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.

Draper Elementary

Our theme for the year is Book A Trip. Each month in the media center we are going to take a trip. This month we went to Asia. We display the books about Asia.On the white board we display pictures of the people, animals, plants, resources found in the country. We also show a short slide show on the country. We also have a picture of a famous landmark and the students guess where that landmark is located and write there answer down on a piece of paper and put it in a jar and on monday morning we draw a name out of the jar who's answer is correct and they come to the media center for a prize. The students are having alot of fun guessing where the landmarks are located.

Title: Jerry Seinfeld Halloween
The students enjoy this book a lot.

We have being doing lessons on book care.

Oak Hollow Elementary

Recommended Read-a-louds

            Home Run the story of Babe Ruth by Burleigh –This book offers a look at this famous athlete from the perspective of a boy as well as his fans.  There are vintage baseball cards on every page that give many details about Babe Ruth's many accomplishments.  If reads almost like a poem so I read it slowly and the classes loved each page. This one is also beautifully illustrated with oil paintings by Mike Wimmer that I point this out before I get into the story. 

            Henry's Freedom Box by Levine -  this story is based on a true story of how a Virginia slave escaped to freedom by shipping himself to Philadelphia in  a wooden crate in 1849.

Pair & Share Topic: Historical Fiction

We have many wonderful historical fiction picture books in our collection.  Students are required to do reports on historical fiction chapter books and they don't always get to appreciate the picture books that are just as educational.  We show several and tell a bit about each.  We chose some to read the following week.  There is a page in each book with background for the story and I discussed this before reading the book to the class. This turned out to be a great way to share the books over a 2 week period. we have books about:

·         the war of 1812 – Sisters of Scitiate Light by Krensky

·         Brooker T. Washington – More than anything Else by Bradby

·         The Oregon Trail – Wagons West! By Roy

·         Plains Indian culture/Chief Crazy Horse – Crazy Horse's Vision by Bruchac

·         The Revolutionary War – John, Paul, George & Ben by Lane Smith

·         Blizzard of 1888 – Terrible Storm by Carol Otis Hurst

·         The Civil War – Pink and Say by Polacco

·         WWII – The Unbreakable Code by Hunter and also The Butterfly by Polacco

·         Post WWII period – Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming (very uplifting !) 
Way to prove that Everybody books are REALLY for EVERYBODY!

Sprucewood

Title:                      “Goodnight Goon: a Petrifying Parody”    

Author:                    Michael Rex                                                                      

Grade Level:            All

Title:                      “Goodnight Moon”

Author:                    Margaret Wise Brown

Grade level:             All

We explained that a parody is when you take an author or work and imitate very closely the language & style in a new work or book.  Sometimes it can even take on a comic effect or can be exaggerated.  We read both of the above books to the kids and had them tell us which one they liked best.  We also discussed the similarities.  Most of the kids liked the newer book best and they especially enjoyed the pictures.      

Title:                      “Halloween”

Author:                   Jerry Seinfeld

Grade Level:          3-6

We use the CD and let it tell the story while we show the pictures.  We have done this every year since the book came out and the kids love to hear it over and over.  It is more fun for them to hear his actual voice…he is much more of a comedian than I!

Crescent Elementary

We had the library ghost visit our library throughout the month of October and leave clues for Halloween or mystery books we enjoy in our library.

        We started the month out by reading to our classes the book “The library Ghost” by Carole Boston Weatherford. We told our students that the library ghost would be visiting our library and leaving clues for them to find. The clues would give them hints about a particular book and if they could tell us the title of the book from the clues they would get a Halloween treat bag. We choose mystery books for the older grades such as “Dollhouse Murders” or “Wait till Helen Comes” and for the younger grades “Scary, Scary Halloween” or “Hallo-wiener.”

     The students had to work alone, they couldn’t ask anyone but they could use the computer and they had to give us there guess before they left the library. If someone guessed the title of the book we would choose another book and put out more clues for that book. We then displayed the book that had been guessed along with the clues, in hopes that it would spark some excitement to read that book. It worked!!  The kids seemed to really enjoy this.

 This sounds so FUN!  You guys are GREAT!

Altara

Title: "Sipping Spiders Through A Straw
Campfire Songs for Monsters"

Lyrics by Kelly Dipucchio
Pictures by Gris Grimly

We read and even sang some of the lyrics to these monster campfire songs to the 4th - 6th grades. We would read the title of the song and see if the kids could guess what tune it was sung too. For example, the song "My Delicious Frankenstein" was sung to the tune of "Oh, My Darling Clementine".The kids absolutely loved the song, "Do Your Guts Hang Low". We passed out copies of the words to the song and we sang it three times, first at regular speed, second a little faster, and third as fast as we could possibly sing it. We think this will become a Halloween tradition at Altara from now on.