Waiting – Award Winning Books

This week we read one of the new award winning books Waiting by Kevin Henkes.

This book won both the Caldecott Honor and the Geisel Honor. We talked about these awards and other books which have won these awards.  They also talked about other books by Kevin Henkes.

Additional Activities:

Memory Cards

Video – Meet Kevin Henkes

Featured Books – Caldecott Award, Geisel Award, Kevin Henkes

Sharks vs. Trains

This week we read Sharks vs. Trains by Chris Barton, ill. by Tom Lichtenheld.

Unlike the Who Would Win series that we read earlier in the year, this is a fictional comparison.  As we find out in the book , who would win depends on what the situation  is.  A highly entertaining story with great opportunities to teach some life lessons.   Featured books this week were books by Chris Barton, Tom Lichtenheld, books about sharks and books about trains.

Additional Activities
Printable – Tom Lichtenheld’s Activity Guide
Video – Shark vs. Train Movie Trailer

Rain by Manya Stoic

This past week we read Rain by Manya Stojic.  The story is about the animals predicting the rain using their five senses.  The story is repetitive and cumulative so I encouraged the students to help me with the senses as I pointed to my nose, eyes, ears, hands and mouth. After the story we talked about how the rain falling is part of the water cycle.  We also talked about the setting of the books which is the African Savanna habitat.  Both water cycle and habitats are subjects which the students are studying in their classroom.  I showed them the Magic School Bus (series) book about the water cycle and we talked about how they contain information (Nonfiction) and each book was about a different subject (which is how nonfiction books are arranged) and therefore not together in the library.

Additional Activities

Printable – Water Cycle (TpT)

Video – Water Cycle (BrainpopJr) 

Game – Build an online habitat

Featured Books:
612.8 Five Senses
Magic School Bus (series)
551.57 Rain/Weather
591.7 Savannah/Habitat

How Big Were Dinosaurs?

Last week we read the book How Big Were Dinosaurs? by Lita Judge.

We talked about how  there are no longer any dinosaurs (extinction) and how  we know facts about dinosaurs (fossils) .  We talked about how some scientists believe that dinosaurs disappeared due to a drastic change in climate and their habitats.  These are all topics that they are studying in the classroom.  We discussed that all the information or nonfiction books about dinosaurs (subject) are together on in the library and have the same Call #.  Students were then given a card with the Call# of a habitat, in order to find and pick out a book to use for a habitat project that they will be working on in the classroom.  As usual, there were books on display in the library about the subjects we discussed (fossils, dinosaurs, habitats).  In addition, there was a dinosaur bookmark.

Additional Activities

Authors Website –  How Big Were Dinosaurs  (Coloring Pages)

Brainpop.com – Dinosaurs (Video)

Enchanted Learning – Dinosaurs