Snowmen at Night, by Caralyn Buehner

Published February 1, 2014 by Dagmar

When I moved from New York State to California 30 years ago, I knew that I would give up the seasons and wouldn’t see snow day to day in winter. Honestly, the latter didn’t bother so much after years of slipping on ice and digging out driveways.

Many of my students rarely, if ever, have the chance to see and play in the snow. They know that it’s cold in winter, that some trees lose their leaves, that bears hibernate and that children make snowmen and snow angels in the snow. I love to share winter memories from my childhood in upstate New York, building snow forts with my big brother, making snowmen and throwing snowballs.

Whether your children or students live in a climate where they know winter well, or whether they only can wonder what it’s like, Snowmen at Night is a great book for a winter read aloud. The rhyming text is easy to read and the pictures by Mark Buehner are so engaging.

What do snowmen do at night? Apparently quite a lot. “One wintry day I made a snowman, very round and tall. The next day when I saw him, he was not the same at all! His hat had slipped, his arms drooped down, he really looked a fright — it made me start to wonder: What do snowmen do at night?”

This is a fun book about the secret life of snowmen that delighted my kindergartners. I hope you have fun with it, too.

Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins

Published January 20, 2014 by Dagmar

I do so love an oldie but goodie. Rosie’s Walk was published in 1968. Rosie, a hen, is going for a walk. Little does she realize that there is a hungry fox following her everywhere. As Rosie walks, fox steps on a rake, falls into a pond, falls into a haystack, has a bag of flour emptied on him and then falls into a wheelbarrow which rolls into bee hives. Rosie completely misses all of the action behind her. She finally ends up at her chicken coop, just in time for dinner. Every time I turned the pages, my students would shriek with laughter when they saw what happened to the poor fox. They were very cute.

I read this to my TK (Transkinder) class, with students who just missed the cutoff for kindergarten. They absolutely loved this book. I then tried it with my preschoolers and found that they had a harder time following this book. I’d recommend it for TK through 1st grade audiences.

So if you’re looking for a quick, funny read for your young students, here it is.

My Brother Martin, by Christine King Farris

Published January 17, 2014 by Dagmar

I have some favorite books to read when celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and his tremendous life. One, is Martin’s Big Words, by Doreen Rappaport. Like me, most teachers love Martin’s Big Words as well. So finding something different but accessible to young audiences is a always a challenge for me in the library.

Here is a book that I discovered this year that I love for younger audiences. Published in 2006, it provides a different perspective on this great man’s life that students haven’t heard before. When I introduce this book to my students, I remind them that before Dr. King became “Dr. King”, he was a child just like them. My Brother Martin was written by Christine King Farris, Dr. King’s older sister.

In My Brother Martin, Ms. King Farris tells of Dr. King’s childhood on Auburn Street in Atlanta, Georgia. There are funny pranks that the children, Christine, M.L. (Martin Luther) and their younger brother A.D. (Alfred Daniel) played on neighbors and their piano teacher. These stories made all my students smile. Ms. King Farris also tells of the painful time when the children of a white store owner on their street were no longer allowed to play with Negroes (a word I had to explain to my younger students). The white family sold their store and moved away. After years of shielding their children from the injustice and cruelty dealt to black people, this episode brought all that home. Christine, M.L. and A.D. were confused about why their friends would no longer play with them. Their mother explained about all the “Whites Only” signs. She also told her children that this injustice was there, “Because they just don’t understand that everyone is the same, but someday, it will be better.” M.L. then replied, “Mother Dear, one day I’m going to turn this world upside down.” And that he did.

M.L. and his sister and brother now were aware of segregation. They watched as their father, a minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church spoke out against it and how he practiced what he preached. Their father did not allow others to treat him differently because of his skin color and took his business elsewhere when store owners did. Their parents’ example and the pain of their childhood friends’ leaving provided the inspiration for Dr. King’s pursuit of justice.

This is a heartening and inspiring story of Dr. King that provides insights other books don’t provide. I highly recommend it to elementary school audiences. The illustrations by Chris Soentpiet are wonderful.

Board Book favorites

Published December 8, 2013 by Dagmar

We use a lot of board books at our school, not only for our preschoolers, but also for some of our students in our PEC, Program for Extraordinary Children (formerly known as SDC), which runs from Pre-k all the way through the fifth grade. These books also make fantastic baby gifts if you’re in the market for baby gifts as I often am. I’m a big proponent of reading from the very first day of life.

Here are some of our students’ and my favorite board books:

Freight Train, by Donald Crews: This book has wonderful soothing words and great colors. Read about the parts of a freight train. One of my favorites.

Goodnight, Gorilla, by Peggy Rathmann: This book is so loved in our library that I own three copies. A funny wordless book about a gorilla who steals a zookeepers keys and lets out all the animals. You’ll read it so many times that your students/or children will read it to you. They still wear out every year!

