Picture Book Linky: Rhyming Books and Liebster Round 2

I'm linking up with First Grade and Fabulous to discuss some of my favorite rhyming books. Teaching rhyming skills are so important for kiddos phonemic awareness growth. I also think that rhyming helps kids learn word families quicker because they can hear the letter pattern in the family. Here are my top picks for rhyming books.

You can't talk about rhyming and not talk about the Dr. Seuss. He was the king of rhyme. Heck, if he couldn't find a real word to rhyme, he would just make up a word. When I introduce nonsense words (Dibels users know what I mean), I always call them "Dr. Seuss words". After reading a Dr. Seuss book we will usually sort the real words from the Dr. Seuss (nonsense) words on a pocket chart.

 

Giles Andreae and David Wojtowyez have a ton of adorable animal books that  describe different animals in short poems that rhyme. I love using these books for animal studies and reports. These books would also be a great inspiration for writing poetry about animals. Here's a close up of one of their poems about Turtles from Commotion in the Ocean. So stinking cute!

 

Look at this way to cute bulletin board put together by Sunflower Lily. So clever to use curling ribbon for the jellyfish tentacles.

 

The Hungry Thing by Jan Siepian and Ann Seidier

 

Let me tell you, I love me some Hungry Thing. If you haven't read this book before, it is about a monster that comes into town and points to the sign on his chest that says "Feed Me!" The only problem is, is that monster doesn't speak English well and ends of changing the beginning sounds in words. The villagers have to figure out just what it is that the Hungry Thing wants. The kids love to guess too! They always get it right before the townspeople.

This story is an amazing story for teaching phoneme substitution with beginning sounds. It is fun to have your students act out being the Hungry Thing and telling the class their favorite food with a different beginning sound. Ex. Smancakes for pancakes. Too Fun!

 

Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort

 

First let me start by saying my kids love this book. It is all about aliens who come to Earth for one purpose....underwear snatching. The rhymes are too funny and you can't help but laugh right along with the class.

Here's a sample of the inside of the book!

 

Be sure to head over and see all of the other amazing rhyming books people have posted at First Grade and Fabulous.

 

Sweet Lucy at Kids Math Teacher nominated me for the Liebster Award!

That puts my nominations at 4 and let me tell you I am tickled pink! I've loved working on this blog this summer and want to say a big THANK YOU to all of my followers. Yesterday, I did all of the procedures for accepting this nomination, click here, so today I am just going to answer Lucy's questions. :)

Questions from Lucy:

1. What are a few of your goals? Wow! There are so many things that I could write here. I'll just pick my top 3.
• Have as much fun this summer as possible. The summer is winding down at an alarming rate and I refuse to go out without having a great time. Bring on the bbqs, floaties, and friends.
• Have my classroom completely set up before the kids get there. We aren't able to go in early to our building and since I am in a new classroom this year, I want to make sure that I have it set up before the kids get there this summer fall.
• Have a great time in a new grade. I have taught 1st grade for the last 6 years and will be moving to kindergarten this fall. I thought I would be a firstie for life but, I think this change will be a new adventure.
2. Who's your hero? My mom! She raised me as a single parent and always did the best she could for me. I respect and love her to pieces.
3. Favorite thing to watch? Dancing with the Stars! It is the best!
4. Favorite sport to play? Football. I enjoy the game but I love the snacks even more!
5. Personal positive quote? "Be yourself! Everyone else is taken.

Thanks again for the Liebster nominations ladies! I am so flattered!

Picture Book Linky: Character Traits

I'm linking up with First Grade and Fabulous again to talk about books that teach character traits to kids.

Our school has 4 character traits that we teach and expect for our kiddos to show on a daily basis. They are compassion, responsibility, perseverance, and integrity.

Compassion is a hard one for kiddos. They need help seeing that their actions are sometimes unkind but they also need to learn that doing everything for someone else is not compassion either. Out of all of the character traits, compassion is the one that we have to model the most.

Here are my top 2 picks for compassion:

 

Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards
 

Let me tell you, I love this caterpillar. Clara is a cabbage leaf caterpillar who is happy in her own skin. She is kind to others even when Catisha, a red caterpillar, is mean and scoffs at her. In the end of the story, Clara ends up saving Catisha from a bird and Catisha changes her tune. I always pick this one for compassion because Clara is never unkind even when someone else is mean to her. She is willing to help a friend in need but still takes care of herself.

 

Other Ways to Use this Book: This story is also great for teaching alliteration (there are a tremendous amount of "C" words in this book), adjectives, camouflage, and of course, the butterfly life cycle.

