Stories from the Library: December 7-11

Kindergarteners impressed me with their inference skills while reading Eric Carle's Dream Snow this week. Before reading the story, we looked at some of the pictures and guessed what kind of animals were in the farmer's barn windows. We charted our animal predictions and had fun turning the pages to see if our guesses were correct (most were!). At the end of the story, we had a mini-debate about whether the man pictured on the cover of the book is Santa Claus or not. He is simply identified as "the farmer" in the story, and we had children making cases for both sides. This book was a fun treat at the end of a long, busy week.

Preschool: I shared one of my favorite childhood Christmas books with the Preschoolers this week, Merry Christmas Mom and Dad by Mercer Mayer. While Little Critter has good intentions to help his parents wrap gifts, decorate the tree and pick out presents for his little sister, he encounters a number of setbacks. I think the picture of Little Critter wrapped in too-sticky tape was enough to make me giggle many years ago, and the Preschoolers shared my sentiments. We also enjoyed If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, the Holiday companion to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff.


Junior Kindergarten: The sight of Santa Claus on the cover of Hurry Santa by Julie Sykes was enough to enthrall the Junior Kindergarten class. Colorful cartoon-ish illustrations accompany this fun and simple story about Santa Claus running late on Christmas Eve. At the end of the story, Santa Claus finds one last gift at the bottom of his bag-- a new alarm clock from his animal friends.


2nd Grade: Maria's family Christmas is almost ruined when she thinks she has lost her mother's wedding ring while kneading the cornmeal dough for tamales in Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. Before diving into the story, we looked at step-by-step pictures of how tamales are made. This book is a fun look at how holidays are celebrated among other culture groups, but the gentle lessons about honesty and truth-telling are universal. 


Quite a few classes missed their regular library time this week due to the book fair and holiday show rehearsals. 'Tis a busy (but fun) season!