
Sunday, January 31, 2010
"Junie B., First Grader (at last!)" by Barbara Park

"My Mom is Trying to Ruin my Life" by Kate Feiffer

"Inch by Inch" by Leo Lionni

This is a Caldecott Honor book and it is the story of an inchworm. The inchworm is useful to all the requests of the animals to measure their tails or legs until he gets to the bird who wants him to measure his song. Obviously an inchworm cannot measure the length of a song so he starts thinking. Finally he has an idea of how to measure the song so he starts inching away when the bird starts singing until he inches out of sight. I think this book is good because it teaches its readers about measurement. As a teacher I could use this book when introducing units of measurement to my students. After reading this book my students could do an activity where they measure various objects in the classroom. I could give them several items that cannot be measured also (for example the sound of a horn honking) and have them identify ways that we could measure those things (for a horn we could use a pitch reader to measure its sound). In a classroom I volunteered in last year the teacher had a bulletin board about measurement and I noticed that the title of the board was "Inch by Inch". I hadn't realized until now that it may have been making reference to this book. The bulletin board had many units of measurement along with several objects and their corresponding lengths. I liked the idea of a measurement bulletin board for introducing the topic to students. I think this book could be used very effectively in the classroom in this way.
"Duck on a Bike" by David Shannon

"A House for Hermit Crab" by Eric Carle

“Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble” by Judy Schachner

Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble is about a siamese cat whose alter ego, El Skippito Friskito, is a Chihuahua. El Skippito Friskito goes to visit the 'Under Mundo' with his friends to find 'mummitos' that rest in 'peas'. I enjoyed reading this book because it had a lot of rhyming. Most of the rhymes were words like 'friskito', 'Egypt-ito', 'mummito' and 'chance-erito'. These were fun to read because they aren't real words but the reader is still able to figure out their definition. The illustrations in this book are very colorful and they catch the reader's eye. It also caught my eye that some words were bigger than others. For example, when Skippyjon is jumping on his bed the word 'bounced' is written large and curved in different ways across the page. This gives the illusion that the words actually is bouncing a little bit. The little chants that the characters sing are engaging because they break the book up a little bit. I think they would help children who get bored while listening to books being read because they would catch the child's attention. I thought it was also useful that there were a few Spanish words mixed into the book. In the future I think it will be important for many people to be able to speak Spanish; this book could help young learners with key phrases and words.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
"Olivia" by Ian Falconer

Sunday, January 24, 2010
"Sideways Stories from Wayside School" by Louis Sachar

I really like this book and remember reading it when I was younger. It is easy to relate to the stories of teachers who do crazy things and the students with odd quirks. Students in all classrooms have different backgrounds and I think they would enjoy reading and laughing about the students of Wayside School.
"Clouds" by Anne Rockwell

"Blue Lake Days" by Sarah Shey

"Lazy Little Loafers" by Susan Orlean

This book had an interesting perspective on how children view others who are younger than them. Many children have younger siblings who get to stay home or sleep while they have to go to school or finish their chores. I really liked it because it was very funny and the conclusion that the little girl comes to in the end is one that I think many children would laugh at as well.
"The Mixed-Up Chameleon" by Eric Carle

Saturday, January 23, 2010
"The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish" by Neil Gaiman

I think children would like this story because most would be able to relate to wanting to trade things with their friends. I remember when I was younger I loved trading so that I could have new things to play with. In the classroom this book could be useful to teach students about trading and the value of different goods. For example, in the story, trading the boy's dad for two goldfish is an acceptable trade, but in reality the value of these things is very different.
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