It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 7/23/2018

Now that we have been back from vacation for a week, I was able to concentrate more on my TBR pile that seems to have overtaken our kitchen table and my bedside nightstand! I'm really enjoying my summer reading this year as I'm getting to select titles that friends have recommended be it in person or those I follow online.

Graphic novels are an area I've been trying to concentrate on this summer as my students love them and I want to be able to recommend more titles to them in this area. I was able to complete two graphic novels in the past week or so and I must say, I enjoyed them both!

Last Things by Marissa Moss was a beautiful graphic novel about family, love, loss and the ALS that took the life of the author/illustrator's husband Harvey. As a mom, I could relate to this story in so many ways. At the time this story takes place, Marissa's boys were about the same age as my boys are right now. I couldn't imagine going through what this family did! There were many tears shed in the reading of this book. I couldn't put it down!  It's such a great read!

Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke was a great adventure story! It's a take on the familiar tale of Jack and the Beanstalk but this story takes place in a garden with some very large and unusual plants. I will be recommending this one to those readers looking for a quick and easy read with a lot of adventure.

In addition to the graphic novels, I was able to read some picture books this week that I definitely plan to read with my elementary students once school starts in September.

As soon as I read All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold, I sent an email to my elementary principal and asked if we could read this story together on the first day of school to our elementary student body! I love the message of this book that everyone is welcome at this school and that's a message we want to convey with our students. 

Ryan T. Higgins is one of my favorite author/illustrators.  His book Be Quiet! is one of my must-read books every school year. In this new book, We Don't Eat Our Classmates, we have a little dinosaur who must learn that with going to school, she cannot eat her classmates! It is a difficult to learn, but one that is necessary. :-)

Finally, I read Drawn Together by Minh Le and Dan Santat. In this book a young boy is dropped off at his grandfather's for the day and you can tell by the look on his face that this really isn't where he wants to be. Grandpa doesn't speak the boy's language and it's relatively difficult to communicate until art supplies are brought out and they both start drawing together. This is a great story of two worlds coming together through a shared activity!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 6/18/2018

Throughout the school year, my TBR pile seems to grow by the week. I so look forward to summer vacation when the pace of life slows down and I have a chance to read many of those books that I've been saving. One of my goals this summer was to start writing more about the books I'm reading and that lead me to reviving this blog with my first #IMWAYR in quite a few years.

Have you ever found yourself so engrossed in a book that you're "stealing" time out of your day wherever you can to sneak in another chapter or just a few more pages? That's how I was with Amal Unbound by Aisha Saed. Amal is a Pakastani girl who loves school and learning and longs to be a teacher someday. When she has to stay home to care for her younger siblings instead of going to school, it is devastating for her. While on a trip to the market alone, she ends up confronting the son of her village's landlord and is eventually sent to be a servant in their home to pay off her family's debt. Amal holds fast to her dreams and persists through many hardships at the Khan residence including run-ins with other servants. I loved the message of this book and it's definitely going to be one that I'll be recommending to students in the fall. 

I was able to read a couple picture books this past week that I really enjoyed as well.  The first one was This House, Once by Deborah Freedman. This book made me think about all of the pieces of our house and what they once were. I think this book would lend itself well to a discussion with my elementary students about the different pieces of their houses and what they were...once. The illustrations in this book were beautiful!

What young child doesn't want a pet? In the book Charlotte and the Pet Rock by Stephen W. Martin, Charlotte is no different. When her parents give her a pet rock, it really isn't the pet she was dreaming about, but she makes the best of it and treats her rock just as she would any other pet. Charlotte and her rock do everything together and the plot twist at the end of the book made me smile. I can't wait to use this book in the fall with my students and pair it with a pet rock making activity!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? December 17, 2012

This time of year is one of my favorites as far as reading picture books.  There is just something about Christmas/Winter books that make me want to snuggle in with my two little boys and read just a few more of them on these cold December nights.  The following are just a handful of the Christmas/Winter books that I've shared with my elementary students and/or my boys and they were big hits with them!

Living in Wisconsin, all my students know that winter is definitely NOT the warmest season here, but after I read the book, they had to admit that the little boy was right about how winter CAN be the warmest season.  The warm winter illustrations in this book really added to the text.  I loved how the little boy stated that his coat puffed up with feathers and warmth and how his hands get to wear warm sweaters over them in winter.  Images of hot cocoa and grilled cheese made this a book a true winter gem.

