Wild about Back to School Books! It's Monday, What Are You Reading? August 25, 2014

 It's Monday! What are you Reading is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it from Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki of Unleashing Readers and have become a regular linked up blog. Thanks #PLN


Tomorrow the school bell will ring and the kiddos will flood the building again. Tears will flow. The first day of school is difficult for both parents and children. Tomorrow will be my youngest grandson's first day of preschool. He has been ready for two years-a born student! I predict the tears will be his mother's. She is a terrific mom. I only wish I could be his school librarian. I feel great knowing he is in the capable hands of a good librarian friend of mine.

We practiced school this week by reading these perfect first week of school books. I will be sharing these with my preschoolers this week too.

Mr. Bones is our library watch dog. He likes to help me out with library lessons and he enjoys sitting with Kinder and Pre-K students who are chosen by teachers as "librarian of the week'' He is WILD about books.











These are some books I will be reading to older students as part of library orientation.

 

 Learning to care for a library book and how to use your 

library manners are both important lessons to learn.

Learning about book care is easy using "What Happened to Marion's Book?" 

This is one of my favorite book care books because the children love Marion and can relate to Marion's many book mishaps. The teacher's guide includes band-aid bookmarks and Marion finger puppet templates. Mr. Bones shows the students all the poor damaged books that end up in the BOOK HOSPITAL. 

Once again, our school will be setting up book boxes outside of the classrooms for students to read while waiting for their teachers to open up classrooms. This has been a very successful idea mostly for the younger students. All you need is a box and some fun and interesting books and kids are hooked.

 Have the best reading week ever and happy first week of school to those starting this week.

Dot Day, David, and Turtle 2013 #IMWAYR

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it at Teach Mentor Texts. 


Of course we are reading The Dot and celebrating DOT DAY!

It's funny how a one day celebration of creativity can stretch out into three weeks of fun and learning. Every student from the PK 3-year old class to our sixth graders have now listened to the story of Vashti's journey into discovering the artist in herself. 

We have been searching for dots, creating our dots, and obliterating our library with dots! We are even covering Ame Dyckman's Bot with Dots! (picture will be forthcoming=Think Boy + Bot + Dot). We are calling it "Let's Give Bot the Chicken Pox" and covering our giant size Bot in dots. 

Here is our good buddy, Mr. Bones, the Library Watch Dog reading The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. Way to go Mr. Bones!

One of our favorite reads this week:

PK 3 year olds are still having to brush up on good behavior expectations for school. They are having a hard time transitioning to life within a school routine and have a tendency to just get up and walk around their classroom when the mood strikes them. I decided I could help their teacher out by sharing one of my favorite stories with them- No David by David Shannon. As we read the story, I encouraged students to tell me if David was showing good behavior or naughty behavior. This is always a hit with the little ones.  Personally, David freaks me out a little with those sharp fangs. 

I love this activity: Texas teacher Michelle Ayala took her Kinder class on a hunt for David in her school. Naughty David left his messy paint splattered hands all over the school making it easy for kids to track him. Ms. Ayala's Kinder class was determined to locate David and explain the best way to be a good student in school before he did something crazy like climb up up above the white board. Oh no, too late! Read more about here at: Kinder Fun







Book Club Read:
Turtle in Paradise by Jenni Holm
Want to join the fun? Read Turtle in Paradise and join us on Monday, September 23 at 9 pm EST/8 CST. Use the hashtag #virtualbookclub on Twitter to connect with fellow readers. 
Summary from Common Sense Media
When her mother gets a job as a housekeeper for a rich woman who will not abide children, 11-year-old Turtle is sent to live with her relatives in Key West. This all happens during the Great Depression, and no one is living too high off the hog, especially the Conches. However, a place is made for her, and her cat, and they all make do. Turtle pitches in with the group of boys that include her cousins and their friends, fishes for sponges with Slow Poke (who turns out to be her dad), builds a relationship with her grumpy grandmother, searches for treasure -- and finds it.  In the end, she learns important lessons about what having real family means, and that life often does not have a "Hollywood ending," even when it turns out.

Visit my 2011 Bluebonnet Book Club page: Turtle in Paradise
Visit the Jenni Holm's website to hear what inspired her to write Turtle in Paradise. 

I like this book trailer for Turtle in Paradise but the music is all wrong for the era. 



Turtle in Paradise activities:

This activity comes from Kids Blog
In this story Turtle finds a map. If you like maps and the idea of following one to find something, give these a try.
You can use the Map Machine to make your own map.

• National Parks Service **Reading a Map** Activity & Quiz
• National Geographic **Map Machine**. Enter your address and the machine will show you a road map of your neighborhood, satellite view of your neighborhood and sometimes a bird’s eye view too. Cool!

Happy International Dot Day (week) go forth and read for fun!