Day 54


TOO MANY TAMALES is a holiday favorite of mine. Maria plays with her mother's wedding ring while helping make tamales. When her cousins come over, Maria runs off to play with them until she realizes her mother's ring is missing! Panicked, she convinces her cousins to help them look for the ring by eating each tamale.

My students love this story. Through the years, I have had parents make tamales with us. This is a neat experience for my students and offers many of them a unique opportunity to learn about another culture. The story offers a great opportunity to teach cause and effect too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 63

Image
I used WHAT DO YOU THINK, KATIE? (written by Fran Manushkin and illustrations by Tammie Lyon) from the Katie Woo series to introduce opinion writing.  The book begins as a friendship story. Katie and her friends try to decide what to do and get mad at each other.  At first, Katie is very unreasonable but she works her way through the conflict.  Throughout the story, sidebars teach about opinion writing. At one point, I had my students stop and write whether they agreed or disagreed with Katie and support what they thought. Everyone wrote because it was very obvious that she was wrong and all my students knew it. There are many more Katie Woo stories. I am definitely going to look into buying them.
Read more

Day 41

Image
I have discovered my students need practice rhyming words, so I will be adding poetry to the challenge in the coming weeks. SHIMMER: SONGS OF NIGHT, written by Raven Howell and illustrated by Carina Povarchick, is a beautiful selection I stumbled upon while looking for poetry.  The collection of poems is all about the time between sundown and sunup.  This time is typically scary to young children but this collection points out the magic and wonder of nighttime. The illustrations add a layer to the poetry I love and find myself getting lost in. The clever word play, kid friendly content and whimsical illustrations make this book one that will be hard to top.
Read more

Day 42

Image
ENEMY PIE, by Derek Munson and illustrated by Tara Calahan King, is a great story for second graders learning about relating to others. A boy has an enemy. Dad suggests a surefire way to fix enemy Jeremy once and for all--enemy pie.  While dad makes enemy pie, the main character spends the day with Jeremy and learns that his enemy is really not so bad. This story has lots of tension and the little twist at the end is just what my kiddos love right now. ENEMY PIE definitely has a message but it is so entertaining, students don't even realize they are being taught. I love that.
Read more