I know a lot of things

by Ann and Paul Rand was the perfect book to talk about what children already know when they come to school. Children are gathering information and knowledge from the moment they are born and to assume they are coming to school to learn, is limiting in ways for our students. Andie Cunningham and Ruth Shagourgy talk about Discovering Expertise in their book Starting with Comprehension which I reviewed here. "In the five years on this planet, these children have all become experts in parts of their lives." Two of their goals in the beginning of the year is to uncover a child's personal strengths as well as discovering curriculum possibilities. As I read about this idea this summer, I knew I wanted to find a picture book to foster our work and painting of our expertise.

I know a lot of things, is written from the voice of a child who notices the world around them and values what they see. "I know a cat goes meow." "And even an ant could carry a load on his back big as a berry", this is my favorite illustration. One ant carrying a large berry upon it's back against a background of soft pink paper. The illustrations are muted tones and simplistic. The book was originally published in 1956, before the illustrators media was listed in the book information, but I would love to know exactly what they used. Throughout the book you can hear the voice of a child, "a book needs pages and a cake takes ages to bake." Check in with your students and find out what are they experts at, what do they know a lot about, it will help you understand them.

Cornelius P. Mud, ARE YOU READY FOR SCHOOL?

by Barney Saltzberg is about a young pig getting ready for school. As you read the text of the story one would listen and think it's a typical conversation between a child and mother. The mother is asking various questions to guide the pig in getting ready for his day. "Are you up?, Did you make your bed?, Are your clothes on?" are a few examples. Cornelius P. Mud always replies, "YES!" The children were able to participate in a shared reading easily with this response.

However, as the reader reads the bright acrylic and pencil illustrations they discover Cornelius P. Mud is not quite getting ready for school in the traditional sense. When he is up, he is flying in his room because a bunch of balloons are tied to his feet. He made his bed but he made it to look like an elephant that he is riding. His clothes are on but they are on his fishbowl and not his body. My kindergarteners just giggled after a couple of readings when we could focus and discuss the illustrations with more depth. This was a perfect book for discussing the importance of reading the pictures to support our comprehension.

Fancy Nancy Explorer Extraordinaire!

by Jane O Connor is a fun twist to the traditional picture book format for the character Fancy Nancy. B is the biggest Fancy Nancy fan I know and received this gift last spring for the birthday with an exploring kit just like Fancy Nancy. It included rain boots, a bug catcher, a tea set, a notebook, collecting box, and a big fancy bag.

While the Library of Congress lists this book as fiction you will find many nonfiction features. One page is filled with sketches and labels answering the question, What does an explorer extraordinaire need? If you are an explorer than most likely you will need and use the map of your territory. B loved looking at this because familiar characters homes are on the map. Fancy Nancy tells you a little bit of sugar will attract ants and included a diagram of an ant hill. As she talks about bugs she includes photographs looking like a Polaroid film with labels. There are lots of information about flowers, birds, and plants one might find while exploring always with Fancy Nancy's great tone and use of rich words.

This past weekend was great weather wise and B got out her book and went shopping to make Nancy's Extra-Fancy Lemonade. Of course, it is pink! I hope Jane O'Connor will continue to include the notion of exploring and learning with nonfiction features in her books with a strong and positive girl character.

WoW! ScHooL!

by Robert Neubecker is the perfect book to use in the beginning of the school year with kindergarten! Thank you to my friend Maureen for sharing it with me. The book's colorful illustrations capture the awe a classroom and school can have for a first time student. My students found WoW! TEACHER! to be such an intriguing page. The author/illustrator turned the page vertically and then created a two page layout which enhances the teacher's height in relationship to her students.

The word WoW! probably won't be found on any kindergarten sight word list but I'm thinking it could be a great word to hear a child's voice when writing if they choose to use it. I think the word WoW! is the perfect word to share what a palindrome is and see what young child latches on to little interesting tidbits of knowledge. I think the word WoW! is just a fun word to read.

The repetitive use of WoW! on each page has made this book a great shared reading in our class within just two days. It's a great book to support my readers early on in the school year and will be for yours too.

My Friend

by Beatrice Alemagna jumped right off the shelf while I was book shopping over the summer. I was intrigued instantly with the front cover. The illustration is done using fabric and stitching, in a collage format. You have to love the first line, "I am a most unusual animal" and you only see the belly and legs in the illustration. The animal meets a new person on each page and is accused of being a cat, a monkey, a rat, a pigeon, a lion, a dog, and more. Until something closely looking like a rabbit but with a spiny back says, "Hello. Do you want to play with me?" The original animal is hesitant and asks..."Don't you want to know what I am?" and the reply is, "I know what you are. You are my friend." Isn't that a lovely message to read for the beginning of the year. I learned how to sew when I was growing up and continue to sew projects every once in a while. I love collage illustrations and this book stands out with the use of fabric and stitching to create visuals.

Kindle 2 - Text to Speech

My friend Franki over at A Year of Reading, just did a great post sharing her experiences and thinking about her Kindle 2. You can find that here. I thought I would share my latest thinking and bring an update to my previous entries. While I was setting up my classroom library and working in complete silence for several hours, I was looking for some noise, some productive noise and realized I had my Kindle 2 in my purse. Earlier in the week, I was at a class and a friend recommended Gorgeously Green to me and I instantly bought it sitting in a high school auditorium using my Kindle 2. That was pretty cool! While working in my classroom I couldn't sit and read so I tried the Text-to-Speech feature for the first time and loved it. You can start, pause, and stop the reading. You can also adjust the rate with slower, default, and faster. The voice can be a male or female. I'm not sure Gorgeously Green was the right book for this feature, there were a lot of things I wanted to clip or take notes on so I think I will actually read this book still. However, I could see having a fun fiction book and using the text to speech option and enjoying it. I would recommend turning the wireless off to increase the life of your charge. I think this will be my books on tape of Cd from now on.

Beginnings {Poetry Friday}

I have spent the past two days doing the "First Day of Kindergarten", twice. It's been interesting with a lot of learning going on for me and the students. Slow and steady I keep reminding myself. I've been trying to provide opportunities for connections between students to foster relationships, wanting them to return the next day. It's been a crash course on how much they need modeled and guided with how school and our classroom will work. Baby steps are important with our youngest learners. A colleague shared this poem with me for the children to do as they line up and get ready to travel in the hallways. I think something like this will promote literacy and help us think about what we are going to do as we travel through the hallways.

I'm giving myself a great big hug.
I'm standing straight and tall.
I'm looking right ahead of me.
I'm ready for the hall.