Posts filed under ‘Picture Books’
74. First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg
Retell: Sarah Hartwell is nervous about going to her new school. She hides under the covers while Mr. Hartwell urges her to get out of bed. Luckily the students, the principal and the staff are friendly to Sarah and she eventually feels ready for the first day of school. It’s a good thing because Sarah isn’t a kid–she’s the teacher.
Topics: first day of school, nervousness, teachers
Units of Study: Realistic Fiction,
Tribes: mutual respect, personal best, attentive listening
Habits of Mind: perseverance
Reading Skills: making connections, making predictions
Thoughts: I can’t believe tomorrow is the first day of school! I’m surprised by my own first day jitters. Last year I looped with my class. The night before the first day of school I remember feeling more relaxed because I already knew my students. Tomorrow I will be starting with a new batch of 4th grade learners. Though I’m not starting at a new school like Sarah Hartwell, I still feel anxious. I can only imagine how my students feel. I hope that after reading this book tomorrow my students will think of ways to help each other fight the first day jitters.
Welcome back to school everyone!
73. David Goes to School by David Shannon
Retell: David is a rambunctious boy who wreaks havoc at school. After coloring on the desks he stays in after school to clean them up.
Topics: school, rules, behavior, bathroom, calling out
Units of Study: Personal Narrative
Tribes: mutual respect, attentive listening, personal best
Writing Skills: using memories to generate notebook entries
Thoughts: Here is a just-for-fun read aloud for the first day of school. It’s a great read for beginning a discussion about rules, agreements and norms. If you have access to Guys Read you may want to share David Shannon’s story about how he created the David books. The anthology has cool original pictures of the young version of his other book No, David!
72. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
Retell: A mother starts a tradition of singing a song to her son: “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.” Through the terrible twos, adolescence and adulthood the mother sings this song to her child. When the mother becomes old and sick, it is the son’s turn to sing the song.
Topics: family, childhood, parenting
Units of Study: Personal Narrative, Memoir
Tribes: mutual respect
Reading Skills: making connections, prediction
Writing Skills: using traditions and special moments in your life to create a story
Thoughts: I just got back from my friend’s baby shower. I’m kicking myself for not adding this book to her other gifts. This is a book that is sure to make the reader teary-eyed. If you are strong enough to read it in front of your class, it could be a great mentor text for generating ideas for personal narratives or memoirs. This book could inspire young authors to think and write about the traditions, the songs, or customs important to their own families.
71. The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco
Retell: When Mary Ellen becomes bored of reading her grampa takes her on a hunt for a bee tree. People from the community join them as they run through the Michigan countryside chasing bees. By the end of the bee tree chase Mary Ellen learns that there are many similarities between chasing knowledge through the pages of a book and chasing bees.
Topics: reading, outdoors, adventure, grandparents, community, knowledge
Units of Study: Realistic Fiction, Personal Narrative, Authoring an Independent Reading Life
Tribes: personal best
Habits of Mind: responding with wonderment and awe
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, interpretation
My Thoughts: I like reading this book at the beginning of the year when we author our own independent reading lives. I think this year I want to keep referring back to the book when we have particularly juicy conversations. When students ask interesting, provocative questions I could refer to them as ‘honey questions’. I need to make a banner with Grampa’s words: “[Adventure, knowledge and wisdom] do not come easily. You have to pursue them. Just like we ran after the bees to find their tree, so you must also chase these things through the pages of a book!”
70. Agatha’s Feather Bed: Not Just Another Wild Goose Story by Carmen Agra
Retell: Agatha is famous for saying, “Everything comes from something.” One night, as she dreams on her new feather bed she is visited by naked geese who want their feathers back. Agatha comes up with an interesting compromise.
Topics: origins, fabric, responsibility
Units of Study: Social Issues
Tribes: mutual respect
Habits of Mind: responding with wonderment and awe, thinking flexibly
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense (understanding idioms and puns), inference
Writing Skills: using first-person narration, including puns
My Thoughts: In her author’s note Deedy writes, “What we choose to discuss with our children concerning ivory, whalebone, or the Brazilian rain forest is a matter of both individual conscience and collective responsibility. But the first step is to ask.” This book is all about inspiring people to ask, “Where does it come from?” Reading these words I’m reminded of a 4th grader who seemed so shocked when she discovered that leather is made from the hides of cows. The text contains a lot of interesting features. When describing her old mattress as ‘lumpy’ and ‘bumpy’ the letters actually look lumpy and bumpy. There are lots of cute idioms, puns and play-on-words. I know I’ll have to explain to my students why the name of the catalog (B.B. Lean) is so funny.