Pajama Time!, by Sandra Boynton: This is one of my absolute favorites. It has great rhymes and is very, very cute. I’ve had entire pre-school classes saying “Hush, Hush. It’s Pajama Time!”

Big Red Barn, by Margaret Wise Brown: Again, soothing words about animals on a farm

Dear Zoo! by Rod Campbell: This is a sweet “lift the flap” book. “I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet, they sent me…” This is a real favorite. Children love the rhymes and lifting the flaps to see what animal the zoo sent.

Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown: Before you say this book is a cliche, there is a reason. It is a peaceful, calming book that never fails to please the child I’m reading it to. It also allows a child to look for the little mouse on each page!

Stay tuned for more board book favorites!

The Snail and the Whale, by Julia Donaldson

Published November 3, 2013 by Dagmar

I was so happy to find this book at my local bookstore. I knew it would be a hit the minute I saw it. I love Julia Donaldson’s book, Room on the Broom, also illustrated by Alex Scheffler. Like the rhymes in Room on the Broom, the rhymes in this book are great, not forced or tiresome, and Alex Scheffler’s illustrations, wonderful. It’s a story of curiosity, adventure and friendship that you won’t want to miss. Be sure to check out my lesson idea using this book.

The Snail and the Whale is about a snail who sits on a rock with lots of other snails but dreams of traveling the world. The other snails mock him, but this snail is determined to go on an adventure. He writes “Ride Wanted Around the World” on the rock. Soon, a whale arrives, offering to take the snail around the world. Together they travel the oceans, seeing icebergs, “fiery mountains” and “golden sands”. Until one day, confused by speed boats in a bay, the whale is beached. The snail, though small, thinks of a plan. He makes his way to a school where he writes “Save the Whale” on a chalkboard. All the school children mobilize the town’s firefighters to help the whale swim back to sea. Once saved by the children, the Snail and the Whale return to ocean and the rock where their journey started. Once there, they tell the story of their adventures to the other snails. The book closes with the whale once again leaving the rock, but this time, with all the snails on his tail.

My first graders really loved this book. I think it’s great for read alouds to kindergarten through second grade classes and even younger readers at home.

Lesson Idea: Meerkats, Deserts, Africa and Abiyoyo

Published October 23, 2013 by Dagmar

One of the things I most love to do is introduce my first graders to different animals. This year, I’ve added two elements, some geography and, if I’m lucky, a fiction picture book. This lesson worked really well.

To start the lesson, I have us all get on our imaginary airplane. Students all know that they need to buckle their seat belts. “One, Two, Three, Click!”. Then, we decide where we’re going, in this case, the deserts of Africa. We put out our wings and then fly. Africa is exactly 10 seconds from Oakland, CA by library plane. We count it out, land, and unclick our seat belts. Then, we’re off to the deserts of Africa.

To learn about the desert, I use the great Blast Off Reader series, published by Bellwether Media, called “Learning About the Earth”. This series is written a the Level 3, Early Fluent, level, so to make the lesson move along, I only read a few pages with key facts about deserts. It was fun for me to learn that Antarctica is a cold desert.

We went to the desert, because Meerkats live in the desert as well as grass lands. I have another Blast Off Readers series called “Animal Safari” that I love to use. It’s written at the emergent reader level, so there are just enough facts to pull out for first graders to digest in five minutes. I combine all the animal facts with some type of hand signal. The kids all grasp these hand signals really quickly and retain the facts from week to week. I love asking them about each animal we learn about at the end of the school year.

So here we are in the African desert, learning about Meerkats. We learn that Meerkats are mammals. We make circles with our hands and put them to our eyes to make the rings around Meerkats eyes. We turned into a mob of Meerkats. Then, we ate scorpions, dug burrows and when our Meerkat sentry spotted a lion (their teacher), we all dive into our burrows.

We finish our trip to Africa with a favorite book at our school, Abiyoyo, Pete Seeger’s Storysong retelling a South African folktale about a father and son who are ostracized by a village because of their music and magic and then save the village from a giant called Abiyoyo. We sing the simple Abiyoyo tune at the end.

Then, it’s sadly time for my students to leave Africa and the world of Meerkats. We put our our seat belts, hold out our wings and take the 10 second trip home to Oakland.

Little Gorilla, Ruth Bornstein

Published October 13, 2013 by Dagmar

It’s always nice to find a real winner for the pre-k set. Little Gorilla is one of those affirming books that makes everyone, listener and reader feel good.

Little Gorilla is loved from the day he is born. His mom and dad love him, his aunts and uncles love him, all the animals in the forest love him and help him. Until one day…Little Gorilla grows. My students all wonder what will happen when Little Gorilla grows. They wait expectantly until I start singing “Happy Birthday”. They all smile in relief and join in. The last page says, “And everyone still loved him.”

