one of my favourite books. It's about a sock monkey who works with his friends to solve a problem. There are many levels in this book so it appeals to a variety of ages. On the surface it is about a groups of friends solving a mystery. But it is also a great story to introduce science concepts of seasons and prismatic light. In kindergarten, we talked about how we know this is a fiction story (the toys move and talk). My son Dean loved this book and there was an extended period of time where we read this story every night before bed!


Only In Dreams is a great story to introduce the discussion of imagination. In the story, the monkey character lists all the cool things that he can do in his dreams (but not in real life). Things like being really tall, being able to fly and visiting a village with cupcakes for houses.

I Love Monkey is a story that talks about how everyone is special in his/her own way. The monkey tries to be various other things, for example, a chicken or a piece of sushi but is never quite happy. Of course at the end of the story, he realizes that he is happy just being himself.

Read Aloud Books for February 25

Pancakes, Pancakes! is a great book to read aloud and then cook pancakes with the students. In the story, a boy wants pancakes for breakfast, but his mother says he has to help to get the ingredients. Since the setting is in a time long ago, the boy has a lot of work to do to get the flour, eggs, milk and butter. This book provides a great opportunity to compare how the boy in the book made pancakes and how the students made pancakes in the classroom. Eric Carle is a favourite author in our classroom and we compared this book with another of our favourites, Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?.

I found this book, One Shoe Blues, a few years ago and I use it every year to teach my students. I love blues music and B. B. King is the famous ambassador of the blues. Here he is the main character in a story where he has lost his shoe. There is a DVD that comes with the book and the short movie provides another opportunity to show children alternative ways to tell a story. In this case, the story is in a book, a song and a movie. The supporting characters are sock puppets and they are the comic foils to B. B King's laid back singing and guitar playing. I used this book as a jumping off point for our new class project where the students will make sock puppets next week.

Read Aloud Books for February 17

Guess How Much I Love You is a beautiful story to share on Valentine's Day. It's the story of a small rabbit trying to let a large rabbit know how much he loves him. The class had a great discussion about love. I asked them, "Can you hold love in your hand?", "Can you draw love?", "Can you buy love at a store?". They answered "no" to each question of course, and in doing so they realized why the little rabbit was showing how much he loved the large rabbit by opening his arms wide and reaching up to the sky. In the end, the little rabbit thought of the biggest distance he could and declares, "I love you up to the moon and back again!" This book has great memories for me, because my younger son would say that to me when he was kindergarten age.

Corduroy has been a popular read aloud story for young children for 40 years. Our class even has a stuffed Corduroy bear in green overalls. Corduroy is a bear that has an adventure in a toy store at night and is later taken home by a little girl. At the end of the story, Corduroy is happy that he has a new home and a new friend. This is a great book to get the children to think about how the characters are feeling at different parts of the story. Sad, afraid, surprised and happy were some of the feelings the class talked about. It also shows that even if you look different (at the beginning of the story, Corduroy has lost a button, and so does not look "new"), you can still be accepted for who you are.

A Pocket for Corduroy is the follow-up story to the original Corduroy book. Corduroy has another adventure, this time at a laundromat. He gets lost, almost gets put in the dryer and has a "snow" adventure involving soap flakes, after the laudromat is closed. In the end, the little girl and Corduroy are reunited. She decides to sew a pocket on his overalls and tucked an information card inside so that if he gets lost again, they will know who he belongs to. The Corduroy stories are a great tie-in to our upcoming class project where the stuffed Corduroy bear goes home with the star student each day and the family writes a short adventure for him.

Read Aloud Books for February 11

Clifford's First Valentine's Day is a great book to read to kindergarten students because most already know the lovable Clifford character. In this simple story, the concept of sending Valentine cards is discussed as Clifford has an adventure at the post office (he gets lost). This is a good story to talk about the feelings of the main character during different parts of the story and to discuss the odd kinds of things that can happen in a story. That is, in a story, there can be a bright red dog the size of an elephant, but that can't happen in real life.