69. Big Al by Andrew Clements
Retell: Big Al is one scary fish. He happens to also be the nicest fish you’ll ever meet. Unfortunately, the other fish in the sea don’t realize that. Big Al tries to make friends but the others can’t get past the way he looks. One day the little fish get caught in a net. Big Al comes to the rescue and the other fish realize what a wonderful fish he really is.
Topics: fish, friendship, respecting differences, appearances, golden rule
Units of Study: Social Issues, Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: mutual respect
Habits of Mind: thinking flexibly
Thoughts: It’s that time of year again. I’m exhausted from moving desks from one end of the room to the other, cleaning up after leaks under the sink (disgusting!!), and labeling hundreds of books destined to enter my classroom library. I was almost too tired to choose a read aloud today. But then my friend Katie came to my rescue and brought this read aloud which she plans to read during the first week of school. This is a wonderful book for discussing the meaning of mutual respect. Some may read this book and think, “Why did Big Al go and save the rest of the fish? They didn’t give him the time of day. They don’t deserve his help.” Even though Big Al was not being respected by the other fish, he didn’t let the fish get caught in the net. He did what was right and not only gained many friends, but taught the others a valuable lesson.
68. Old MacDonald Had an Apartment House by Judi Barrett
Retell: A super decides to turn the apartment building he manages into a vegetable garden. When Mr. Wrental, the owner, finds out he’s furious. But when he thinks about all the money he could make, the owner has a change of heart.
Topics: gardening, apartments, cities, indoor gardening
Units of Study: Social Issues, Realistic Fiction
Habits: thinking flexibly
Reading Skills: Prediction, making connections
Writing Skills: Using the ‘rule of three’ when listing examples
My Thoughts: This is a very cute book by the author of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Before reading this book aloud, you may want to find a copy of Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic so students will understand the joke behind the cover illustration. I can certainly identify with the characters in this book. Both my apartment and my classroom get little to no light. My classroom doesn’t have any windows at all so I wrote a grant proposal for a GroLab on Donors Choose and it was funded in three days! When it arrives I plan on reading this book to the class. Perhaps after the read aloud we’ll try growing vegetables.
66. Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
Retell: Grace loves to act. When her school puts on a production of Peter Pan she is eager to audition. Her classmates tell her that she can’t be Peter Pan because she is a girl and she’s black. After an inspiring visit to the ballet Grace finds confidence to audition.
Topics: reading, stories, acting, school, gender issues, racism, role models, theater, ballet
Units of Study: Social Issues, Realistic Fiction, Character
Tribes: Personal Best
Habits of Mind: persistence, striving for accuracy, thinking interdependently
Reading Skills: inference, interpretation
My Thoughts: Amazing Grace has been a favorite read aloud of mine for introducing the Social Issues unit. However, I’m thinking of reading it earlier this year when introducing the Habit of Mind–‘persistence’. Grace is a good example of how one persists when they have a dream. Grace’s dream is to play Peter Pan. Despite the discouragement she receives from a few of her classmates, Grace practices over the weekend and ends up getting the part. However, it’s interesting to note that this persistence didn’t just come from herself–she had to be encouraged by her family. I wonder if Grace would have succeeded if her Nana hadn’t taken her to the ballet.
65. Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully
Retell: Mirette works at her mother’s boarding house. When a mysterious stranger asks for a room and takes his meals alone, Mirette is intrigued. One day she discovers the stranger walking across the clothesline. The stranger turns out to be the great Bellini, a famous tightrope walker. Mirette falls in love with the high wire and is determined to walk high above a crowd.
Topics: artists, dreams, Paris
Units of Study: Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction
Tribes: personal best
Habits of Mind: persistence, striving for accuracy
Reading Skills: interpretation, prediction
Writing Skills: incorporating diaglogue
My Thoughts: Though this book is not a true story, the tightrope walker is based on a real person–a daredevil named Blondin who walked over Niagara Falls on a high wire. I like it when authors describe their inspiration in the author’s note. I plan on using this book when we focus on the Habits of Mind ‘persistence’ and ‘ striving for accuracy.’ The author shows the main character making a lot of mistakes and having someone fine tune her every movement.
63. Miss Malarkey Doesn’t Live in Room 10 by Judy Finchler
Retell: A student is convinced that his teachers live at school. His theory is challenged when Miss Malarkey moves into his apartment building.
Topics: teachers, school
My Thoughts: Several weeks ago Colleen Cruz conducted a workshop on interactive read aloud at our school. In addition to doing interactive read aloud each day she suggests that we also tuck in moments when we read aloud books that are just plain fun. Miss Malarkey Doesn’t Live in Room 10 is one of those ‘just for fun’ books. I wonder how many of my students actually believe that I live in an apartment and not in my classroom? I plan on reading this aloud sometime during the first week of school. Perhaps I can use ‘just for fun’ read alouds as an incentive to get students to the rug faster.
Teachable Texts 