Summer Reading Fun!
If you haven't checked out the main blog and heard about LiveBinders you might want to give it a "look see".
I discovered it yesterday and had a nice time perusing other people's binders filled with wonderful suggestions of what they found were helpful websites.
One mom put together a lovely binder filled with summer reading tips. (A Fabulous Find!)
So if you're looking for some super suggestions for your little ones click on the link and check out her beautiful summer reading binder
My fondest memory of summer is time spent with my grandma Lydia up north at her cabin in Eagle River Wisconsin.
One of the fun things we used to do was pick raspberries. Grama said we had to sing songs loudly and stomp around so that we'd scare away any black bears that might be hungry.
We never saw any, so we must have done a good job. Even tho' we brought along pails, we rarely had anything left to tote home, as we had a hard time not eating the delicious red ripe berries that literally plopped into our hands when we touched the prickly branches.
Thus, my book pick for this month is Up North at the Cabin, although, another cute book you could read that has to do with berries is Jamberry by Bruce Degen!
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The Gist:
A young girl goes up to her grandparents cabin to spend some time with them during the summer.
Why I LOVE It:
Chall conjures up special thoughts of my favorite childhood memories, and although she is writing about a lake in Minnesota it could be a cabin located just about anywhere and certainly "painted pictures" in my mind of special summers up north in Wisconsin.
Her adept use of language brings to life the local flora and fauna as viewed through the eyes of a young city girl..."a moose stands like a house on stilts..." and "cabins are built with logs like pretzels." There is no real story line, you just flow through this young vacationer's sweet summer as she baits her fishing pole with "peanut butter and worm sandwiches", canoes "through the wilderness" seeming to hear the drums of the long since silenced Indian drums or thrills at slicing through the "silver waves" while waterskiing.
The textured oil paintings by Steve Johnson add to the lazy-hazy days of summer, suggesting past and shadowed memories, a recollection of quiet times and the mysteries deep within the cool woods that will warm her when "frosted windows cloud the sun." All of this happily takes you into the book, especially if you too have enjoyed and savored these same special moments as I have.
The other reason I love it, is my daughter Kelli bought me this book while she was on a class trip.
Photo of Marsha Wilson Chall compliments of her website. Click on the link to check it out.
Storytelling Tips:
Before you begin the story, tell the children to close their eyes and picture their favorite place to go for the summer. Then have them open their eyes and toss a beach ball or some other summery object and whoever is holding it gets to share their favorite place to go.
Show a map of the United States and ask the students where their state is. Now ask them if anyone knows where Minnesota is, then show them where the state is and tell them a little bit about it.
Ask the children what they think "sunnies" are on the page that's across from the picture where the family is eating. I thought the author was referring to eggs sunny side up, but she contacted me and told me that they are sunfish!
The paintings are just lovely in this book. Choose 3 to 5 and ask the children which is their favorite and why they chose it. My personal favorite is the one where the girl is on the dock in her bathing suit. She is looking out at the sparkling water. I often did that as a little girl. I love the way the sun shines like diamonds glittering on the water.
Ask for a show of hands to see how many children have gone to a cabin or a lake. You can graph these results as well as several other things in the book. Click on the link for the graphs.
Magic Tricks:
Using a change bag, I show the children that it is empty. I pass out several worms. I ask them what they think will come out of the bag. We say the magic words: Happy summer vacation! or Up North at the Cabin and I produce a fish puppet that helps me do whatever I want him to do like introduce the story, or review parts of the book etc.
Minnesota is known for the loons that cry out with their haunting calls especially in the evening. I bought one of the Audubon stuffed birds that make bird sounds. I put it in my Red Box or you can also use a duck pan.
I show the children that the box/pan is empty, I sprinkle in some silver glitter, shut the box/put the lid on; we all call out like a loon and then I produce the stuffed bird who answers our call when I squeeze it.
Writing Extension:
Make an Our Summer Class Book where your students trace and complete the sentences: My favorite place to go for the summer is... and My favorite thing to do during the summer is... Click on the link to view/print a copy to make with your class/child.
Art Project: Run off a copy of my master of a log cabin. Make a sample so that you can show your students how to cut the door so that it opens and shuts.
To make it more of keepsake, take a photo of your students wearing summer attire, print them off and have them glue "themselves" inside the cabin, coming out of the door.
Students should write "_____________'s cabin" on the line above the door. If you want, you can have children glue skinny pretzel sticks to the lines on their cabin as the simile described cabins in the story.
