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.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
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.
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.
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