Sylwia Denko Children's Literature Exploration ELD 307 2-19-13

Asch, F. (1994). The Earth and I. Orlando, FL : Hardcourt Brace Company. The Earth and I is a book about a boy who is "friends" with the Earth. It talks about how they work together, helping each other. The Earth makes him very happy, but when there is pollution, the Earth is sad and this makes the boy sad. He works to clean up the Earth because once again, they are friends and they help each other. Genre: Fiction Common Core Standards: K.RFS.1 - Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print. Grade: Pre-school and Kindergarten Activities: I would read this book on Earth Day. It is important for the children to recognize the importance of our earth and what it does for us. The day before, I would have the children do an activity showing us where they live. It would be made from circles glued together. The middle circle would have their home street name, then their town, their state, the country, and then the Earth on the outside. When introducing the book, I would ask the children why the Earth is so important to us. I would ask them to think about the natural elements of our Earth and what we

use it for. When reading the book, I would have them echo read, me pointing to each word as we read to show that there are spaces and how words work to write a sentence. After collecting answers from the students, I would write on the board all the things the Earth does for us. We would have a discussion about pollution and how and why it makes the Earth "sad". Then, I would have each child draw a picture of them using the Earth. They could then share their drawings and we could add their suggestions to the list of how the Earth helps us.

Bunting, E. (2011). Tweak Tweak. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Hardcourt. Tweak Tweak is about a mom elephant and a baby elephant who go on a walk. The mom tells her son to hold on her to tail and if he has a question about anything he should tweak (pull/twist) her tail. He would have questions about all different types of animals and what they do. Whenever the mom would answer the question he tried to mimic the animal (ex. a monkey climbing a tree). He realized that he could not do a lot of the things that the other animals could, but he could do different things. Every animal is unique. Genre: Fiction Common Core Standards: RL.2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. Grade: 2nd Activities: Before reading the book, I would have a discussion about good questions students should be asking themselves when they read a book. These questions are "who?, what?, where?, when?, why?, and how?". These words should start at the beginning of each question and can be modified for each story. I would then read the story and have the students listen closely. During the story I will ask a variety of questions. I would give my students a worksheet that had questions I would give them a worksheet with questions about the story. Then, I would have the students make up their own "5 W and 1 H" questions to ask the class about a different book we read.

Name _______________________________ Types of Questions

Date___________________________

Who were the two main characters in the story? Who were other characters?

What did the elephant mother tell her son?

Where did the mom and son go?

When during the day did the story take place?

Why is it important to ask questions?

How are you special and unique?

Cybele, Y. (2012). A few bites. Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books. Ferdie has trouble feeling motivated to eat his vegetables. Luckily, his sister Voila has a great imagination that helps convince him to eat. She describes the reasons why he should eat his broccoli, because dinosaurs had to eat it to survive. She described his carrots as orange power sticks that help aliens have amazing vision. She described the settings and situations so well he decided to eat them! Eventually, she gets tired and her imagination does not work too well. Because his sister had no more inspiration to create another story, he did not finish his dinner and therefore, could not get dessert. Ferdie goes to play with his toys and uses his imagination to create his own dessert. Genre: Fiction Common Core Standards: RL.K.3 With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story. RL.K.6 With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story. Grade: Kindergarten Activities: Before introducing the story, I would have a poster with a "story map" on the board. On the poster I would have an outline with blank spaces to write in the author, illustrator, title of the book, characters, setting, problem, solution, and theme. I would explain why all of these elements are necessary and how together, they create a great story. I would explain the roles of both the author and illustrator as well. Then, as we were reading the story together, we would fill out the story map. I would have a worksheet for the students that was identical to the one I had on the poster.

Jay, A. (1997). 1 2 3 A Child's First Counting Book. New York, NY: Dutton Children's Books. This book is a simple counting book. Each page counts up from the previous one and there is a picture that depicts the number on the page. For example, it starts out with "1 one little girl sleeping". It has the symbolic representation of the number, the word, and a picture. Each page also has a fairy tale on it. The page with the number 3 has "three little pigs" etc. Genre: Fiction, Fairy Tale Common Core Standards: L.K.2. Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun. Grade: Preschool-Kindergarten Activities: This book would have to follow a whole unit on fairy tales. I would read the book once and ask the children if they recognized the pictures from somewhere. It is important to make connections to the past and I would explain this to them. I would tell them to keep in mind which letters are capitalized because this is important. There are a lot of proper nouns in the book that they should pat attention to. While reading, as a class we would point them out together. Then, I would have them create their own number book. They would start out by numbering each page with the symbol and then the word. They could then page by page go through and draw and label the rest of their book. When writing their own book, I would make sure to discuss when a letter should be captialized and when not so they could do the same in their book.

Montgomerie, A. (2013). Non-Metals. New York, NY: Crabtree Publishing Company. This is a non-fiction book about non-metals. First, it explains what non-metals are and how they compare to metals. The book goes over information about atomic structure, different groups on the periodic table, and then it gets into a few of the elements. There is an explanation of oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon, hydrogen, oil, fuel, and the noble gases. Genre: Non-fiction Common Core Standards: W.3.7 Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic. Grade: 3rd Activities: This would be in conjunction with a science lesson. I would read the book out loud so every student would have an understanding of non-metals as a whole. After reading about a single non-metal, I would ask a few volunteers to tell me something new that they have learned or a piece of information that they thought was most interesting. After finishing the book, I would have a signup sheet for each of the non-metals in the book. I could pull students' names out of a hat to choose in what order the children could sign up for a non-metal (or I could randomly assign students to a non-metal). Once they were assigned they would do research and made a poster about their topic.