 

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
 

The rainbow fish is a beautiful fish who has become conceited and unkind because of it's beauty. Another fish asks rainbow fish for one of his scales and rainbow fish of course says, "No!" He ends up losing all of his friends and the other sea creatures start to avoid him. He becomes very unhappy and seeks advice from the octopus. The octopus tells him to give out his scales. Rainbow fish follows his advice and learns that sharing and kindness with friends is far more important than things. I love teaching this book with centers and classroom games. It is a great story to model sharing and how to treat one another.

 

Other Ways to Use this Book: I also love to teach this story with math. Each one of my kiddos has a fish mat. They roll the dice and put that number of shiny scales (confetti) on their fish. Once the confetti runs out, they roll the dice to take away the scales.

 



Responsibility means you take care of you and your things. We also talk about excepting responsibility for our choices; all actions are a choice.

Here is one of my favorites for responsibility:

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
 

You all know by now that I am Eric Carle obsessed. This is a great story about responsibility as well as perseverance. The Very Busy Spider is about a spider who is working hard to complete her beautiful web. All of the farm animals try to distract her but she will have none of it. She keeps working along until her beautiful web is complete.

 

Other Ways to Use this Book: This story would also go well with teaching sequencing, a farm animal unit, and a spider unit. I love to make Elmer's glue webs on black paper.

 

Integrity means to do the right thing even when no one is looking. This is another one of the character traits that is hard to teach and model because idea is that you are not around when it is going on. Tricky! Very Tricky!

Here is my favorite for integrity:

No, David by David Shannon
 

In my opinion, sometimes the worst models are the best models. David is a little boy that just can't follow the rules. He is silly and loves mischief. This story is great for talking and laughing about all of the bad choices that David makes. Then, we always talk about what David should/could have done.

 

Other Ways to Use this Book: This is also a great story for introducing the 3 Ways to Read a Book with the Daily 5.

 

Perseverance is to keep going even when things get hard. We use this phrase a lot when we are doing something academic. I will also throw this phrase in when we are working on our Daily 5 stamina. Imagine how professional first graders feel when they know that because they showed perseverance, their stamina grew. Here are my top two picks for perseverance:

Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus
 

I love Leo! He is a little tiger cub that is not able to do all of the things his jungle peers can do. He keeps trying and makes lots of mistakes. Throughout the book, he watches his peers and learns. At the end, he turns into a expert because of his hard work and perseverance. Good Job Leo!

 

Other Ways to Use this Book: This is also a great book for teaching about individuality. I love the idea of making a flower and writing on each petal something you are good at.

 

The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle
 

The Very Quiet Cricket is a sweet story about a little cricket who wants to make a sound but for some reason can't. He meets lots of friends along the way and continues to try and make sounds. At the end of the story, he finds a lady friend and wah la, he is able to make beautiful music.

 

Other Ways to Use this Book: This story also goes well with sequencing, an insect unit, and a music unit on different sounds.

 

What great ideas do you have for me?

 

 

Teaching with Math Books: Picture Book Linky Party

After yesterday's post about favorite books to start the year, I started to get a little sad about all of the fabulous books I still hadn't talk about. Then, it was like First Grade and Fabulous could read my mind and created a Week 2: Picture Book Linky for Math Books. Yay! Here are some of my favorite math picks.

 

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns

 

First things first...if you are looking for great picture books for teaching math, look up Marilyn Burns. She has dedicated her life to it and she is so thoughtful. Her books have personality and they really teach a math concept well while using math terminology.

 

The Greedy Triangle is one of my all time favorites. It is about this little triangle who decides that he is dissatisfied with his shape and goes to the shape shifter and asks for one more side and one more angle. Can you guess what her is going to be my friends? Oh, that's right a parallelogram. Didn't see that one coming did you? I told Marilyn likes to use math vocabulary. Any hoo... he keeps asking for sides and angles until he basically becomes a circle. Throughout the story, he runs into lots of mishaps and decides that his own shape is the best shape to be.

 

After reading the story, I love to have my kiddos act out the sides and angles the Greedy Triangle adds with gumdrops and toothpicks. I have used marshmallows in the past and let me tell you that they do not hold the shape as well.



 

Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews

I love how this story gets kiddos thinking about math all around them. In the story, the black dots create different pictures like flowers or buttons. It is a great book for teaching counting and I love to have my kids create dot pages of their own.

 

After reading the story, I usually introduce dot plates/cards and ten frames. We discuss how to subitize the numbers and add them up quickly. It's a great numeracy exercise and we do it all year.



