Alta View Elementary

Title: The Black Book of Color
Author: Menena Cottin
The response from the students as this book was read was amazing to see! They sat so quiet as their imagination caused some of them to close their eyes. How would they describe colors they had never seen? Their descriptive imaginations blossomed!

Columbia Elementary

This month the PTA at Columbia hosted a bookfair at Barnes and Noble and had authors and an illustrator there.  Greg Newbold who illustrated the book "The Barnyard Night Before Christmas" was the illustrator so we read his book that week.  It is a version of the Night Before Christmas and the kids loved it. Cute story and the pictures are great.  The author of the book is Beth Terrill.

November Blog from Crescent

November Pair and share:

We asked the children what they liked most about Thanksgiving and then asked them how they would feel if there was no Thanksgiving. We explained to them that if it had not been for the courage and determination of Sarah Hale we might not have Thanksgiving. We gave a short biography of  Sarah Hale and then discussed with the children how the “pen can be mightier than the sword” and what that meant. We read the book “Thank you Sarah: the woman who saved Thanksgiving.”  We talked with the children  about how one person can make a difference and then let them share some of their thoughts and ideas.  Then we read “Mr. Lincoln’s whiskers” to them. The children loved both of the books and were impressed by the fact that even a child can make a difference if they are determined enough to change things.

Sunrise Elementary

Book: Turk and Runk
Author: Lisa Wheeler
This is a hilarious Thanksgiving book about a turkey farm and one family of turkeys thinks that people come to the farm for reasons other than finding a turkey to Roast. The youngest turkey knows better, but no one ever listens to him until the end. It's our favorite and the kids really love it.
Book: I'm a Turkey
Author: Arnosky
This was a book that you could download the Author singing the words and it was very cute. The kids loved it and we also talked about how many turkeys are produced in utah every year. (answer 5 million)

Altara

Title: " Thank You, Sarah " by Laurie Halse Anderson
and
"One Is A Feast for Mouse" by Judy Cox
We have been teaching our third graders about the Dewey Decimal System and have been sharing books from each specific section with them. For Thanksgiving we chose to read a book from the 300's section called, "Thank You, Sarah". It is a story of how a lady named Sarah Hale saved Thanksgiving by writing letters and articles to politicians tp try to convince them that the whole country needed to have a day set aside to be thankful for all that we have. At that time, only those who lived in the New England States celebrated Thanksgiving. It took her thirty-eight years and thousands of letters before Thanksgiving was made a national holiday. In the year 1863 President Lincoln made it an official holiday.
We paired this non fiction book about Thanksgiving with a fiction book called, "One Is A Feast For Mouse, A Thanksgiving Tale". This book has great pictures for the kids and a fun tale about a mouse whose eyes are bigger than his stomach. The Kids loved reading this book and I think they were a little hungry after reading about all the good food!

Sprucewood

Title:  “ The Maze of Bones”  (39 Clues Series)                    

Author:  Rick Riordan

Grade Level:  4-6

 

We told a little bit about Grace Cahill, matriarch of the Cahills, who are the world’s most powerful family.  On her deathbed she changes her will, leaving her descendents an impossible decision.  39 clues are hidden around the world that can reveal the family’s secret, but no one has been able to assemble them.  The clues race is on!  We read the first short chapter and the kids were mesmerized…can’t wait to get book #1!

 

Title:  “Dirt On My Shirt”

Author:  Jeff Foxworthy

Grade Level:  All

 

We highlighted a couple of the books from our book fair, including this one.  It is filled with hilarious poems and really cute art.  The kids really enjoyed it and wanted me to keep reading more of the poems.

Draper Elementary

Title: I Am Invited To A Party.
Kindergarten
The students loved this book. They thought it was funny how they just kept adding the clothes on top of the other party clothes.

Title: Marsupial Sue
Author: John Lithgow
all grades
This book was alot of fun. It has the CD with it. The book went along with our theme:Where in the World. We went to Australia this month and we talked about all the animals there. We talked about the animals that are marsupial.
We did lessons for first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth grades.

Oak Hollow Elementary

Media Activity for November  2009

Recommended Read-a-louds for all grades

Title/Author: Thanksgiving in the White House by Gary Hines

We have been talking up our historical fiction picture books and this one lent itself perfectly to the holiday this month. 

For the youngest classes we simply read the story and talked about favorite holiday foods.  The older classes 3 – 6 got the history behind the story.  All classes knew that Abraham Lincoln was our 16^th president!! However, none of them knew that it was Abe who made Thanksgiving a national holiday amidst the dark times of the Civil War.  The back of the book gives details of the president’s life and also the Civil War.  5th and 6^th graders are most interested in this.  Everyone appreciated the antics of the president’s youngest son, Tad.  After reading the story we read the page in the back of the book that tells “about the story” and how young Tad once hitched up his pet goats to a chair and ran them through the White House, upsetting a gathering of dignified ladies.  

Oak Hollow Elementary

 

FW: Willow Springs Elementary

For Veterans' Day we chose for the upper grades the book, America's White Table. This books tells about honoring our veterans. We placed on our door a poster that students could write the names of relatives that were veterans. As a heading we said that these are veterans of Willow Springs' students. The students were very interested in signing the names of their relatives. Most noted under the name the branch of service for that relative. Some even put several names and noted their relationship- grandpa, uncle, etc.