New Children's Literature

Last night (just like last year New Children's books) Miss Miller and I headed over to Andrew Buchanan for a marvelous presentation on "The Year's best books in children's literature" by Susan Berrier (the librarian of Andrew Buchanan and Lurgan Elementary in the Chambersburg Area School District)
First of all, I forgot how much I LOVE listening to this woman read aloud!! Seriously, if I taught at Buchanan or Lurgan I will totally be going to library with my kindergarteners instead of using the 35 minutes as a prep period :-)
I saw some great picture books that are definitely worth sharing...

Belive me, Goldilocks Rocks! (as told by Baby Bear)

written by Nancy Jean Loewen and Tatevik Avakyan

Bailey written by Harry Bliss

a great read aloud for the 1st or 2nd day of school. Shows the events of a school day from the morning before school through going home at the end of the day, with Bailey the dog as an enthusiactic student

How Rocket Learned how to Read by Tad Hills

An endearing white dog with black spots loves chasing leaves and chewing sticks. He also loves napping under his favorite tree. Then his sleep is interrupted one spring day by a tiny yellow bird that designates him her first student. Rocket wants no part of her lessons, but the bird is determined to teach him to read.

RRalph by Lois Ehlert

The narrator describes discovering how Ralph the dog can talk, appropriately saying words such as "roof, rough, bark, & wolf"

Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian

funny first-person "journal" of a goldfish in his bowl, which is getting more and more crowded

Dog in Boots written by Greg Gormley

Dog keeps going back to the shoe store to find the perfect pair of shoes to do all of the things that a dog needs to be able to do

Dr. Seuss

Yes, I am definitely a week late in wishing Dr. Seuss a "Happy Birthday". At least we aren't celebrating the day a week late at our school.
Last Friday, our students (in the whole school) got to rotate around to the different classrooms to particiapte in listening to stories, fun activities, and visiting Seussville in the computer lab in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday! (If he was still alive he would be 108)

tracing then cutting out our handprints to create a giant tree

Miss Neil reading All About Seeds

the kids visiting Seussville

inspecting our seeds to get ready to plant them

Mrs. Johnson reading I can name 50 trees!

Mrs. Bowman reading The Lorax in the 1st grade classroom

A truffula of trees

(each leaf states about a way to help the earth or a way to show kindness to someone at New Franklin) 

our tree made out of the whole school's handprints

In our own kindergarten classroom, we did a little more celebrating

Riley wanted to try on my Dr. Seuss hat



Even Kinder Bear joined in on the celebration

Mrs. Connie Kelly came into our classroom as a guest reader from the Rotary Club and read There's a Wocket in my Pocket

Author Visit

On Friday morning, New Franklin had the pleasure of hosting a local Shippensburg author by the name of John Graham. It was an amazing experience for everybody. I didnt tell the kids until that morning what was happening (they had been talking briefly about it in library class though). Their react?

"A REAL LIVE AUTHOR!?!?"

"He is truly coming to see US?!?!"

"This is AMAZING!!!!"

(and a WHOLE bunch of screaming!)

Off to the library we trot to hear a book called No Sweets for Santa written by John Graham (a book that we actually learned was 11 years in the making)

If you are interested in checking out the book and learning more about it

visit his website No Sweets for Santa

That afternoon we were finishing up our Christmas Junie B. book Jingle Bells Batman Smells P.S. So does May and one of the children asks "When is the author of Junie B. going to come visit us?" haha

Character Day

oh, this post is SO long overdue - but without further wait :-)

On Friday October 21st our school had character day. Children (and staff) were instructed to dress up as a fictional storybook character for school. Overall, many children participated and our day was filled with TONS of fun filled activities

• we had a parade through the entire building so all the kids could see each other costumes
• we had three guest readers from 5th grade who read us Purplicious and Danny the dinosaur

• We made masks to pretend we had chicken pox from Itchy Itchy Chicken Pox

• we colored, cut, and pasted together bumblebees to go with Marissa's costume

•  A guest reader (the Little Old Lady) came to read us The Gingerbread Man

• We read The Bike Lesson to go with Levi's costume (which was Papa Bear)

We had more characters like Batman, the man in the Yellow Hat (from Curious George), Alice in Wonderland, Fancy Nancy, TinkerBell and other really awesome costumes. 

New Children's Books

So after I got all the kids on the bus this afternoon, I hung around school for awhile (yep, not gonna lie - I was messing around on this website playing with my new blogs) because this evening I headed over to Andrew Buchanan to attend a "What's New" in children's literature workshop. It was (to use my 14 year old daughter's words) "O-Mazing!"