Fun with Candy!

                                                             Candy Counting

                                                           By: Lisa McCourt

                                                      Pictures by: Brad Tuckman

            Who doesn’t like candy and sweets? I know I do! I love anything sweet to eat! The book I chose is about word problems that deal with candy. It teaches the students that word problems can be fun and exciting! One example from the book says: “You visit the eye doctor on Monday, the ear doctor on Tuesday, and the belly-button doctor on Wednesday. Each doctor gives you 1 lollipop. How many doctor’s-office lollipops will you eat this week?” (5 McCourt). I love this addition problem, because it is one that children can relate to. This makes math fun and exciting for children of all ages.

            I think this book would be great for 1^st and 2^nd graders who are learning how to add and subtract. As a future teacher I think it would be neat to do a problem a day and bring in candy for the students to actually work the problem out using the manipulatives. Then, after they solve the problem correctly, they get to eat the candy. I feel like this is a fun way to get students interested and involved in math. I can’t wait to use this book in my future classroom! 

“Trouble with a capital T”

                                                             Riding to Washington

                                                               By Gwenyth Swain

                                                         Illustrated by David Geister

            Have you ever wanted to know what it was like to live when not everybody had the same rights? I sure have, and the book, Riding to Washington, really helps explain what it would be like. The story is about a little girl who goes to Washington with her dad to see Dr. King give a speech. Her mother sends her with her dad, because the little girl gets into too much trouble for her mom to see about along with the other kids and household duties. The little girl and her dad get on a train with all the colored people from her dad’s work. Along the way the little girl and an older black woman have to use the restroom so the bus pulls over to let them off. The boy at the desk wouldn’t give them the key to go to the restroom, because the woman was black. The little girl talked the white boy into giving them the key, because she told him it was the right thing to do. When the little girl and the black woman gave the key back to the boy and told him thank you he pretended not to notice that they had even had the key. They got back on the bus and they sang songs all the way to Washington DC. Once they arrived in Washington DC they saw tons of other buses of people who came to listen to the speech. Even though they were miles away from Dr. King the little girl said “I was sure he was looking right at me.” (Swain). The little girl didn’t know why Dr. King was talking about this dream of his but she understood it once the black woman put her hand on her shoulder. The little girl said “Mrs. Tayler gazed at me, tears streaming down her face. And that’s when I knew it that the dream belonged not just to Dr. King and Mrs. Taylor and her husband, but to me and Daddy, and maybe even that boy at the gas station, too.”

            This book really touched me! It made me realize how different times were back in the 1960’s. Riding to Washington would be a good book to read to third through fifth graders. This book would be really good to introduce the topic of Civil Rights. I think it would be neat to get the students to write about what they would have done if they had been on the bus and couldn’t go into the restroom at a gas station, because they weren’t allowed due to their skin color. This book is really good and makes me want to make a difference in the world today. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did!

Beautiful Butterflies

                                                         From Caterpillar to Butterfly

                                                           by Deborah Heiligman

                                                       Illustrated by Bari Weissman

             How many of you LOVE butterflies? I know I do! When I was little I would catch butterflies at my grandparents’ house and watch the butterflies for an hour and play with them and then I would release them into the wild again. I also remember when I was little my mom bought a kit so I could watch the process of how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. So I would definitely say that butterflies amaze me, and that is why I chose a book on butterflies. The book is told in narrative form, where the class gets a caterpillar to watch grow. The story is fiction, but has a detailed description of how a butterfly forms. First the butterfly starts off as an egg, then a caterpillar, then the caterpillar forms a chrysalis. The caterpillar stays in the chrysalis for about a week. In the meantime the students are waiting patiently to see what will happen. “Then one day, during snack time, somebody shouts, “Look!” And we all rush over to see.” (22 Heiligman). Out pops a Painted Lady butterfly! After a few hours the class decides to release the butterfly into the wild.

            I loved this story! It was very exciting and engaging. I really want to have a caterpillar in my classroom and let the students watch the changes that the caterpillar goes through. I recommend this book for ages 4 through 10. I feel like the students will really enjoy the story and get into it. I also love the pictures in the book, because they are very bright.

SLITHER SLITHER HISS HISS!