 

 

The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle

This is one of my go to books for teaching time to the hour. The Grouchy Ladybug just cracks me up and with my next classroom theme being Eric Carle, guess who's going to be hanging out by my classroom clock. :)

 

The Grouchy Ladybug is all about a ladybug who would rather fight over something then share. She ends up spending an entire day trying to fight different animals and then deciding that they aren't "big" enough. In the end, a blue whale teaches her a lesson and she finds that sharing isn't all that bad.

 

After reading this story, I talk about time to the hour and then we go back through the story and make the different times on our clocks. I love the part with the whale because it really let's you know if kiddos have experience with quarter after, half past, and quarter 'til. It's a great preassessment.

 



Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

 

This is a wonderful story to go with learning names at the beginning of the year. Chrysanthemum is a little mouse who loves everything about her name and then she goes to school. She is made fun of for her name being too long and a type of a flower. She starts to dread school until her fabulous music teacher reveals that she too has a long, flower name.

 

After reading this story, we always play a syllable name game and then we write, graph, and count the letters in our own names.

 

What are your favorites? Does anyone have a great book for base ten?

 

Be sure to link up with First Grade and Fabulous!

 

 

Beggining of the Year: Picture Book Linky

I'm linking up with First Grade and Fabulous to talk about picture books I start the school year with.

I just love picture books. There are so many amazing books out there and I have to stop myself from buying way more than I need. Since I do the Daily 5 in my classroom, I find that I have become even more of a book hoarder. I just want there to be as many books as possible for the kids to choose from. Sigh!

Here are my favorite read alouds to start the school year.

David Goes to School by David Shannon

 

I love this story! It really sums up all of the unwanted behavior that we, as teachers, see every year. David is a little boy who is loud and adventurous. He hasn't quite developed a sense of compassion for others but he sure is silly and has tons of fun. I just love the picture that is open with him doing the "potty dance" and the words "Again?!" Isn't that just the truth.

 

We always use this story to set up classroom norms and rules. We laugh a lot with David the first time through and then we talk about the rules he broke and what rules we need in our classroom. Then, we work as a class to create classroom rules, norms, and consequences. We always ask, "Would that have helped David?"

Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
 

Kitten's First Full Moon is about a very thirsty kitten who just wants some milk. Throughout the story, she is convinced that the moon is a nice big bowl of milk and chasing that milk bowl takes her on a bit of an adventure. She eats a bug, climbs to the top of a tree, and ends up falling into a pond. Poor Kitten!

I just love the pictures in this story. They are all black and white but the images tell a story on their own. I use this book on the very first day of school to teach the 3 Ways to Read a Book as part of the Daily 5. We first start by reading the pictures and then I go back and read the words. The kids love it and it gives them the confidence to go back and read their own books either with the words or the pictures. Later on, I use this same story to demonstrate a retell so that my kiddos have seen all 3 Ways to Read a Book with just one book. 

Lily's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes

 

Lily is a mouse with style. Her grandmother takes her on a shopping trip where Lily ends up with movie star glasses and this amazing purple plastic purse. All through the school day, Lily is distracted by her things and is also distracting her whole class. The teacher takes away her things until the end of the day. Lily is beside herself and decides that she no longer likes her teacher and writes a pretty funny horrible note about him. At the end of the day, Lily gets her things back and her teacher writes her a nice note and tells her that tomorrow will be a better day. Lily's whole attitude then changes and she learns a little more about why there are rules in school.

I read this story the moment the toys start coming to school. Let me tell you, last year my top file cabinet drawer was Lego Land. I also love to read this story because I talk about the 3 reasons school's have rules (according to Miss Gill):

1. We want to keep you safe.
2. We want you to learn.
3. We care about you.

I always use this time to talk about how much I care about and love my class. I want them to know that the moment they were put in my classroom, I started to care about them. Some kiddos, I feel, don't hear that they are cared about enough and I refuse to not let them know that they are special. This is also a great time to go back over the rules that we created as a class and then discuss if that rule is about keeping us safe, helping us learn, because we are cared about, or all of the above.

Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault

 

All of the lower case letters decide to play a tag-like game and chase each other up the coconut tree. Once all of the little letters are up at the top, the tree can't hold them anymore and it topples over. The capitals letters have to come rescue the skinned up and blacked eyed little letters.

I love the rhymes and chants in this book. It is just too fun. I also like having my kiddos make the letters that are in their name on their own coconut tree and then writing about why their like their name. I have also the coconut tree in the past as my great work wall.

 

What are your favorite picture books to kick off the school year?

Priscilla