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".