Thursday, May 10, 2012

and then it's spring

and then it's spring by Julie Fogliano is charming.  It's a new picture book reminding us patience and anticipation are part of our seasonal journey from winter to spring.  A boy and his dog are outside and notice everything is brown, all around.  They plant seeds and wait for rain.  As they wait they notice things around them in the garden outside are still brown.  As I think all gardeners do, the boy and his dog worry about their seeds.  Waiting, watching, worry and weeks past by.  Sometimes the brown seems to be turning a greenish.  Planting pots are set outside.  A tire swing gets hung.  I bet you can predict the ending, it's a happy one.

The warm, muted illustrations are one to enjoy.  From what I can tell the illustrations are done in a colored pencil tool of sort.  They look like pencil lines carefully done using shading to show angles and shades within a color.  The facial expressions bring emotion and feeling to this story.  It's easy to connect with the characters and hope for the brown to go away.  I was easily anticipating what would happen and hoping spring would arrive to complete their plans.  I also love the monotone color hues and the use of non glossy paper.  

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Our Global Community Series


I've decided if you muddle long enough, the mud settles guiding the confusion to settle for a bit and clarity to float to the surface.  After muddling this year with the Common Core and our new state curriculum for science and social studies, I decided I needed to purchase some books as I thought about content learning for next year.  This is day three for sharing some resources that are helping bring clarity to my muddling.

Today I want to share with you a collection of books I've found to use with social studies.  In Ohio, kinders have the topic of History and one subtopic is Heritage.  Exact bullets state - Heritage is reflected through the arts, customs, traditions, family celebrations and language.  I looked up the definition for each of the ways to reflect heritage and holidays is not part of each.  Holidays could fall under family celebrations but it's not the soul means to learn about heritage.  Also our focus is to be on heritage within our room, learning from our classroom community.  These titles will help our students think about a world bigger and different than their own.

Our Global Community is another series from Heinemann includes these titles; clothing, families, farming, games, homes, markets, music, and schools.  The photographed illustrations are rich and beautiful with visual images that are unknown to my classroom community.  What a great visual for seeing different cultures.  The books have a very similiar format.  The table of contents have these great titles Schools Around the World, Types of Clothing, Why People Play Music, Types of Games, What Families Do Together, Markets Around the World, and Types of Homes.  Each book ends with a picture glossary which will be very helpful in supporting our young readers.   The text is limited per page, short, and I believe accessible to young readers.  The homes book alone is quite fascinating.  For example, my students would rarely think of  "Houses made on stilts."  or people living in mud houses.  I can't to discuss heritage that stems from our classroom community and to have some new resources to help us think outside our community when our community looks the same.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Today was filled with anticipation because I knew when I got home tonight one of my favorite book characters would be waiting for me on my front porch.  Yes, it was Pete the Cat!  This time Pete comes to us in the book, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by the dynamic duo Eric Litwin and James Dean.  I had the pleasure of meeting this creative team this past February at the Dublin Literacy Conference.  They gave participants a sneak peak of this new book and I immediately pre-ordered it.

As you can guess, yes Pete the Cat is wearing a shirt with four big, colorful, round, groovy buttons.  (Right there is a great mentor text for describing one word as a writer.)  His shirt is yellow.  His buttons are on the larger size, I think that is what makes them groovy.  The buttons are turquoise, green, blue, and red which also compliment the yellow shirt against this blue cat.  Eric Litwin's color choices are vibrant, inviting, warm and cool.  I love turquoise against a lime green background.  

This book combines my love for books and my love for teaching mathematics.  When Pete loses his buttons he is counting backwards.  Students will need to understand numbers and the relationship between quantities.  Students could compare numbers.  Pete is subtracting by taking from and modeling subtraction through drawings.  The reader will also discover number sentences with mathematical symbols.  

With series books good readers have expectations and James Dean didn't let us down.  Pete has speech bubbles, Pete sings a song, Pete doesn't cry, Pete has a positive message again.  The message is, "Buttons come and buttons go."  I can't tell you the ending because it would take away from the whole book but let's just say it is funny!  Students are going to burst out laughing and you will too watching them truly enjoying a book.  The ending of the book and what Pete does actually brought hesitation from the publishers.  There were questions about fact or fiction characteristics of a cat.  There were questions about fur exposure - yes, on a cat?!  I'm so grateful James and Eric plugged along, preparing their song and art because as Pete says, "It's all good!"  

PS - Pete the Cat has a Christmas book coming later this year.

Materials Series


I've decided if you muddle long enough, the mud settles guiding the confusion to settle for a bit and clarity to float to the surface.  After muddling this year with the Common Core and our new state curriculum for science and social studies, I decided I needed to purchase some books as I thought about content learning for next year.  This is day two for sharing some resources that are helping bring clarity to my muddling.

In Ohio, kinders have the topic of Properties of Everyday Objects and Materials under the topic of Physical Science with the focus on the production of sound and on observing, exploring, describing ,and comparing the properties of objects and materials with which the student is familiar.  Exact bullets state - Objects and materials can be sorted and described by their properties and some objects and materials can be made to vibrate and produce sound.

Materials is another series from Heinemann includes these titles; glass, metal, plastic, soil, rock, rubber, water, and wood.  Each book follows a similiar format and reminds me of Weather Watchers I shared yesterday.  I love the photographs illustrating this series.  They are crisp, clean, and focused on the text for each page.  I think before students can describe properties they need to be able to define the property by asking the question found at the beginning of each book.  For example in the Materials Plastic text, "What is plastic?"  The text guides the reader to learn, "Plastic is made from oil.  Plastic is made by people.  Plastic can be strong.  Plastic can be light.  Plastic can be stiff.  Plastic can bend."  This book and the others in the series will promote student thinking with their provoking photographs.  For example, a hard hat is used to show plastic is strong and plastic shopping bags help the reader think about plastic being light.  I also think with the examples shared via photographs the students will be able to think more about their own discoveries and examples of plastic objects.  Other areas discussed in each book include What happens when plastic is heated?, Recycling plastic, How do we use plastic? and How do we use plastic?  Not only is this series  helping me plan and think about new science curriculum it will also help my students stretch and think in new ways.