August 10 for 10: Picture Book Event is Here 2012

Good Morning Everyone, it's going to be a great day!  It's August 10th, 2012 and that means Cathy at Reflect and Refine Learning Building a Learning Community and I are here to host our third annual 10 for 10 Picture Books blog sharing event.  If you could see my laptop right now, I have three screens opened for my blog.  One tab has my list from the inaugural August 10 for 10.  The second tab has the second collection of picture books I put together in 2011.  The third tab is this edition.  I really thought I would put a new spin on my list - maybe a focus or a theme or a common thread.  Nothing came to me until I was doing dishes today and thought maybe I could share my list of new books I want to add to my room this year.  However, I don't have them yet so I would be relying on thinking from others and the whole purpose of this event is have a need to go book shopping.  I've decided to look at both previous list and think critically to see what I must keep, what might I let slide off the list because something new has just touched my heart.

My list is not in a ranking order, I've just numbered them to make sure I stop at 10!

1.  Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Eric Carle changed my life in college and has to STAY for a third year!  I was sitting in my reading methods course at SUNY College at Buffalo when Dr. Phelps read this book in class.  I was introduced to a predictable pattern, shared reading, Eric Carle, collage hand made papers, turning the page slightly ahead of the text to encourage student participation and I'm sure much more.  I remember thinking this was much more fun and engaging than the basal readers and reading groups I grew up with.  I've never had a group of students who didn't fall in love with this book.  It has to stay because reading this book is one of my fondest memories to each of my three daughters who are now bigger and I'm sure took turns reading it to each other at some point in our journey together.

2.  Suddenly, is a book I found a year ago and think it needs to stay on my list for another year.  Suddenly! by Colin McNaughton is perfect for helping kindergarten students think about predicting.  The text is larger in size.  The illustrations are very supportive to the text and using our picture clues to understand the story is essential.  The text also has a pattern and would allow us as writers to think about the word suddenly and what happens following that word each time.  The rest of this post was written November 10, 2011.

3.  The Three Bears by Byron Barton has to STAY for a third year!  I just enjoy reading this book to students.  The text is simple and repetitive and for whatever reason my inflection is at it's best reading this book. I think the simple collage technique is an easy one for students to see and replicate.  I love to help children figure out there's one color for each character that gets repeated in clothing and objects.  My two classes shared creating retelling murals this year using Byron Barton has a mentor and then we interactively wrote our text.   These were beautiful pieces of collaboration and fostered so much literacy learning.  I also think this will be a great book with other 3 Bear versions to help my young readers compare literature, part of the Common Core.

4.  A must have NEW selection, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  You  can my initial thinking and reactions the day it was released this year.  My list needed a book to talk about math ideas and this is perfect for so many concepts mathematically.

5.  I can't believe I removed this book from the list last year.  Gosh, 10 is so hard to do!  I have to be quite honest here, I think limiting this to ten books was Cathy's idea.    Ish by Peter Reynolds is a must have for any classroom to embrace the arts and the differences between artist capabilities.  It encourages the reader to look at things in a different way, with a different lens.  Looking at things with a different lens is essential for 21st century learning.  Welcome back, Ish!

6.  Since we are talking about the arts, I leaked out on twitter earlier this week I Am an Artist might make my top 10 and it is.  I recently got back from spending a lot of time outside and in nature.  It's amazing what you can see if you take the time to look.  Another book encouraging readers to look at things differently, maybe that is a future list of some sort for this event or something else, maybe that's an article or a blogpost.   I predicted I Am An Artist would join my list.

7.  Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox is about older people, it's about spending time with them, it's about memories.  I want it to STAY for year three!  Memories give us ideas for writing.  As in this story, memories help us remember.   I think we need to work harder and bridge the gap between our young and old.   I think we need to work harder as a profession to help students make writing easier by writing about memories and what is known to them.

8.  Super Sam! is a new addition this year.  I think as I looked for a few new titles this one jumped out as one that fostered students to think deeply about the text and notice more through the illustrations that aided in comprehending the words.  My students also understood the play on words using the illustrations.  K students can think deeply, my initial thinking was posted February 21, 2012.

9.  Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins is a book from my first list and needed to return. In the past I've used it for mathematics, when we were working on directional words.   The students enjoyed it so much we retold it through painting the different places Rosie goes.  We were building a map and created labels through interactive writing.  When we mounted our mural for a retelling, we used Velcro for Rosie and she could move along the mural as she does in the story.  In reading the Common Core our emerging readers and writers need to be doing this work for literacy, I think I will be using this within the first quarter of the year.

10.  Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin was on my first list and has been slightly moved over by this NEW Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes!   for two years in a row (Both titles link you to my original posts for these books.)   I honestly had a dream last year where I went to school and the room was filled with parents and students.  The room was set up but I had no handouts, no sign up sheets and really no introduction to kindergarten speech planned.  It bordered a nightmare and as I conclude this list I know just like Pete the Cat says, "because it's all good." the next couple of weeks will all work out, it always does.


I'm so glad you stopped by.  If you are joining us this year please let us know.  You can let us know by leaving a comment on our blogs.  You can let us know via twitter @cathymere or @mandyrobek.  We will then connect all of our list via a Jog.  Make sure you settle in with a large class of water to stay dehydrated, I think the Jog will be a long one with lots of interesting things to view.