Click on the link to view/print the log cabin pattern.
Skill Sheets: I've designed 6 fun skill sheets that incorporate different standards and skill levels, themed around the story. Click on the link to view/print them.
Bibliography: Sorry there is no bibliography for July. I haven't taught summer school for a while now, but do check the awesome binder mentioned above for some great summer selections!
Whatever you're reading this summer I hope you have a relaxing time doing it!
Be sure and check out the FREE Easy Readers for July in the article that follows.
I don't have a big list of books for summer because we usually let out the first week of June depending on snow days. Sometimes we go to the second week of June, as is the case for this year; we are out the 10th.
I don't want to forget Father's Day, so I make sure we take a day to cover that, with some stories, making time to whip a gift together as well.
My students are always too excited about anything we make to tuck it away and save it, so I know that they will give it to their dad's as soon as they arrive home.
In this changing world, I make sure that everyone has a daddy so no one feels left out. If they don't, I adapt things to suit the child's home life.
One of my favorite Father's Day books is...
Title: My Daddy and Me (I was surprised to find out that there are quite a few books out there with this title.)
Author: Amy Sklansky
Illustrator: Ard Hoyt
Price: $3.99
The Gist:
Daddies and children play through the seasons in this simple story of love between parent and child. Drawings of all different kinds of fathers and children accompany a simple text.
Why I Like It:
It's a great way to teach description and metaphor: "We go together like honey and bees, like peanut butter and jelly, like hide and seek. Whatever the weather, we go together."
There are 4 or 5 different sets of fathers and children. The children are both girls and boys so that all of my students can relate.
They do different things around the various seasons, like a picnic, a day at the beach, camping, raking leaves, splashing in the rain, skating in the winter park and just being together, so it's a nice review of the seasons and different things you can do during them.
The illustrations are a classic pen and ink style, reminiscent of Norman Rockwell's work. He's one of my favorite artists because of the "old-fashioned real-world" America he tried to capture. I feel this kind of "happy-joy" from Ard Hoyt's illustrations as well.
Story Telling Tips: Have a discussion before you read the book. Ask your students what is their favorite thing that they do with their daddies, what do they like best about their dads? Explain as simply as possible what a metaphor is. When you are reading, pause before you read the rest of the metaphor and see if they can fill in the rest of the comparison: "We go together like peanut butter and _____________."
Writing Extension: Have children complete their own page and illustrate it. My daddy and I go together like _____________ and _______________. Tell them you'd like them to be original and think of something special and not use any of the metaphors that were used in the book. Collect the pages and make a class My Daddy and Me book. Click on the link to view/print a sample page for your students to fill out.
Amy Sklansky has a wonderful website with teaching aids including writing extensions for this book. Check it out by clicking on the link.
Art Activity: This book makes a nice Father's Day gift. I often buy a "kiddie-lit" book about fathers, for my son Jason to read to my grandsons Jeremiah, Gabriel and Joshua. It's also nice to make a homemade card. I like to have my students include coupons as a fun tuck-in. Click on the link to view/print the masters. Daddy Card & Coupons
Magic Trick: I show the children that the dove pan is empty. We toss a yellow paper bee into the pan. I put the lid on. The children say: "My daddy and me go together like bees and honey." I take the lid off and a small jar of honey is inside. We later have teddy grahams and honey for our snack.
You could do the same with peanut butter and jelly if you wanted to, or you could produce the Reese's Pieces that look like M&M's.
As I've said before, I incorporate magic in my teaching as a method to grab students' attention, introduce literature, teach all sorts of subjects, report card standards, and vocabulary words. Click on the link to view some magic videos.
For a list of other books I read for June, click on the link to view/print a copy of my bibliography for this month. Bibliography for June
Picture of Amy Sklansky from Amazon.com
I hope you make time to escape and relax with a good book when school is out.
Happy reading! Have a super summer soaking up the sunshine.
An Old Favorite:
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The Gist: Why I love it: The illustrations are adorable. I love the Alfred Hitchcock like twist at the end of the story where the child's friend finds out that the backyard giant is really a sunflower! My students too are amazed as they are thinking the same thing! We review the story and the "lightbulb" comes on for them as they see the little boy who planted the sunflower is really explaining it pretty appropriately! My students LOVE this story.