My elementary students are in LOVE with Charlie the Ranch Dog!  Charlie claims he's such a help on the ranch, but we all know the truth.  Charlie lives for two things: naps and bacon!  When a kitty arrives at the ranch for Christmas, Charlie isn't sure how this is all going to work out, but he's pretty sure it isn't going to be good.  After all, what are kittens good for?

Children love to help with Christmas things and Olivia the pig is no different.  She is always trying to help out be it by feeding her brother William, setting the table for Christmas Eve supper, or checking on Santa.  While not all of her helping plans work out as planned, it's the thought that counts.  Readers will smile at everything Olivia does and it may even remind them of ways they've tried to help out, too!

These are just a few of neat picture books that I've shared with my classes over the past couple of weeks.  I hope that you're able to share some of these with your classes or children before the holidays are over.  Happy Holiday Reading!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? July 2, 2012

Now that school is out, I have been reading a lot to my two young songs ages 4 and 5.  With the weather as warm as it has been, it has been perfect to stay in the air conditioned house and enjoy a wide variety of great books!

This summer we are participating in the Read to Lead in Wisconsin State Parks program.  Children ages 5-9 can read or have books read to them from the list.  If they read 20 or more and turn in their form, they are entered in to a drawing for a Kindle Fire or one of 10 other eReaders.  How exciting!  For more information on this program, please see my link above.

Books we have recently enjoyed from the list are as follows:

We have quite a few more of the titles from the list on reserve at the library, so what we'll read next week all depends on what comes in via interlibrary loan!  

We Want Your Summer Reading Pictures!

This summer the Kickapoo Library is again having a photo submission opportunity where students and staff can show off all the cool places they're reading over summer vacation.  This is the third consecutive year for the photo submissions and it grows every year.  Students and staff are welcome to submit more than one picture to me of their summer reading and I'll feature it on our library webpage along with the display cases for our annual All School Spaghetti Supper in August.  I get many compliments on these photos and can't wait to see all the places you're reading!

Jake and his cousin Claire reading on the Nooks last summer

Braeden and Brock reading while on vacation last summer

Book Spine Poetry

April is National Poetry Month and in honor of that, I thought that I'd have some of my elementary classes create Book Spine Poems.  I had never done this activity before, so I figured I'd better create some book spine poems of my own to show the students when they came in.  Here are just a couple of those that I created.

A Garden Poem

A Camping Poem

After introducing my poems to the students, I turned them loose in the library.  I told them that they could use any books in the library from Easy Books to Fiction Books to all kinds of Non-fiction.  I had the students pair up as I thought this would make it a little easier for them.  It was very interesting to see the topics that they wanted to create their poems about.  There were poems about the Titanic, poems about lots of animals and poems about food.  The kids did a great job creating some real imaginative poems.  Take a look at their work!

Ryne & Becca's Poem

Tava and Ally's Sweet Poem

Daniel and Wylie's Sharp Teeth Poem

Mitchell & Ruger's Poem

Ingrid & Kayla's Poem

A Farm Poem by Ryan and Ayden

Amber & Molly's Tasty Poem

A Seussical Week

Last week at school we celebrated Dr. Seuss' 108th birthday in a big way at Kickapoo!  We were doing activities of various kinds daily.  There were dress up days all week including Hat Day, My Many Colors Day where each class wore a different color, Wacky Wednesday which was cancelled due to our Ice Day, Wear red in honor of the Cat in the Hat, and finally, Pajama Day on Friday.  It was so fun to see all the kids dressed up for the different days.  Elementary kids eat these kinds of activities up!

Eva with her cute hat

In the Library, we did all sorts of fun activities during the week, too.  I had a Seuss Trivia Contest for every day of the week with one question for students in grades 4K-2 and one question for students in grades 3-5.  The kids couldn't wait to hear what the question for the day was so they could submit their answers in the jars in the Library.  For every question, I had winners from each grade level so that more students were winners. I was able to get some really cute Seuss pens off of Amazon and some Seuss buttons/tattoos/bookmarks.

3rd graders answering the trivia question

Perhaps my favorite Library Activity last week was making the Cat in the Hat cookies I saw on Pinterest out of Oreos, Gummy Savers and frosting.  The kids had a blast making the hat cookies and they told me they tasted so good!  It was fun to watch their faces as they concentrated so hard in putting together the cookies.

Dylan putting the frosting on his Cat in the Hat cookie

We had a very fun week and can't wait for next year to see all the fun, new things we'll be doing to celebrate Seuss again!