Stories from the Library: May 17-21

Junior Kindergartners were acquainted with Jeff Brown's classic character Flat Stanley this week. When a bulletin board falls on Stanley Lambchop during the night, he discovers that there are some advantages to being half an inch thick-- like being mailed to and from California! But being used as a kite and getting stuck in a tree isn't so fun for Stanley. In the end, Stanley's little brother Arthur saves the day with some quick thinking and a bicycle pump. Flat Stanley continues to have adventures in his flattened form-- many teachers, students and parents around the country and around the world have embraced the Flat Stanley Project, taking Stanley to far-off places and photographing his travels. You can see some of Stanley's trip photos here on the Flat Stanley website. I gave Junior Kindergartners their own Flat Stanley to color and take home, with the hope that he will go on many adventures this summer!

Kindergarten: Kindergartners finished up their continent journey with Moon Rope, a Peruvian folktale (representing South America) retold and illustrated by Lois Ehlert. Ehlert's bold, colorful collages mimic Peruvian style and accompany this fun story of Fox and Mole who try to climb to the moon on a braided grass rope.


1st Grade: 1st Graders listened to the true story of Humphrey the Lost Whale by Wendy Tokuda and Richard Hall. In 1985, a migrating humpback whale took a wrong turn into the San Francisco Bay and swam up the Sacramento River. The whale captivated and concerned onlookers, who tried to coax the giant creature back to the ocean. 1st Graders loved hearing about Humphrey's adventures and kept asking if this was really a true story. The book also served as a good reminder about the difference between fiction and nonfiction. Though the book resembles many of our fictional picture books, it's filed in our nonfiction section of the library.


2nd Grade: 2nd Graders did an amazing job presenting their Ancient Egypt Museum and missed their library time this week.


3rd Grade: 3rd Graders earned their good behavior party so we relaxed on the beanbags with snacks and the video version of Laurie Keller's The Scrambled States of America.


4th Grade: We finished with The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman, ending with a lively discussion about how authors create sympathetic characters. I asked if students felt more sympathy for Jemmy or for Prince Brat. 4th Graders shared some great insights and opinions, considering that neither Jemmy or Prince Brat are completely good or completely bad characters.


5th Grade: 5th Graders presented their amazingly creative library video projects this week. We did a rough filming of the initial performances, but will be working in the next weeks to cut and streamline their material into a wonderful final product.

Stories from the Library: May 3-7

 Preschoolers enjoyed Mo Willems' Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. The story is a lively romp through Pigeon's enthusiastic attempt to convince readers that he is a fully capable bus driver. Willems' illustrations are spare, yet full of emotion. Pigeon's expression changes from curious to angry to pained with just a few pen strokes. By the end of the stories, Preschoolers were interacting with Pigeon, answering his questions and telling him "no!" he can't drive the bus!

Junior Kindergarten: Spring can be a restless time for some of our little people at school. They've been in school for nine months and are preparing for the next grade level (and the summer that comes in between!). Jamie Lee Curtis gently identifies with this busy, wiggly age in her book It's Hard to be Five. The rhyming text and bright, squiggly pictures illustrate some of the frustrations that come with being five: sitting still, hearing "no" all the time, and going to a new, sometimes scary school. Curtis also highlights how fun being five can be: walking by yourself, learning and growing. The author concludes that "It's hard fun to be five!" and I think our Junior Kindergartners would agree.

Kindergarten: We traveled all the way to freezing cold Antarctica in our Kindergarten continent journey with Helen Cowcher's Antarctica. In the story we see male Emperor penguins balance eggs on their feet, Adelie penguins nesting on the beach, and Weddel seals caring for newborn pups. When noisy helicopters and research boats arrive, the Arctic creatures wonder if these new neighbors will be more harmful or helpful.

1st Grade: 1st Graders listened to How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. A pirate's life sounds pretty jolly to Jeremy Jacob-- no bedtime, eating with your hands, stealing and plundering-- until he finds out that pirates don't get bedtime stories or goodnight kisses. 

2nd Grade: 2nd Graders celebrated their wonderful moms this week during the Mother's Day Tea.