I share with them about the time my own children planted sunflowers on our land behind our home and made a sunflower house, and then I also read the story Sunflower House by Eve Bunting. This is a nice companion book to My Backyard Giant and offers a graphing opportunity. Click on the link to view/print the storybook graph.
Story telling tips: I ask my students "What do you think will happen next?" while I'm reading the book. Having students make predictions is a great way to get them involved; it's also a good way to improve their listening, comprehension and writing skills as they learn to build their own stories with various plots and endings. Ask them if they were surprised at the ending and if any of them guessed that the giant was really a sunflower. Go back and review how the child described his "giant friend" and see if he really did it appropriately.
Sunflower Magic tricks: Because I don't want to give away the ending of the story, I do one trick after I'm done reading each of the stories. I show my students that the change bag is empty. We review that in order for sunflowers to grow they need seeds. I give each of my students a sunflower seed and have them drop it into my change bag. We say the chant: "Water-soil-seeds & sun, make growing fun!" as magic words and then I produce a string of sunflowers. I made this string by taking the blossoms off a bouquet of sunflowers and hot gluing 10 of them to a green piece of ribbon. This makes for an awesome trick as I pull the string out very slowly and the string of sunflowers is taller than me! We then measure it with a yardstick.
I have a book of sunflower photographs that I show them as I read a few sunflower facts that amaze them. Click on the link to view/print my list of sunflower facts.
Sunflower Magic trick #2: I made icons for the chant above and pass out the 7 pieces. Those children place them in my duck pan as we say the chant. I put the lid on the pan and produce a bouquet of sunflowers. To view my magic videos and see what a change bag and duck/dove pan are, click on the link. I also sell these magic trick products.
Math Extensions: Buy a bag of sunflower seeds with the shells on, and a bag of salted-shelled sunflower seeds. Pass out one of each to the students. Discuss the similarities and differences. Make a Venn diagram on the board, and have the students compare and contrast them. Pass out the Venn diagram sheet and have them make their own copy.
Pass out a few salted and shelled sunflower seeds to each student. Graph whether they like them our not. Click on the link to view/print the sunflower seed Venn diagram and sunflower seed graph activities.
A great companion to this activity is my free easy-reader for the month entitled: The Seeds On My Sunflower. I have another math skill sheet included with that booklet too.
Students TRACE & WRITE the numbers and number words, dot "seeds" on their sunflowers with a marker and then count the groups/sets of sunflower seeds in the boxes and GLUE them to the correct spaces in their booklet.
I've also included a certificate of praise as well as 10 number word wall word-flashcards. The free easy-readers for the month are listed in the article after Books of the Month in the side blog. Click on the link to check out the other freebies, or simply scroll down to the bottom of this article.
Sunflower Skill Sheet: Have students look at the number on the sunflower leaf and make that many dots (seeds) on their sunflowers using a marker. I've provided a blank sheet so that you can make different numbers if you'd like. Click on the link to view/print sunflower skill sheets.
Art Project: To save time, I like to buy sturdy brown 8-inch paper plates for this project, but you can also purchase inexpensive white plates and then have your students cut out brown construction paper circles and glue them to the center of the plate.
Run off copies of the sunflower petals on yellow construction paper, or make a tag board template and trace it. Have students cut out their sunflower and glue it to the back of their brown paper plate.
Put a dollop of Aleene's Tacky Glue on a paper plate and have students use Q-tips to dab dots on the center of their sunflowers and then press a shelled or unshelled sunflower seed to the glue dot. You can use either kind of seeds or a mixture of both.
Pre-cut 2-inch by 12-inch strips of green construction paper for stems. Students glue it to the back of their sunflower and add 2-4 leaves. Click on the link to view/print the sunflower art project templates.
Bibliography for May. Click on the link to view/print a copy. As you can see by the photo, I've added quite a few new books for Mother's Day. Click on the link to view/print a partial new list for books about mom's.
I'm currently revamping my May bibliography as I've purchased more flower and frog books and want to include some books that spill over into the spring-summer category like Ten in the Meadow by John Butler. I also like his Ten in the Den.
The illustrations of these animal are cuddly-cute and offer a great opportunity to sequence animal characters. I usually buy two books and cut up one to laminate and then put magnets on the back of the animals so that my students can put them on the board as we read the story. After the story, I pass the animals out again and we try and sequence the characters.
After story time I choose 10 students to lie on the floor and we chant "There were 10 in the bed and the little one said roll over..." We run through it twice so that everyone has a turn to roll over and fall off the "bed". This is great counting fun and a cute way to review subtraction!