100 Days of School is the perfect book for the 100th day of school. It talks about 100 in many different ways (many math concepts are covered) and reinforces how special this landmark day is in the life of kindergarten students.

100 Hungry Ants is a good book to reinforce the concept of 100 during our 100th day week . The ants are trying to get to a picnic before the food is all gone. They spend so much time rearranging themselves that the picnic is over before they get there. The ending, in my opinion, is a bit weak. However, the class took the opportunity to discuss different ways for the book to end.

Rumpelstiltskin is a fairy tale that illustrates the idea of a "magic" figure in some fairy tales. In this story, it is a little man that is able to spin straw into gold. There are complicated lessons in the story, but the students talked about what it means to be greedy and how to be careful what you promise to someone! The class is also very interested in the number of letters in children's names, so the 15 letters in Rumpelstiltskin was quite amazing to them!

Read Aloud Books for February 4

This is a traditional version of this story. The class had a great discussion about if Goldilocks was a good character or a not-so-good character. Remember, she did do a lot of things without permission... This is also a good story to illustrate the characteristics of a fairy tale, "Once upon a time..", and animals that talk and dress like humans. We also talked about the "rule of 3" or how fairy tales often have three things in them, three bears, three pigs, three wishes.
This version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is one of my favourites because the illustrations uses clothing, furniture and architecture from the 1930-1950's. It is a very "moderne" version of the story. It is also easy for the children to pick out what is different in this story from the traditional version (e.g., the bears eat chili instead of porridge).

My First Chinese New Year is a great information book to introduce this holiday. It covers the things people do to celebrate this special time of year. One of the things people do is use red "lai see" or lucky envelopes to give as gifts. In my class, I had some to show the children and each child had one to take home.


The True Story of the Three Little Pigs is a funny take on the traditional story. It is told from the point of view of the wolf. He says that everybody has the story all wrong and that he really isn't a bad guy at all. He just wanted to borrow a cup of sugar and because he had a bad cold, he sneezed and blew down the houses. He says it's not his fault that the pigs didn't build their houses properly. It was funny to read this story to the children because even after I read the story and we talked about it, the children were not convinced that he was really a good wolf!

Read Aloud Books for January 28

My Very First Mother Goose is a great compilation of well-known and less-well-know nursery rhymes. The copy I read in class is the same copy I read to both of my children so I know all these rhymes by heart! We read this book over two days and the children are always surprised to realize how many of the rhymes that they already know. The illustrations were done my Rosemary Wells, who does the illustrations for the Max and Ruby stories. We did some different things with this book. I read the rhymes and had the children read along. I read them and would leave out the rhyming words and have the students say them. We clapped the beat of the rhymes and played clapping games. There is a reason these rhymes are still popular after hundreds of years!

The Three Little Pigs is a classic fairy tale that the students love. It has all the basic attributes of a fairy tale (from "Once upon a time..." to animals acting like humans). It provides lots of discussion points for the class. This week we talked about why straw and sticks were not good choices to make a house and why bricks were the best choice. We also looked at the ways in which the animals in the stories acted like people. The students also like to read along to the repeated phrases, for example, "Little pig, little pig, let me in!" "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!"
This set of nursery rhyme "easy readers" is always a hit with students. Many children, during the borrow-a-book exchange time and centre time, will choose to go get a book from the nursery rhyme bin and read it. This builds confidence in emerging readers, as they know which rhyme it is by the pictures and since they know the words, they can practice reading along to the text.

Read Aloud Books for January 20

Ten Black Dots is a book that works in the classroom on two levels. On the first reading, the book is a basic counting story that matches numerals with the same number of black dots. On another level, it illustrates how black dots can visually represent different things (e.g., the eyes of a fox or the wheels of a train). I use this book for a class math lesson and as an art lesson. Even JK/SK aged children can grasp the abstract idea of one object representing something else!

