Posts tagged ‘cities’
123. Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City by Barbara Bush
Retell: Barbara Bush zooms in on gothic building structures, bridge towers and overpasses to describe the adaptations of birds who thrive in urban areas.
Topics: birds, pigeons, urban areas, cities, habitats, migration, camouflage, adaptation, roosts, crows, shelter
Units of Study: Content-Area, Nonfiction
Reading Skills: envisionment, questioning, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: I’m currently looking for books that will support the current Nonfiction unit. I considered reading this book immediately, but I think I’m going to save it for our Content-Area unit. During that unit we’ll be studying Food Chains and Habitats in Science making this book a perfect fit. Urban Roosts is a book that will encourage urban readers to reconsider the common pigeon, finch or crow–a great book for modeling envisionment in nonfiction.
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.
10. Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse
Retell: A young girl anticipates the long awaited thunderstorms that will cool down the humid city she lives in.
Topics: heat, rain, family, summer, cities, thunderstorms
Units of Study: personal narrative, poetry
Reading Skills: envisionment, making connections
Writing Skills: including similes, using active verbs, personification, alliteration
My Thoughts: This book makes me wish it was more humid outside right now. Every New Yorker without air conditioning will be able to relate to this book. I love how Hesse uses poetic devices throughout this small moment story, making it a nice mentor text for personal narrative or poetry unit. She includes personification: “The smell of hot tar and garbage bullies the air…” There is alliteration and assonance: “The first drops plop down big, making dust dance all around us.” Hesse teaches young writers to slow down and zoom in on ordinary moments.
Teachable Texts 