Numeroff, L. (1981). Beatrice doesn't want to. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc. Beatrice is a young puppy who is left at home with her older brother. Her older brother is baby-sitting her but he needs to get a book report done so he takes Beatrice to the library against her will. She is complaining the entire time because she does not want to be there. After not knowing what to do, her brother takes her to a class where a librarian reads stories to children. Beatrice hates it and she cannot wait to leave. After a while however, the libraian catches her attention. Eventually, Beatrice does not want to leave and this time she is keeping her brother in the library against his will. Genre: Fiction Common Core Standards: SL.K.1a follow agreed-upon rules for discussions. SL.K.1b continue a conversation through multiple exchanges. W.K.3 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory text in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic. Grade: Kindergarten Activities: *Critical Literacy* Before reading the book, I would have a think-pair-share discussion and then a whole group discussion about power. "Who do you think in your family or school has power? Does this ever change?". I would allow the student who just finished speaking to choose the next speaker. I would encourage the students to keep our classroom rules in check and make sure everyone was taking turns properly and being polite to the listen. While reading, I would ask questions to clarify the story. At the end I would ask "Do you think the ending would have been different if a different "power" was there, for example Beatrice's mother

instead of brother. How would Beatrice have acted?". After a whole-group discussion, I would have the students draw a picture and/or write about when they do and do not feel in power.

Peyo. (1983). What do smurfs do all day?. New York, NY: Random House. Genre: Fiction, Poetry Common Core Standards: RF.K.2a Recognize and produce rhyming words. Grade: Kindergarten Activities: Before reading the book, I would have a discussion about rhyming. I would have written on the board words in pairs, some that rhymed, some that did not. As a class, we could go through the works together, reading them out loud. Together, we would circle that pairs of words that rhymed. Then, the children would read the book on their own. I would like to either have a copy of the book for each child, or I could put this book on the overhead. I would have the children read it and circle the words that rhymed together. Afterwards, we could go through the book and count how many rhyming pairs we found. Then, on the board we would make rhyming word together. I would write a word on the board and have a volunteer tell me a word that rhymes with it and then I would have students tell me rhyming pairs without me prompting them.

Strickland, M. (1993). Poems that sing to you. Honesdale, PA: Wordstrong Boyds Mills Press, Inc. This is a wonderful collection of poems put together in a book. These poems are musical and have beautiful imagery. The book is separated into three sections: poems that dance, poems that sound, and poems that make melody. Genre: Poetry Common Core Standards: SL.3.5 Create engaging audio recordings of stories or poems that demonstrate fluid reading at an understandable pace, add visual displays when appropriate to emphasize or enhance certain facts or details. RL.3.5 Refer to parts of stories, dramas, or poems when writing or speaking about a text using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza, describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections. Grade: 3rd Activities: During a unit of poetry, I would love for my students to perform a poem themselves. At this point, we would have already read each poem in the book. I would ask my students to keep in mind when they really enjoyed a poem because they may have to do something with it in the future. I would have the students write down their first, second, and third choice of poems and I would assign accordingly. No more than two people could do the same poem. They would have to either perform the poem live, or make a recoding of it. Either way, visual elements for emphasis would be necessary. Afterwards, they would summarize the poem, telling us their interpretation, explaining each stanza, and talking about how the stanzas are connected to one another.

Tafuri, N. (2008). Blue Goose. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books. Blue Goose is about four farm animals, a yellow baby chick, a blue goose, a red hen, and a white duck who decide to paint their yard while the farmer goes away. At first, they only use the color paint of their own color (ex. the yellow chick only uses yellow). Later, they work together and mix their colors to make more. They also helped each other reach things up high so it was perfect because by working together they finished just in time for the farmer to come home. Genre: Fiction Common Core Standards: SL.K.2 Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally. Grade: Kindergarten Activities: I would read the story to the students and they would have a worksheet in front of them along with crayons. As the story would go on they would color the same objects with the same color crayons as the characters. The worksheet would have every element that they characters colored but not in order. The students would have to pay attention and be able to comprehend what I was reading. They then would have to make sure that they were using the right color crayon as well.

Name____________________ Blue Goose

Date_________

Wiesner, D. (1991). Tuesday. New York, New York: The Trumpet Club. Tuesday is a very unique and interesting book. There are 29 pages but only 4 of them actually have words on it. The words are only the time of day that the picture is occurring. It starts by showing a picture of a Tuesday around 8 pm. The following three pages of words are getting us through the night and into the next week. My interpretation is that the book is supposed to depict what happens in the night when everyone is sleeping. It shows frogs flying on lily pads, chasing crows, and dogs join in as well. In the morning there are investigators looking at the lily pads that were left from the night before. Then, at the end a new week is starting and it says "Next Tuesday, 7:58 PM" with pigs starting to fly. Genre: Fiction, speculative fiction Common Core Standards: 2.RL.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. Grade: 2nd Grade Activity: I would first go over everything that the students do during the waking hours. I would give them a worksheet with a list of things that we could go over and they could check off what they did. Then, we could add to it. The children could write their individual differences onto their sheet of paper. After that, we would go over everything that they think happens at night when they are sleeping. I would write this list on the board. Then we would read the book. I would have each child describe what is happening on the page out loud. I would explain to them that they are writing their own story here. Having seen this story, their imagination would be running more now and we would add on to the list of what the children think happens at night.

They could then write their own story of what is happening outside of their own home when they are sleeping.

Name: ____________________________ What Did You Do Yesterday? Make my bed Eat breakfast Brush my teeth Come to school Eat snack Read a book Play outside Watch TV Feed my pet Go to a special Play a sport Play a game Do my homework Talk to a friend Do chores

Date:___________________

Ride my bicycle Add your own! _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________

_________________________

________________________