Lesson ideas: The Lion and the Mouse, Africa and the savanna

Published October 8, 2013 by Dagmar

This year, I’m trying to tie my picture books into our non-fiction texts as often as possible. Sometimes, it’s just tying to a book about the place where the story takes place, or facts about the animal involved, or maybe the climate or the season.

For those of you looking for ideas for your own library class times, I hope this new part of my blog on Lesson ideas is helpful to you.

Here’s my first lesson idea based on a favorite wordless book, Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion and the Mouse. (click the link to see my previous blog article on this wonderful book.)

Lots of my students don’t have the ability to travel outside Oakland, and I’m a geography buff. So I take every opportunity to introduce geography into my time with my students. The Lion and the Mouse is a great gateway book to talk about Africa, the African savanna and the animals that live there.

I started with asking my students to name the seven continents. Then I focused them on Africa on our map. It’s also great to incorporate a globe to show students how far away places are from their home. Today, I used a wonderful book we just added to our library from the First Facts series on continents by Capstone Press. The book I used is called Spotlight on Africa. I took a few moments to show my students some pictures from the books and then turned to the page on Africa’s climates. This page shows a picture of desert, rain forest and the savanna. I then pulled out book on the African savanna called Here is the African Savanna. This book has a lot of repetition and is really meant for younger children, but it nicely goes through many of the animals that live on the African savanna and even talks about the acacia trees. I didn’t read everything on the page, because I wanted to focus the students on the different animals they might see on the savanna. Altogether, we only spent about five or 10 minutes looking at a map, the book on Africa and the pages of the Savanna book.

We then went on to, The Lion and the Mouse. I ask my students to “read” this book in silence. It is so beautifully illustrated. The lion’s and the mouse’s facial expressions are wonderful. I see my students telling themselves the story with their mouths moving. After they’ve finished “reading” this wordless book, I ask them to tell me the story.

Classes begin next week – or today?

Published September 18, 2013 by Dagmar

I had the best surprise today. As I was finishing up last minute administrative projects and preparing plans for my library classes, our transkinder (TK) class showed up, a week early, for their library class. They were so well-behaved. They sat down on the rug with their hands folded on their laps. Wow. Not bad for September! One of my favorite things to do with pre-k/TK classes is to sing. By a stroke of luck, I picked a “singing book” that I love called Five Little Ducks. It’s a book by Raffi, the famous singer of children’s songs. This happens to have been the book their teacher had been singing with them. So, together, we sang and made the hand motions that go with the book. It was a great start to their “trial run” library class. For those of you who don’t know the tune to Five Little Ducks, the music is in the back of the book. It’s simple and sweet. A great addition to any home library or pre-k/TK classroom.

We moved on to one of my favorite preschool books, Ask Mr. Bear. Ask Mr. Bear is an old book, but kept them absolutely riveted as little Danny looks for a present for his mother’s birthday. The repetition, opportunity to practice animal sounds (much to the delight of my students who loved the goat’s “meh, meh” sound the best) and just the right amount of suspense. What a fun and satisfying read aloud.

I was sorry to see them line up to go, but got such a nice feeling that this will be a great school year of classes.

I haven’t written recently, because I’m waiting to make my recommendations to all my students based on my summer reading. I want to see which of my picks they really like, so stay tuned! I’m also very lucky to have a huge stack of new picture books to share with my students – so more news awaits as I read them to my classes. Hopefully we’ll find some books that I love, and they love too.

I hope the beginning of the school year started as nicely for all of you.

Legend, by Marie Lu

Published August 27, 2013 by Dagmar

Legend is my favorite dystopian novel. My students agree.

Legend moves quickly between chapters written by June and Day. June is a brilliant 15 year old girl who got a perfect score on the Republic’s trial and is being trained to be one of the Republic’s top soldiers. Day is 15 year old boy who failed the trial, escaped a labor camp, has become a criminal and the Republic’s number one enemy.

Day and June live in Los Angeles where the rich live alongside the poor in different sectors. The rich live in beautiful modern buildings and have plenty of food. The poor live in broken down buildings and and fear the plagues that spread regularly throughout their neighborhoods. Day and June have never met, but June knows that the most important mission in the military is catching Day.

Their lives intersect when Day’s little brother contracts the plague. Day, desperate to find vaccines to save his family, breaks into a hospital. As he tries to escape, June’s brother, a Republic soldier is killed. Day is accused of killing him, and June is consumed with the need to find and arrest Day. In her quest to caputure Day, June uncovers things that shake her belief in the Republic and make her wonder if Day is really the enemy at all.

This book combines fast-pacing, mystery, action, suspense and a little romance into a great novel. Highly recommended for tweens and middle school.

I’m looking forward to reading Marie Lu’s sequel to Legend, Prodigy.

Kids' Lit Corner

Books kids will love!

Uncategorized

All posts in the Uncategorized category