Category: Reading

Read Aloud: Shy with Free Reading Response

Book Talk Tuesday: Shy with a Free Reading Response

Welcome to another Book Talk Tuesday!  I am so glad that you stopped by! This week I want to talk about Shy by Deborah Freedman.  I found this book in a list of the best books of last year by the Nerdy Book Club!   You can find their post about this lovely book HERE. So, without further ado: Oh my goodness!  This is an absolutely beautiful book!  The illustrations are gorgeous. This is a book about Shy, who is, as you can probably guess…shy. He prefers to live between the pages of a book.  His favorite books are the

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They All Saw A Cat Activity

Book Talk Tuesday: They all Saw a Cat

They All Saw A Cat Book Talk Tuesday Today I want to talk about a wonderful book called: They All Saw Cat by Brendan Wenzel.  Hang in there!  I have a little freebie for you at the end! 🙂     This lovely little book is all about perspective.  As you go through the pages, the cat doesn’t change, you just get to see the cat from the eyes of the other characters in the story. This book is a wonderful way to introduce the concept of perspective to your students.  Each character in the story who sees the cat

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Book Talk Tuesday (on Wednesday): A Unicorn Named Sparkle!

Hello again!  Today I have a fun new book to share!  A Unicorn Named Sparkle by Amy Young.  I also have a freebie Story Map to go along with the story at the end of the post! Unicorn books are very popular now a days!  This is an adorable little book about a little girl who sends off a quarter to get a unicorn that she plans to name Sparkle When her unicorn shows up, it isn’t exactly what she had in mind, but she grows to love her less than perfect unicorn friend!   This book has a lot

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read aloud for character traits

Fun Read Aloud for Character Traits

Welcome back for another Book Talk Tuesday!  This week I want to share with you an adorable book by Kate Beaton: The Princess and the Pony!       Fun Read Aloud for Character Traits! If you have not yet discovered The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton, you need to go out and get it RIGHT NOW!  Don’t worry…I’ll wait.   This book has it ALL!  Warriors, battle, intrigue (new square balls), cozy sweaters, and the cutest, roundest, pony (who has a bit of a farting problem).  What more could one want in a book? This is such

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Fun Christmas Read-Aloud!

I LOVE reading Christmas stories to my students!  Especiall so with this fun Christmas Read-Aloud by Jan Brett: The Animals’ Santa! Fun Christmas Read-Aloud: The Animal’s Santa! The Animals’ Santa is beautifully illustrated Christmas Story just like all of Jan Brett’s books! It is a story of Little Snow and his brother discussing the Animals’ Santa. Little Snow is not sure that he believes that there is an Animals’ Santa who brings all of the animals gifts at Christmas. My kiddos really enjoyed this story!  When we finished reading, we did a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the Animals’ Santa with

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Christmas Read Aloud: Rock Star Santa!

Christmas Read Aloud

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  So, it is time to talk about a fun Christmas Read Aloud! Book Talk Tuesday today is about a great Christmas read aloud: Rock Star Santa by Gayle C. Krause.   This is a fun rhyming book about one kid’s dream about a-rockin’ Christmas Eve concert starring Santa and his Rockin’ Reindeer!   This is a great book to talk about making predictions, endings, and even a little letter writing! I have made a fun bookmark reading response to go with this gem.  On the front, your students can create their own

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Pumpkin Math

Pumpkin Math Fun: How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

It’s that time of year again! Pumpkin Math time! This super engaging, hands-on, inquiry-based math activity is one of our favorites! I have a great book suggestion and a freebie for you! We start by doing estimates with our pumpkins:  How much does it weight?  What is its circumference?  How long is the pumpkin’s stem?  How many seeds do you think are inside? We record these on our sheets with a thin marker or crayon before we start. This helps with changing our estimates when we learn the real answer. ? Then, we start our pumpkin math investigations working on

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Increase Reading Engagement with Book Picnics!

I have a problem.   I am addicted to children’s books!  I love children’s books.   I believe that I have a pretty good classroom library (it wraps most of the way around my classroom).  But, with so many books, some of the best ones sometimes get put away and never get read because they aren’t as easy to get to, or not as visible as others.  So, how do I get those great books out and noticed?  Of course, I read aloud, every day, several times a day (I have a blog post about how I distribute those books

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Mentor Text Link Up! Happy International Children’s Book Day!

I am linking up with Collaboration Cuties for their Mentor Text linky!  I love children’s books and what a better day to do it than on International Children’s book day? I love this book!  Of course, I love pretty much anything by Chris Van Allsberg!  It is about a farmer who accidentally hits a man with his truck.  He brings the man home.  The Stranger doesn’t speak, but enjoys his time with the farmer and his family.  The strange thing is, summer seems to be going on for n extra long time!   I cheated a little on the One

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Family Reading Night!

Friday was our second annual Family Reading Night at school.  I was on the committee last year, but this year I was was asked to head the committee.  I was a little nervous, but I said that I would do it! I must confess that I lost some sleep over the whole thing, but it turned out to be a lot of fun!   We had some great volunteer readers: Two wonderful teachers from a local pre-school (they got to see a lot of “alumni”!), two K-9 police officers with their dogs, a soccer coach (who did some great soccer

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reading-engagement-idea

Reading Engagement Idea!

One of my very favorite parts of teaching is reading aloud to the kiddos.  The number one Reading Engagement Idea that I use in my classroom is reading aloud great books! I always try to pick a story that moves me as well as them.  I have a really awesome group of “story kiddos” this year.  No matter how they behave the rest of the day, they are good as gold when I read a story!   That being said, I read a lot! At the end of my amazing read-aloud, the kiddos always want the book that I have read.

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