Duck for President by Doreen Cronin

This book would be good to use around election time, whether it be for a governor, president, or senator.  If elections aren't going on, this book could still be used if there is a unit in the curriculum about the government.  The students could become engaged in the topic of elections through this fun and brightly illustrated book.  This book could also start class elections for older elementary grades.

This book could also be used to teach the importance of reading the words in the pictures, and not just the text on the bottom of the page.  The election signs are just as important in this book as the text, since they show the election totals and other important information.

"Duck For President" could also be used to work with predictions.  The children could predict what the Duck was going to do next (what position he was going to run for and the ending).  

This book can be used for a variety of reasons, and its fun and engaging story and illustrations will keep the children's attention.

Spoon

Author: Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Illustrator: Scott Magoon

Spoon is a book about a little spoon who is feeling down about himself. He sees all the other utensils having fun and he wishes he could have as much fun as they do. Spoon's mother takes him around to see all the other utensils and sees what exactly makes them all special. What spoon doesn't realize is that all the other utensils are saying the same things about Spoon. It takes the help of his mother to make Spoon realize how lucky he is and how much fun he gets to have.

This book is a wonderful book for any age including older students. This book has a message that we all should be celebrating what makes us special instead of comparing ourselves to others. This is a lesson that all students should learn and this book can be read to them to remind them that we should all be happy with what we have. We are all unique and it is something to celebrate.

Hello Ocean

Author: Muñoz Ryan

Illustrator: Mark Astrella

Translator: Yanitzia Canetti

Summary: Hello Ocean is about a young girl spending the day at the beach. The narrator describes her experience through the senses of sight, smell, tasting, feeling, and hearing. The book ends with the girl leaving the beach, but eventually she will come back to visit her favorite place.

Relevance to Literacy Development: This book can be used for a kindergarten class, but I would use the book for a first and second grade classroom. For a kindergarten class, the book can be used as an introduction to the five senses. In the text, each sense is in bold print to emphasize the differences to the readers. The illustrations provide readers with great imagery to increase comprehension. Not only does the book focus on the senses, it also exposes readers to the elements of figurative language such as alliteration, personification, metaphors, and rhyming. For example, the book states, "Waves that pounce in rowdy play, tide that tickles, with splashing spray, squishy, sandy, soggy ground, slippery seaweed that wraps around..." is an alliteration. Therefore, the book is useful for first and second graders to learn to identify a pattern within a text. Since I am an ESL minor, I love how the book provide Spanish translations on each page next to the sentence in English. As a result, the ESL students will have the opportunity to make connections from their native language and apply it to the target language to become a successful reader.

Where Is the Green Sheep?

Author: Mem Fox
Illustrator: Judy Horacek

Where Is the Green Sheep? Is a story that shows a variety of sheep and where they are and then it asks but where is the green sheep? It shows different sheep such as blue sheep, swing sheep, thin sheep, wide sheep, and many other kinds of sheep. At the end of the story the book has you quickly flip the page and reveals green sheep fast asleep behind a green bush.

I think this book would be great to use in a kindergarten or first grade classroom for many different reasons. You could use this book for prediction and have your students guess where green sheep is before you read the story. The book also points out different attributes of the sheep like thin and wide or up and down. This could be used to help students in math with sorting and show them new ways different things can be sorted by. Last, this book could be used to start a writing/drawing assignment for on the back cover the book asks, If you were a green sheep, where would you hide? You could then have your students write and draw a picture of where they would hide and then have them share with the class.

Stephanie's Ponytail (Book Talk)

Stephanie’s Ponytail

Author: Robert Munsch

Illustrator: Michael Martchenko

I chose this book because Robert Munsch is one of my favorite children’s authors. He has written many successful books such as “Love You Forever” among other childhood classics. Stephanie’s Ponytail in particular is a really fun story. It is about a girl who asks her mom to give her different ponytails every day before school. The problem is, every time she tries a new ponytail, the next day everyone else in school copies her and is wearing the exact same ponytail… even the boys! By the end of the story, even faculty members start to copy her hairstyles and Stephanie becomes fed up. Finally, she comes up with a clever idea of how she can get everyone to stop copying her. The ending is both funny and surprising.

