Short, sweet and to the point, UGLY FISH is a humorous anti-bullying story. My kids thought this was hillarious and have asked me to reread it again and again.
I read TEAL by Renee Galvin to my students today. TEAL is about a crayon that doesn't know where he fits in. He wonders if he is blue or is he green. I used TEAL as a conversation starter. We talked about how Teal is different and that makes him special. I had my students write in their journal after and teared up reading their responses. TEAL hits a nerve. Fitting in is important to children. TEAL lets us know that sometimes, not everyone feels like they do and it encourages children to include others who are not like them.
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.
I'm late! I'm late! I'm late posting. The reality of juggling a full time job, my boys' school and football schedule, my writing and a daily blog is hitting me but I've got this. Here is my request pile: The books are starting to stack up! We have been studying different kinds of communities since the beginning of the school year. Although my students live in a city, it is a small one. We do not have skyscrapers here but my students are fascinated by them. A friend gave me this book a few years ago and I found it while unpacking all of my stuff. My students loved hearing all about how skyscrapers are made and were interested in learning about each one. I supplemented the book with Google Street View so we could check out the real buildings and I am trying to figure out a STEM activity that will go with it. The enthusiasm for books is taking over my classroom. I have actually had to say, "Please put your books away. It is time to go home!" tw...
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