3rd Grade: 3rd Graders endured two weeks of my western drawl with Diane Stanley's Saving SweetnessRaising Sweetness, a sweet story about a sometimes dim-witted western sheriff who adopts a passel of mistreated orphans. The books lead into a great lesson in similes, as we meet characters who are "as sweet as a Georgia peach" and "as sharp as a pocketful of toothpicks" and "as cute as kitten pajamas."  and

4th Grade: A runaway prince, a hot-potato man and a dancing bear: we're nearing the end of Sid Fleischman's The Whipping Boy.

5th Grade: Our wonderfully creative 5th Graders are working on projects that will eventually turn into a class library video. Inspired by this video produced by a Middle School in Florida, I gave the small groups free reign to create something (a song, dance, play, or commercial) that will inspire reading, teach about libraries or inform about book care. I'm excited to see what our groups come up with!

Stories from the Library: April 19-23

3rd Graders finished up our William Steig stories with Shrek, one of the original (but certainly not the first) ugly ogre stories that inspired the Disney movies. After mapping out the plots, character lists, settings and themes of our three Steig stories, 3rd Graders wrote a short poem about some of the themes and characters that show up in the books.

  Bones and rock                        

Pebbles that talk               

Shrek got married.        

                                         

He must love pebbles and bones that talk             

I wonder if he colors in chalk? 

He must like animals and ugly things

I wonder how many books there must be? 

I would love to go to William Steig land

So I could shake his hand

I would feel like the best in the land

If I could go to William Steig's land

 Preschool: Preschoolers earned their good behavior library party this past week. We sacked out on the beanbag chairs to watch a video of Syd Hoff's Danny and the Dinosaur and got to take home a small treat.

Junior Kindergarten: We had a bit of role reversal in the library this week as Junior Kindergartner's took turns sharing stories they had written and illustrated. It was especially fun to hear the students say encouraging words to their friends as they sat in my chair to read their original works.


Kindergarten: Kindergartners are getting ready for 1st Grade! They visited the 1st Grade classroom this week and only had time for check out. 

1st Grade: Have you ever mixed up your days? In Barney Saltzburg's Crazy Hair Day, Stanley shows up for school with the best crazy hair-do, only to find out that he has gotten the date wrong! With the help of his friends and a kind teacher, Stanley has a day he will never forget.

2nd Grade: To celebrate National Poetry Month, we read a book about American poet Emily Dickinson by Michael Bedard, called, simply, Emily. 2nd Graders were intrigued by this mysterious figure whom others called "the Myth." In the fictionalized story, a little girl meets her elusive neighbor who rarely leaves her home and comes away with a poem of her own. 

3rd Grade: See opening post. 
 
4th Grade: 4th Graders are still following the adventures and misadventures of Jemmy and Prince Brat in Sid Fleischman's The Whipping Boy.

5th Grade: We watched a short video produced by Columbia University Library called Murder in the Stacks. In this delightfully cheesy spoof, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solve the mystery of the ruined library books while discussing proper ways to care for and preserve a library collection.

Stories from the Library: March 5-9

Right before Spring Break we started reading Sid Fleischman's The Whipping Boy in the 4th Grade class. When I was home in California, my dad, an avid obituary reader, asked if I was familiar with anyone named Sid Fleischman? As it turns out, the author of The Whipping Boy passed away two days after we started reading his Newbery-winning book and one day after his 90th birthday.

We're just getting to know some of Fleischman's clever and quirky characters. Prince Brat, Jemmy, Hold-Your-Nose-Billy and Cutwater have already made us laugh and are getting more interesting as the plot thickens. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Fleischman first began writing stories for children after a challenge from his own children. By the end of his life, he was a Newbery Award winner, National Book Award finalist and a beloved author who willed be missed in the literary world. 

Preschool: Preschoolers giggled through Stanley's Wild Ride by Linda Bailey this week. When Stanley  the dog digs his way out of his oh-so-boring backyard, he rounds up all the other dogs in his neighborhood for one night of glorious freedom. The wild ride really starts when the dogs find a collection of wheeled "things" and start rolling down the big hill in the middle of town.


Junior Kindergarten: Junior Kindergartners listened to Steven Kellogg's Can I Keep Him? Arnold is a little boy with a big imagination who dreams up a series of interesting pets. When he asks his mother, Can I keep him? the answer is always the same-- until Arnold stops imagining and comes by with the neighbor boy in hand.