This book can be used in a first or second grade classroom. The illustrations are very detailed and these really help to develop the story. The text follows a repetitive pattern so the children can begin to follow along and join in even if they can’t see the page. For example, lines such as “It’s MY ponytail, and I like it!” can be a line contributed to by the whole class. The story even incorporates a little elementary level math into the humor. For example, when Stephanie wears a ponytail in front of her face, “On the way to school she bumped into four trees, three cars, two houses, and one Principal.” I believe this book can be used for a number of different purposes in a classroom. It can be used as lesson against bullying or being a “copy cat” and being happy with who you are. It can be used for counting strategies, counting how many different types of ponytails she tries, or how many things she runs into on the way to school, etc. It can be used to learn how to read different types of text to convey emotion. For example, when the words are in bold, the character is yelling or upset; when the text is italicized the character is feeling confident and emphasizes her words; etc. These are just some of many ways to incorporate Stephanie’s Ponytail into a lesson.

The Doorbell Rang By: Pat Hutchins

The Doorbell Rang  

Author & Illustrator: Pat Hutchins

Published: 1986 

Grade: Third Grade

Genre: Realistic Math Fiction

Summary: Not only does Pat Hutchins give children a great lesson on sharing in The Doorbell Rang, she also teaches children about mathematics and the operation of division. The story starts out with two children sharing a plate of delicious cookies from their mom.  Each of the children receives six cookies, making the total of cookies twelve. As the story progresses, the doorbell rings, announcing the arrival of more children, whom are welcomed with an even share of the cookies. Each ring of the doorbell indicates a different number of children coming to join while decreasing the number of cookies per child. Finally, as the number of children evenly equals the number of cookies, the doorbell rings one more time. For a moment, the children wonder if they should eat their one cookie each before opening the door. Luckily however, the last person coming in is their grandmother, who brings another whole plate of cookies for the children to divide evenly among themselves. 

Literacy Development: Critical thinking skills, especially those in math, are essential for children to learn in a variety of ways.  When examples are specifically relatable to them, students have a better understanding of the concept.  Struggling with math is not uncommon for children, especially when new skills and strategies are introduced. However, Hutchins’ problem solving tale is a creative and positive way to teach children division. This book demonstrates to third graders the mathematical concept of division, while initially beginning the story with a multiplication problem. For example, two children x six cookies each= 12 total. By the author illustrating different amounts of children come in each time, the students will be able to identify division of numbers with a variety of different numbers. I would thoroughly enjoy using this book in a math lesson in order to teach operations, while possibly demonstrating through an interactive read loud.  I would bring in cookies and separate them as the story aloud to the class.  By reading this book reading, I believe child will understand the concept of splitting up a number evenly through division.

Common Core Standard Applied:

     

     Literacy:

• R.L3.3: Describe characters in a story and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

     Math:

•          CCSS.MathContent.3.OA.A1: Interpret products of whole numbers.
•     CCSS.MathContent.3.OA.A2: Interpret whole-number quotients of whole numbers.
•         CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.A.4 Determine the unknown whole number in a multiplication or division equation relating three whole numbers.
•         CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.B.6 Understand division as an unknown-factor problem.

Book talk

The book that I chose was Rosa’s Bus the Ride to Civil Rights, by Jo S. Kittinger and illustrated by Steven Walker. This book is about Bus #2857, the bus that Rosa Parks rode on. It tells about the history of Bus #2857, how it came off the assembly line in Michigan, headed to Indiana before going to Montgomery, Alabama. White people rode in the front, Blacks in the back. Everyone paid a dime to ride the bus. If the front of the bus was full blacks were forced to stand up and give their seats up to White folks, until December 1, 1955. This is the day Rosa Parks did not get up. She was arrested and word spread like wild fire. The boycott started and lasted for 382 days. Blacks did not ride the bus, the bus companies were failing, the Supreme Court had to do something and they did. The Supreme Court ruled that blacks could sit wherever on the bus and did not have to give up. Bus #2857 was full again until it was put out of service. A man bought Bus #2857 and it sat in a field for more than thirty years and until people cared enough about Bus #2857 again. Fifty-five years after it rolled off the assembly line in Michigan, Bus #2857 returned to Michigan to the Henry Ford Museum. “Think about Bus #2857 - imagine where it has been and where we have yet to go.”

 

This book can be used in 3^rd grade classrooms and up. It can be used in many scenarios such as: a history class, February because it is black history month, teaching equality and unity if you see your class is bullying someone or leaving a certain students out.  For the history class, young children will be able to learn about the segregation that used to exist in this country without learning about all the details and how terrible it used be for blacks. Also, this story consists of repetition, “That’s just the way things were,” is repeated throughout the story. There are many different ways this book can used in the classroom and I think that the students will enjoy it.