Meganpatterson’s Comments (group member since Oct 20, 2011)

Meganpatterson’s comments from the http://www.EDUG573Fall2011 group.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Written by: Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault
This is an alphabet picture story. The story starts off with the lower case letters racing and chasing each other up a coconut tree. They go up this tree in alphabetical order. As more letters go up the tree you can see visually see the tree start to lean. Once all the letters are in the tree the trees bend down so far that all the lower case letters fall down. Then all the upper case letters who are supposed to be mamas, papas, uncles, and aunts all came running. Then all the lowercase letters are asking for help and tangled up with each other. Then the sun goes down on the alphabets day and they are supposed to go to bed, however a sneaks out and is ready to climb the tree again.
You can read the story whenever you are introducing the letters. After reading this story you can talk about alphabetical order and review sounds. You can also have the students create their own coconut tree and reenact the story. They could glue the letters in alphabetical order. You could also have the students cut out the letters in their names and have them clue them in the tree.

Goodnight Moon
By: Margaret Wise Brown
This is a rhyming story about items seen in a room. It starts off listing items that are found in a great room. The two items found on each page rhyme. After it goes through the items in the room it then starts saying good night to all the items. You could use this story to work on rhyming with your class. You could let your students fill in the blank as you are reading. You could show them the first page and have them told you objects in the room that rhyme. You could also carry it a step farther and create a class book with rhyming word.

The Bug In Teacher’s Coffee
by: Kalli Dekos
This book contains 33 poems related to various aspects of school, from “Math Test” to “The School Bell”. The poems are easy to read and understand the meaning. They are “fun”, short poems. The text is also often written in interesting ways, such as big and bold, stretched out across the text, etc.
This would be a good book to use the beginning of the school year, reading 1 a day during read-a-loud time. It’s a good idea to expose children to poetry on a regular basis. You could use this book for any elementary grade level.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame
by: Jack Norworth
This is the text to song by the same title that most children are familiar with. The illustrations reflect the text clearly and there is a single 2-4 word phrase on each page.
This would be a good book to use as an introduction to a baseball unit in the spring. You could always sing the song afterwards.

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
Written by: Eugene Trivizas Illistrated by: Helen Oxenburty
This is story starts off with three little wolves leaving their mother’s house to live on their own. They first run into a kangaroo who gives them some bricks to build their house. After they built it they were playing in the year and the big bad pig comes along and scares them into their house. They pig huffs and puffs but could not blow their house down. So he goes and gets a sledge hammer and knocks the house down, luckily thought he pigs escapes. This continues three other times. They build their next few houses out of cement, pad locks, plexi glass, barbwire, and several other strong materials. Each time the pig failed to blow the house down so he had to go out and get a different tool to help him out. They finally built a house of flowers which ended up turning the pig into a nice pig and they played happily ever after.
You can read this story along with The Three Little Pigs and talk about the similarities and differences. If your children are younger you may only be able to talk about it, as they get older they can draw pictures to show this and add writing. You could also have them create a building plan of the materials they would use to create a house that couldn’t be blown down. When they are done with their plan they can build it with construction paper or draw it. Here you could also do a readers theater with older kids.

The Three Little Pigs
Written by: Heather Amery Illistrated by: Stephen Cartwright
This is a story of three little pigs that need to move out of their mom’s house and start their own journey in life. Each pig leaves and decides that they need to build a house. Each pig picks a different material to build their house with. After they build their house the big bad wolf comes along hungry and ready to eat. There is a brief conversation that transpires between the pig and the wolf. Then the wolf ends up blowing down the pig’s houses and a few attempts and eats the pigs. He eats the first and second pig who built their house out of weak materials. He moves onto the third pig and is unable to blow his house down. After multiple attempts to get to the pig, the pig finally plays a trick on him and the wolf ends up climbing down the chimney and getting eaten.
I recommend reading this book to students in grades K-1. You could use this book if you are doing a unit on Fairy Tales. This is also a great story to use for sequencing. There are three clear sections to this story. You can also talk about fiction and non-fiction. When I taught first grade I used this book for the students to perform a reader’s theater. This is such classic that you can pull many lessons from this story.