Kindergarten: We continued our Kindergarten Continent Race with a stop in Australia this past week. Students listened to Big Rain Coming by Katrina Germein, a simple story about waiting patiently for rain in the middle of the hot Australian outback. Kindergartners enjoyed the bold and colorful Aboriginal-style illustrations and loved how the story is structured around the days of the week.


1st Grade: Every once in a while when I pull out our read-aloud for the week, I'm met with a chorus of "We already read that!" 1st Graders were not shy in letting me know they had already heard Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse, so I grabbed the nearest 1st Grade-friendly read from the shelf. Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke turned out to be a perfectly fun read-aloud, complete with clever pirate-speak and a twist at the end. I don't think I've ever seen our 1st Graders so well-behaved and engrossed in a story!


2nd Grade: 2nd Graders missed library this week because of a field trip.




3rd Grade: 3rd Graders actually came to library twice this week to make up missing the previous Friday. We started a unit on William Steig stories and enjoyed The Amazing Bone and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble this week. Steig not only delights children with stories of magical objects and fantastic circumstances, but he also does not underestimate their vocabulary by peppering his pages with colorful words like "revile,"duped" and "bewildered."


4th Grade: See opening post.


5th Grade: We said farewell to The Little Prince this week with a few closing comments and a fun class quiz. Remember, "Anything essential is invisible to the eyes," says the fox. 

Stories from the Library: March 8-12

To prepare for Saint Patrick's Day, Kindergartners listened to Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato, an Irish folktale adapted and illustrated by Tomie DePaola. Jamie O'Rourke, the laziest man in all of Ireland, cannot be bothered to tend to such things as potato farming, even though his life depends on it. When his long suffering wife injures her back and cannot care for the praties, Jamie is at a loss. In Jack and the Beanstalk fashion, our lazy hero runs into a leprechaun who sells him magic potato seeds that grow into the biggest potato the town has ever seen. Jamie's problems turn from small to large as he and the entire town deal with their sudden potato wealth.


Preschool: In Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina, a peddler wears his wares atop his head. When he leans against a tree for a nap, a troop of monkeys swipe the stack of caps right off the peddler's head! The Preschoolers loved the silly, sound-filled interactions between the peddler and the monkeys.
 
Junior Kindergarten: When you're too small to reach the basketball hoop or swim out to the raft, you just may want to grow into a giant-- especially if you have an older brother who gets to have all the fun. Much Bigger Than Martin by Steven Kellogg approaches the classic big brother/little brother rivalry with gentle humor and illustrations that still seem fresh after 32 years. Our littlest library patrons laughed along with the little brother's antics and agreed that they sometimes wished they were bigger. This book also holds a soft spot for my family since my dad grew up with an older brother whose name just so happens to be Martin! 



Kindergarten: See opening post.


1st Grade: 1st Graders earned their class party for good library behavior this week. We had an extended check out time and watched a video of Edward Marshall's book Space Case.


2nd Grade: We read Remy Charlip's fun book Fortunately. This short and extraordinary story alternately uses the transitions words Fortunately and Unfortunately to introduce the, well, fortunate and unfortunate events. After unfortunately running into sharks, nearly landing on a pitchfork and digging into a strange ballroom, Ned eventually (fortunately!) makes it to his surprise party. 2nd Graders also created our own Fortunately/Unfortunately story that you can view here.


3rd Grade: We learned about another famous Italian this week in Michael the Angel by Laura Fischetto, which tells the story of the famous painter, Michelangelo. Even though Michelangelo's actions were not always angel-like , his artwork is a little glimpse of heaven. We ended our lesson by looking at some of Michelangelo's paintings and sculptures, pausing a bit to talk about the art of sculpting from a block of marble.



4th Grade: 4th Graders dove into a lesson about the Caldecott Award through one of this years' Caldecott Honor books, All the World, a poem by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Marla Frazee. One of the criteria of a Caldecott book is that the illustrations enhance and fit with the words. To test out this criteria, we read through the book twice, once without looking at the pictures and once with the pictures. During both read-throughs, students recorded words that described the style and mood. We charted our findings and saw how the pictures "fit" and bettered the existing poem.