                                           

                                                                         Giant Snakes

                                                                    By Seymour Simon

Did you know that most boa constrictors are about as long as a car? I didn’t either until I read this awesome book about snakes. This book is all GIANT SNAKES facts! The book talks about different snakes such as the boa constrictors, pythons, and the different varieties of them both. The book also told me: “Giant snakes are the longest land animals alive today.” I thought that fact was pretty amazing! I learned that giant snakes have no outside ears! The mother snakes take care of their eggs, but when the eggs hatch the snakes are on their own. This book is filled with all sorts of neat snake facts that I had no clue about until I read it.

            This story about snakes is nonfiction, because it give us facts about snakes. This type of nonfiction book is called informational picture storybook, because the book identifies different kinds of snakes. The organization of this book is compare and contrast. For example, it compares the boa constrictor to a python. The book also has a lot of great pictures of snakes that help the reader understand what the book is telling them. 

Silly Fox “Trix” are for Guinea Pigs

                                                             
                                                             Love and Roast Chicken 
                                                              By Barbara Knutson

Have you ever believed something someone told you that wasn’t true? I know I have and have later embarrassed myself, because I believed the person who told me. This is what this book is all about. The fox always believes the little guinea pig time after time even though the guinea Pig leads him to danger. Tio Antionio, the fox, is always trying to eat the Guinea Pig, Cuy. Cuy always finds a way to escape the fox by having Tio Antionio do stuff that could hurt him or get him killed.

My favorite part of the book is when Guinea Pig goes to work on the farmer’s field picking alfalfa. One night Guinea Pig sneaks out and is going to help himself to the farmer’s alfalfa, but he realizes someone has already beat him to the field. Guinea Pig goes up and starts talking to the person in the field and shakes his hand. Guinea Pig’s hand gets stuck and the person won’t let him go so he tries to break away and just keeps getting stuck. Guinea Pig starts yelling and it wakes the farmer up and the farmer realizes that his help he hired is just a Guinea Pig and that’s who has been eating all his alfalfa. The farmer is happy that he caught the person eating his alfalfa and so he ties the Guinea Pig to a tree so the farmer’s family can have roasted guinea pig tomorrow. Along comes the fox and the fox wants to eat the Guinea Pig, but Guinea Pig tells the Fox that he is tied up, because he is going to marry the farmer’s daughter who likes to eat roast chicken. The Guinea Pig says this is a problem because he is a vegetarian and doesn’t eat chicken. So the fox says he will help the Guinea Pig and he does by untying him and then the Guinea Pig ties the fox up. The fox wants to marry the farmer’s daughter, because he loves to eat roasted chicken. When the farmer comes out the next morning and sees that the Guinea Pig is gone he is very confused and then the fox tells his the story that the Guinea Pig had told him and the farmer laughs and laughs and tells fox “You believed a story like that? How foolish!” The fox got away and the fox and the guinea pig never saw each other again. I told you that the fox was foolish for listening to the guinea pig.

This story is a traditional literature, because it has a very vague setting. It starts off by saying “One day in the high Andes Mountains” (Knutson). The story also has the motif of a trickery story where the Guinea Pig outsmarts the fox. The overall theme of the story is to not always believe what someone says, and to make your own decisions. I loved this book and children would love to read the book. I think it would be a good book to read to children in 2nd through 5^th grade. The students would enjoy all of the clever ways the Guinea Pig outsmarts the fox.

My Red Shoes

                                                 Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes

                                                                    by Eric Litwin

What is your favorite pair of shoes you like to wear? Pete the Cat’s favorite pair of shoes to wear to school is rocking red shoes. Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes by Eric Litwin, is a book about a rocking cat who is going to school. The story talks about Pete the Cat, who is wearing his school shoes. Pete the Cat discovers all different places at school throughout the book. Pete visits the library where he reads in his school shoes. Throughout the book it has songs that the students can sing to help them remember the book: “I’m reading in my school shoes, I’m reading in my school shoes, I’m reading in my school shoes.” (Litwin). Pete then discovers the lunch room where he says it can be noisy. Pete also gets to play on the playground at school. Pete goes through his whole day at school singing, playing, and learning. Pete really enjoyed school, because he tells his mom all about it when he gets home from school.

            This would be a great book to read on the first day of school to the students so they will feel more comfortable with school and less scared. Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes has a lot of rhyming and rhythm in the book so it is perfect for younger children: “Here comes Pete strolling down the street, rocking red shoes on his four furry feet.” (Litwin). The story is very pleasing to the ears and it is very fun to read aloud to the class. The rhymes are predictable in the book, because they are said repeatedly. Students would understand this book and enjoy reading the book. The images in the book are very real to children, because they can put themselves into Pete the Cat’s place.