If you're looking for something special, or need a recommendation, feel free to drop me a line. I'd love hearing from you if you have other books that you enjoy sharing with your students at this time. diane@teachwithme.com!
Something else you might find helpful is the "100 New Book Lists" that just came out by Scholastic. They tell you the grade level equivalent and even list if there's an Accelerated Reader quiz to go with the book. They have lists for animals, biographies, families, folktales, holidays, read-alouds and science fiction with more categories under each one of those. Click on the link to check it out.
Whatever you're reading this month, I hope you have a simply marvelous May!
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The Gist and…Why I LOVE it:
Caterpillar, Ladybug and Bee live in a lovely garden and are friends. However, Bee and Ladybug can fly and Caterpillar cannot. He is always saddened when he is left by himself when they fly away to go off exploring. One day when they return they cannot find Caterpillar anywhere so they ask the wise snail where he might be. Snail tells them that he is sleeping in a chrysalis. They wait for him to wake up and as he peeks out he announces that he is now a lovely Butterfly. They fly off together leaving poor snail behind.
Story Telling Tips:
I have a different voice for each of the main characters of the story. I hot glue a foam mask to a paint stick and when I read that character’s part I hold the mask over my face. (I ordered my masks from Oriental Trading Co.)
Math Extension:
After the story we graph which character in the story was our favorite. Click on the link to view/print a copy of the Caterpillar’s Wish graph.
Science-Art Extension:
We make a life cycle of a butterfly caterpillar. Click on the link to view/print the caterpillar/butterfly life cycle pattern.
When you get done with the art project, students can use their caterpillar as a bookmark. They will enjoy taking their caterpillar home and explaining the life cylce of a butterfly to their families.
To get the "wiggles" out, I have my students use their caterpillar as a manipulative to do the Caterpillar Pokey. Click on the link to view/print the Caterpillar Pokey song.
Magic Trick:
I put a caterpillar in my change bag, which I refer to as a chrysalis, out pops a butterfly. If I use my double-load change bag I put an egg in and then out comes a caterpillar. I re-insert the caterpillar and then out comes the butterfly.
The magic word of course is metamorphosis. Click on the link to view the butterfly life cycle magic trick on my video page; scroll down to the 6th one.
The magic trick really helps nail the concept and the new "chrysalis" and “metamorphosis” vocabulary words. They could see this a zillion times and never get tired of seeing it again and again.
We review the life cycle of the butterfly via a poster; I point to the various steps. I also pass out numbered pieces to a life cycle of a butterfly puzzle that I also bought from Insect Lore. I call for a number and we arrange the pieces on the floor.
I purchase live larvae from this company as well and we watch the caterpillars eat and eat and then finally go into the J-position, form their chrysilis and then emerge as Painted Lady butterflies in about 14 days. My students are absolutely thrilled. It's well worth the money as students can see this fascinating process first hand. I re-use the butterfly house that I purchased initially and then simply re-order the caterpillars each year.
Reader’s Theatre:
After I read the story, I assign parts to my students who are not shy. I made simple costumes out of large towels by simply cutting a hole in the center so that they would easily fit over a child's head.
I cut up another black towel and appliqued heart and stripe details to the ladybug and bee towels and then outlined the details with puffy paint. I drew a swirl on the purple snail towel with silver puffy paint.
I sewed a black thorax stripe down the center of two turquoise towels to make a huge butterfly and then appliqued on yellow hearts. The children held up foam masks. A plastic headband with pipe cleaner antennae and laminated construction paper heart pieces on the ends completed their costumes.
Since my students can’t read I sit in the audience and prompt them as to what they should say and then they repeat it. The rest of my students sit in the audience. I have two helpers hold up a grey sheet that caterpillar crawls under. This is the chrysalis.
Another student plays the butterfly. She is also hiding behind the sheet 'til it is time for her to pop out. The audience yells "metamorphosis!"
I made a black cone shaped stinger that I safety pin to my bee’s bottom. On the bee's back is a sign that says: The End. After the production, all performers come out and take a bow and then bumblebee turns around so everyone can read the sign.
The audience claps. My students enjoy doing this so much that I’ll repeat it several times over the next few days so that everyone can have a turn. By the third time I don’t have to prompt much as to what they need to say.
Whatever books you're reading this month, I hope they help you soar to new heights!