The Hundred Dresses
By: Eleanor Estes & Louis Slobodkin
This book is a Newbery Honor Award winner that teaches a lesson on kindness and bullying which is such an issue in today’s world. The story’s main Character, Wanda Petronski, is a Polish-American girl from poor family. She is teased at school by her classmates for being different, but there are two girls in particular who harass her more. Wanda says she has 100 dresses but wears the same faded blue dress to school every day. She leaves suddenly and the teacher and classmates find 100 beautifully drawn dresses at her house after she left.
This book teaches a lesson on how hurtful people can be to each other and how easily a person can get caught up in taunting. Unfortunately many students can identify with the characters in the book. You could use this book from 2nd grade to probably 5th or 6th.

Purplicious
By: Victoria Kann & Elizabeth Kann
This is a follow up to the story Pinkalicious. It is about a young girl who loves the color pink and has everything pink and dresses in pink. The other girls at her school decide that pink is no longer in and the black is the new color. Pinkalicious is teased a lot for noting liking the color that is popular. She starts to doubt herself and change to fit in with the crowd. At the end of the story she meets another little girl who likes pink also and they both find that they like the color purple to.
This book also deals with bullying, which is a big problem these days. I could see something this catty happening at our school in the older grades. I could use this story to address bullying and how it makes people feel or if I would do a unit on feelings. This book would be more appropriate for Kindergarten maybe first, but could also be used in older grades to address the issue also.

6 Extra Stories

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
by: A. Wolf
This is the classic story of the 3 little pigs, as told from the wolf’s point of view. It’s a comically written story that depicts the wolf as the innocent victim rather than the big, bad wolf. Kids will enjoy the illustrations as well as the story.
This would be appropriate to read after reading the traditional story. This would also be a good addition to a unit on 3 Little Pigs, 3 Billy Goats Gruff, and the 3 Bears. I would recommend this as a read aloud for students k-1, but could be used with older grade levels. You could also read this story within your fairy tale unit. You could do a compare and contrast with the original 3 little pigs.

Big Bird Can Share
by Dina Anastasio
This is a book with the characters from Sesame Street that most young children are familiar with and can easily relate to. It tells how Big Bird received a pail and shovel from his Granny Bird with a note that said, “You’ll know what to do with this”. He takes it to a sand pile and his friends come to join him throughout the story to assist in building a sand city! It shows that working together, much more can be accomplished.
This would be a good read to introduce students to the concept of cooperation or preceding the formation of cooperative groups. This would be a good book for students 1st grade up.

Hanukkah and Christmas at My House
by: Susan Enid Gertz
This book is an excellent way to teach children that families of the Jewish faith celebrate Christmas with different customs than many families. It also shows that interfaith families can celebrate Christmas in meaningful ways by sharing their faith. It explains the traditions of Hanukkah and Christmas in simple terms that children can understand.
This book is a must read at Christmas to encourage the acceptance of diversity. This book could be a read aloud for grades K-1 and grades on up could read the story themselves.






Ten Black Dots
by: Donald Crews
This is a number book that covers the numbers 1 through 10, literally in black dots. The text is simple and rhymes, which is interesting to read and listen to.
This would be a good book for the math concept of 1 to 1 matching and practice recognizing numbers as well. It is another way to connect reading to other curricular areas. I would recommend this book for grades K-1.


Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star
Illustrated by: Sanja Rescek

This is a book of traditional rhymes that have been favorites for many years. Rhyming text is not only pleasing to the ear, but a child can make predictions as to the last word in the sentences because of the rhyming text. It’s a good read aloud so students could have the opportunity to provide the last word in each phrase after repeating readings. This would be a good addition to a poetry unit.

Sometimes it’s Turkey, Sometimes is Feathers
By: Lorna Ballan
This is a cleverly written children’s book on a little old lady, Mrs. Gremm, who finds a freckled egg in April and a turkey hatches from it. Mrs. Gremm and her cat spend months fattening the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a fun book to read with a surprise at the end. It’s a good addition to Thanksgiving books.