5th Grade: "Here is my secret. It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes." The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Stories from the Library: March 1-5

In between sickness and holidays, I've fallen behind on my blogging...My apologies!

A palindrome is a word that is spelled the same forward and backward. When Bob unwillingly becomes the poster boy for palindromes in his classroom, he panics as he realizes that palindromes are all around him. Mom and Dad are Palindromes: a Dilemma for Words...and Backwards by Mark Shulman is a fun introduction to the world of palindromes. The forward-backward words hide throughout the edgy graphic illustrations and 2nd Graders had fun spotting them.We figured out that there aren't any palindrome names in 2nd Grade, but we did have fun saying our names backwards!

Preschool and Junior Kindergarten: Have you ever had a zower in your shower? How about a vug under the rug? To celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday week, we read There's a Wocket in my Pocket, a classic Seuss story highlighting the author's love of rhymes and nonsense words. During each reading I asked students to give me a thumbs-up every time they heard a made-up word. We put up our thumbs for Suess's yeps on the steps, the nooth grush on the toothbrush, the yottle in the bottle and the jertain on the curtain!

Kindergarten: Kindergarteners followed the clever quest of Ananse the Spider Man in A Story A Story by Gail E. Haley. In this brightly illustrated Caldecott winner, we learn how all the stories of the world came to the earth. Based on an African folktale, this book marks our first stop in a "world tour" of stories from the seven continents.

2nd Grade: See opening post.

3rd Grade: We lost ourselves in Galileo's world of stars in Peter Sis's Starry Messenger. Peter Sis, a Czech-born illustrator, author and filmmaker, is one of my favorite illustrators and the recipient of three Caldecott awards. Sis's detailed drawings are awash with soft watercolors and glow with the story of a man who dreamed of looking at the heavens.

5th Grade: A bit of truth from The Little Prince:

" Where are all the people?" The little prince finally resumed the conversation. "It's a little lonely in the desert..."

"It's also lonely with people," said the snake.

Stories from the Library: February 16-19

 

We've been enjoying the 2010 Caldecott Medal and Honor books in the library this week. The Caldecott Medal is awarded to the illustrator of the most distinguished American picture book for children (ALA.org). It is named for 19th century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott and has been awarded yearly since1938.

We "read" this years Medal winner The Lion and the Mouse illustrated by Jerry Pinkney with the Kindergarten class on Friday. One of the criteria for the Caldecott Medal is that the illustrations interpret the story. In the case of Pinkney's The Lion and the Mouse, the illustrations are the story. The only words that appear on the golden-hued depictions of the African savannah are a few roars, squeeks and screeches. Kindergarteners were captivated into silence by the detailed full-page illustrations. I read a short version of Aesop's The Lion and the Mouse before diving into Pinkney's gorgeous watercolor illustrations to provide context for the story. For the most part, Kindergarteners enjoyed experiencing a wordless book, saying it was both "different" and "fun" to let the pictures tell the story. 

We had a short week due to the Presidents Day holiday...

Preschool: Imogene causes quite a stir when she wakes up with a set of antlers one morning in Imogene's Antlers by David Small. By the end of the day, though, the set of bony apendages prove to be pretty useful. Preschoolers had fun imagining what they would do if they woke up one morning with their own set of antlers!

2nd Grade: We finally revisited and finished The Ink Drinker by Eric Sanvoisin, a quirky tale of a book seller's son and his encounter with an ink-drinking vampire. The book, which is sadly out of print, was translated from its original French into English and excited even the most reluctant readers with its bizarre and mysterious characters. I have a long list of 2nd Graders begging to check out our only copy and inquiring about the next books in the series.

3rd Grade: 3rd Graders practiced their observation of aesthetics as we took a close look at one of the 2010 Caldecott Honor books, All the World by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon. Illustrator Marla Frazee creates an idealistic backdrop in a rural seaside community for Scanlon's beautiful poem. After reading through the book, 3rd Graders came up with words that reflected the style and mood of the illustrations. Our list included colorful, joyful, multicultural, dark and light, perfect and cartoon-like. 

5th Grade: The Little Prince is off on his journey to the neighboring planets. 5th Graders are working in small groups on chapter studies, paying close attention to whom the Little Prince meets and why the author chose to introduce this peculiar character.