An Old Favorite:
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The Gist and…Why I LOVE it:
A cookie-cutter like gingerbread character shares his moods and feelings via colors. "Some days are yellow. Some are blue. On different days I'm different too. You'd be surprised how many ways I change on Different Colored Days." He takes you through all of the colors of the rainbow + pink, brown, black and even gray. It's a great book for helping students realize that they have a variety of moods and emotions and that these feelings are all normal and OK. It gives children vocabulary to help express themselves, and gives parents an opportunity to explain that they too feel this way as well. "Mommy's having a brown day today." May be all that is needed to explain an exhausted feeling after a hard day at work.
Dr. Seuss has not forgot to rhyme. Here he does it in couplet form. I love the simpleness of reading just a few sentences. The differing font sizes and types, add to the picture of the words and help me tell the story. For example the words "...Then I feel slow and low, low down..." for the brown bear are at the bottom of the page. They are typed in white on a black back ground and sink lower and lower 'til the word down is at the very bottom, way down low. Similar things are done for the purple color where the words sad and groan seem to droop, and the sentence "I walk alone." is small and off all by itself, almost lost on a huge page, typed just underneath the dinosaur.
The illustrators, Johnson and Fancher, are a husband and wife team. Seuss wanted someone else to do the artwork for this book, he was looking for something different than his usual whimsy and they seem to capture the very essence of what he wanted. The colors and textures of the pictures are captivating and I feel they really encompass the moods and emotions of the colors. I like that they take up two entire pages, so the illustrations are "in your face" and draw you into the book so that you want to touch the pages.
Story Telling Tips:
I pause when I come to a color word and have my students fill in the blank as I point to the object on the page. If the colors are happy, I make my voice light and cheerful; if the colors are sad, I read them with a deeper slower voice. I sound "sad" if the color is "sad". I sound "angry" if the color is "angry". I say the word LOUD very loud. I HOWL and GROWL after I read those words and then ask my students to do the same. They usually do it rather softly, so I'll say: "I can't hear you!" Then they are very loud! For the last page I also spread my arms and then point to myself. I have my students do the same. After I'm done reading the story I ask my students if they feel the same way. Which colors do they agree with? Which don't they? We graph our favorite and least favorite "mood color." Click on the link for color graphs.
Magic Trick:
We've been studying secondary colors so I put a red and yellow scarf in my change bag and ask them what color scarf will come out? An orange one does. Then I put a blue and yellow scarf in and ask what color scarf will come out? A green one does. Finally I put a blue and red scarf in and ask them what color scarf will come out? A purple one does. I have 3 change bags so all of mine are loaded ahead of time. If you only have one, simply distract them with some talk, or turn your back to them and write something on the board while you load the new color scarf into the change bag. If you have a double-load change bag you only have to do this once.
Art Project:
Run off the template of the gingerbread person on light brown construction paper. Students CUT it out and glue their school photo to the center of the face. Students then glue their gingerbread character to a sheet of white construction paper.
Put a dollop of each color paint featured in the story on a paper plate with a Q-tip for each color resting on the paint blob. Set a paper plate-paint pallet in the center of each one of your student tables.
Children WRITE their name on their gingerbread person. Using the Q-tip, students put a dollop of each color around their gingerbread person. Set aside to dry. If you don't want to mess with paint, use my heart master and have students color the hearts with crayons. (This is a sample.) Your bulletin board caption can read: ______________________'s students have many colored days! Click on the link to view/print the My Many Colored Days templates.
Writing Extension:
Each student can make their own color booklet or you can assign a color to several students and make a class book. Students TRACE then WRITE the entire sentence or just the color word. Students then think of how that color makes them feel and WRITE that descriptive word down. I have my class brainstorm before hand, and we write many words on the board for them to choose from.
Children draw a picture of their mood. It can be an animal, the gingerbread person, something else that represents that feeling/emotion or merely scribbles if they want. Click on the link to view/print the My Many Colored Days Booklets
Books for Comparison & Contrast:
These are other books in my "Moods/Emotions/Feelings" collection of books that my students really enjoy. They are great for further discussion and comparison-contrast Venn Diagrams. I've listed them according to my all-time favorites. They are all great.
Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods, By Jamie Lee Curtis; Sometimes I'm Bombaloo, Rachel Vail; Feelings To Share From A-Z, Todd Snow; and The Way I Feel by Janan Cain.
Whatever books you're reading this month I hope they color you HAPPY!
Bibliography For Dr. Seuss Books