I have read The Moccasin Goalie, (written and illustrated by Canadian William Roy Brownridge), many, many times in my life. When my son Dean was younger it was his favourite book. He loved it so much he wanted to write to the author and ask him for tips on playing hockey! Of course we did (and he wrote Dean back). The story is loosely based on a childhood memory of the author. He loved hockey but was born with a club foot and so he couldn't wear skates. He wore leather moccasins on the ice when he played goalie. The story depicts when the main character Danny and his friends were not picked for an organized hockey team because Danny couldn't wear skates, Anita was a girl and Petou was too small. The students understood the injustice of this decision and over several readings could identify the feelings of the characters at the beginning, middle and end of the story. A great winter-themed book.

Read Aloud Books for January 14

Snowflake Bentley is the true story of William "Snowflake" Bentley, the first person to photograph snowflakes. As a teenager, in rural Vermont, he began to photograph snowflakes using a camera with a microscope attached, over 100 years ago. The class learned that it is possible to find beauty in ordinary things and not to give up on your dreams. His early attempts did not work but he did not give up and eventually he documented thousands of different snowflake patterns (see his book below). This week outside, the students marvelled at the delicate patterns of fallen snowflakes on their mittens, just like Snowflake Bentley.

Snowflakes in Photographs is a reprint of the original monograph published by William Bentley in 1932. Unfortunately, he passed away a few weeks after it's publication. He caught pneumonia after walking home in a blizzard to photograph more snowflakes. Bentley felt, from the beginning, that these photographs would be his gift to the world. From viewing these photographs, the children saw not only, the huge variety of snowflake patterns but also, the care Bentley took to document them.

The book, Shape, is a great introduction to geometry. It shows the familiar shapes of circles, triangles, squares, rectangles and hexagons. Hexagons became a particular favourite after I told the class that it was a "grade one word"! It demonstrates how shapes differ from one another (number of sides and corners, or vertices) and how shapes can be different sizes but still the same shape. It also has a lot of photographs demonstrating how to find geometric shapes in the real world (for example, bricks in a wall are rectangle-shaped). This was a great book to go with our geometry unit.

The Little Fur Family is a book that has a lovely, lyrical tone. The author, Margaret Wise Brown, also wrote Goodnight Moon. It is the story of a family that's "warm as toast, smaller than most and they lived in a warm, wooden tree". It follows the adventures of the little fur child during the course of a cold winter day. At the end of the book, the mother and father tuck the little one into bed and sing a song (or lullabye) to help their child sail off to dreamland. This is the type of fiction story that is so captivating, that when I read it aloud to the class, you could hear a pin drop!

Read aloud books for January 7

The Cat In The Hat Comes Back is another classic book by Dr. Seuss. This is a great story to start the year because it is a funny story that talks about snow and reviews all the letters of the alphabet. The Cat In The Hat always causes a lot of trouble, but in the end, he always cleans up the mess he makes. Ask your child what the cat has hidden inside his hat!

Sneezy the Snowman is a new book that caught my attention because he has a beautiful carrot nose. The class has talked a lot about how a carrot is a classic way to give a snowman a nose. This story reinforces what the students learned about melting snow this week and that information helped them predict what would happen next (for example, when Sneezy drank hot chocolate, what do you think will happen? Why?) I also overheard, a few times, a student saying to a child that just sneezed, "You're just like Sneezy the Snowman!"

The Snowy Day is another one of my favourite stories. Written in 1962, it tells the story of Peter as he discovers all the different activities that can be done outside in the snow. The classes recalled all the things that Peter did (for example, making patterns with his boots) and we were lucky enough to try out all of them with the snow outside. They could all accurately predict what was going to happen when Peter put a snowball in his pocket to "save for later". A beautiful, sublime story.

Stranger In The Woods was a great story for the class this week because it was a good connection to The Snowman poem the children learned. Students need lots of opportunities to make connections and this story, with the snowman and his carrot nose, provided lots of ways to do this. (For example, in the story a deer eats the carrot and in the poem a bunny does.) The children also liked this book because of the cool, lenticular photo on the front cover. The lenticular photo blends two photos from the book together so that when it is moved from left to right, the picture changes.