The Picture Book a Day Challenge

Tuesday PANDO by Kate Allen Fox and Turine Tran One of my goals as a teacher is to read more nonfiction with my students. PANDO is wonderful. Written by Kate Fox, the story begins with a single seed and grows into a massive living organism. Filled with facts, this story is also lyrical and the illustrations by Taurine Tran are mesmerizing.  PANDO sparked lots of conversation. I mentioned that I had never seen PANDO in person but now that I read this book, I wanted to go see it. One student said, "So you can do that? You can actually go visit it?" So we then got on Google Earth to explore a little. PANDO turned into a geography lesson. This is definitely not what I planned, but the interest was so high, I ran with it.  Another said, "It's like this book opens up a whole new world." After we were finished reading, a student asked to borrow the book. Within minutes, several students started asking to read it. It is now "checked out" until October.  Wedne...

 I am doing it again! Inspired by the #bookaday challenge and my love for picture books, I am reading at least one picture book a day for the 2021-2022 school year. I will include student reactions and conversations or comments my students make. Some people have asked in the past if I have any other activities I do with the book. For the most part, I do not. I read these books for the sake of reading them.  Day 1 -- I use Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse as a way of calming everyone's nerves on the first day of school. Lilly is hilarious and all my students relate to her story.  We talked about good days, bad days, and in-between days. We also talked a lot about managing our emotions. It is okay to be mad. How do we handle anger at school?  Day 2 --  I am going to try to do more with poetry this year. I want my kids to learn to love language and wordplay. Raven Howell's A Cheer For The Year is well written and has playful rhymes related to the year throughout. hey l...

One of my students smashed his reading goal last week. At the beginning of the year, reading intervention with him was difficult. He would get dejected, act out, and cry. He knew he couldn't read as well as the other children in class and was the kind of kid who would do whatever he could to control his own situation--even if it meant being disruptive. Yet, when I read whole group, he sat on my shoes and hung on my every word. I realized that he loved books--the funnier the better. A few months into the school year, I decided that during intervention, I would follow his lead. We echo-read his favorite read-alouds.  We reread these stories for hours. And guess what? It worked. His growth took off. Last Friday, on testing day, he started reading and I knew he was going to nail it. His fluency, expression and word attack skills all seemed to gel. When the timer went off, he looked up at me and said, "I did it. I beat my goal." My eyes filled with tears and I hugged him...

This story is clever and laugh-out-loud funny.  My students loved it and spent recess pretending to be at Villain School.

I am a huge Mem Fox fan (I have been since Tough Borris ). This story is great. It is about a mother duck who gets separated from her ducklings. It can easily be used to teach Math to youngsters (ideally before they even get to school). My students loved the simple text and picked up on the Math lesson on their own. The illustrations are adorable and add to the fun of the story.  This is a great book for schools and an even better pick for families with young children at home.

I have loved this book since forever. The simple yet powerful message of this story makes it a great pick for your classroom.