The First Thanksgiving
By:
This story tells the journey of the Pilgrims coming to America. The story starts off telling the reader why the pilgrims left England and what date it was on. It goes on to talk about their journey on the Mayflower. It continues to tell their story of when they found land and what they went through, there hard winter, their building of houses, and making food. It continues to describe their meeting and interaction with the Indians. It describes their activities that let up to the first thanks giving and happens on those three days.
I would recommend using this book for early elementary. You can use this story during this thanksgiving unit. This can be used as an informational book. After reading this story you can discuss the information that the kids learned and have them write a certain number of facts about the story. You could also create a class KWL chart and then read this and add to the chart.

Sarah Morton’s Day, a Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl
by: Kate Waters
This book is an information text on the life of a girl who was 9 in the year 1627. She was mentioned in many journals and histories of that time. It gives factual information of the life of a little girl during that time period. It’s filled with photographs taken at Plymouth Plantation which is an outdoor living museum of Plymouth, Massachusetts. The museum depicts the life of Pilgrims during the 17th century.
This would be a good book to read during a Thanksgiving unit, to enhance students understanding the life of Pilgrims during the 17th Century. This book could be a read-a-loud for grades K-2, any grade older would be able to read themselves.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
By: Mark Twain, Re-told by: M.C. Hall

This story is about a little boy with a very vivid imagination. He lives by the Mississippi river with his aunt and step brother. Tom is a mischievous boy who seems to always find trouble. Tom soon becomes friends with a Huckleberry Fin and the two of them witness a murder. These two boys decide to run away and not tell anyone what they saw. Eventually they come back home after they realize they have caused quit a commotion. That started off their summer(s) of mischief and excitement.
I wouldn’t be able to use this book within my grade level, but thought it was very interesting that they had this book as a graphic novel. I think it would be a great way to intoduce these types of stories to young readers. Also, if older grades are using it in groups, students who have trouble reading or are slow readers could use this book instead of reading the traditional story. I think graphic novels can be very helpful in all grade levels.

Spider-Man; the Enforcers!
Marvel
This is a graphic story about Spiderman. It starts off with a robbery at the Midtown Diamond Exchange. Throughout the middle of the story Peter/Spiderman talks with his friend who is very concerned about her brother. Spiderman decides to watch over the brother and catches him stealing. While watching him he stumbles on another robbery, which continues to happen over the next few days. Spiderman finally is able to stop the robbers and save the town from them. However, his friend has not heard from her brother and is extremely worried.
This is not a book that I would use in my classroom, nor do I see another teacher being able to create a lesson of this. This would have to be a book that was put in a classroom library for pleasure reading.

The Magic Tree House; Eve of the Emperor Penguin
Written by: Mary Pope Osborne

In this story a brother and sister named Jack and Annie travel in their magic tree house to Antarctica. The mission of their journey is to find another secret of happiness. When they land in Antarctica they are in winter gear. They find themselves with a group of journalists and reporters. They receive a rhyme that will give them direction on how to proceed along their journey. During their travels they ride a bus up the mountain to try to find the burning mountain and the ancient crown. While traveling up the mountain they get discovered as kids and not reporters and have to wait at the camp site. While waiting to get taken back down the mountain they sneak out and have many exciting adventures. They end up finding the ancient grown where they found the secret of happiness, which end up being a baby emperor penguin.
If you use this book at a younger age, you can use it as a read aloud. However if your students are 2nd grade and older they should be able to read it by themselves. In kindergarten we due a unit on Penguins and I read this story during that unit. If you taught older grades you can read this and then have the children do writing about what they think their secret to happiness would be. You can also talk about Antarctica and their weather and branch off from there.

Days with Frog and Toad
by: Arnold Fabel
This book contains 5 short stories, in which the two main characters, Frog and Toad, go thru funny experiences that young students can relate to. The 2 characters are best friends and that friend ship is evident in all the stories. In “Tomorrow”, Frog helped Toad get out of the dumps. In “The Kite”, they fly a kite and in “Shivers” they share a scary story. It’s Toad’s birthday in “The Hat” and they spend the day together. The last story “Alone”, found the 2 friends sitting alone, together.
This is a good story of friendship and could be used to generate discussions and writing about what are friends and things to do with friends. This would be a book that could be used grades 2-5.