Ghoulish Goodies

Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers is a great little cooking book for this time of the year. A and I were at a local bookstore that has 32 rooms, if you are local hopefully you know about The Book Loft found in German Village. I think A just likes the fact she can wind through several rooms right to the children's section. We had just spent time during a doctor appointment flipping through my file on Halloween gathering ideas for crafts and treats at home.

Finding this book was just perfect and the table of contents was quite intriguing. There are six chapters with recipes organized in this manner; candy and goodies, cookies, cakes and cupcakes, party food, snacks, and drinks, halloween supper, and scary party food. This book is about 8 x 7 inches with fun fonts to help set the theme of halloween and beautiful full color photographs showing most recipes. The first recipe for Monster Eyeballs had A's eyes glistening with excitment and she hasn't realized it but they are very much like our OSU Buckeye treats we make. YUM!

I'm not sure how anyone could look at this book and not get in the mood for Halloween and making treats. I had an extra surprise with this book. All three of my girls want to use it. My girls are each three and a half years apart, with the youngest and oldest being seven years apart. Sometimes, finding things in common can be challenging. A and N flipped through the book right when we got home and made a shopping list. Then, N and B made Cup of Worm together on Saturday and it was so nice to see them interact together and having fun. I think the next two weeks will bring more fun in our kitchen.

Are you excited for kindergarten?

Yes, I am. Back on August 4, my friend Katied from Creative Literacy asked me this question in the comment section. It's taken me over two months to reply. Not because I was being rude or ignoring her, I just didn't know how to answer it. I felt a lot of uncertainty when she asked this question. Uncertainty about the set up of my room, rearranging my classroom library, gathering and organizing math manipulatives, organizing two classes and figuring out a daily schedule. The uncertainty is much smaller now. Now, it's related to things that come with change. As we all know, change is good and change is making me think about new things, in new ways and old things in a new way.

To answer Katied, yes I'm excited now that I'm in the trenches but more so after two small events last week. E and I were having a writing conference over a story he had written in his Drawing and Writing Notebook, at first I saw a group of stick figures gathered together and his name was written in a speech bubble. E says, "Look Mrs. Robek, that's you and you are reading Old MacDonald to us at the carpet." Yes, it was me. I was sitting in my rocking chair surrounded by E and his peers reading. E is a child who has been writing about things important to him since school started and I was included. I was just beaming inside and out at this moment.

On the same day, N was last in line as I took the children out to recess before lunch and he stopped before entering the playground area and called to me, "Mrs. Robek, I'll see you real soon, I'll see you when you come and get us from lunch. Right Mrs. Robek, real soon." I'm not sure what provoked N to tell me this, but maybe he knew I would stop and think. N is a confident student and has handled adjusting to kdg. I got to thinking how it takes time to connect with a new class and new students, each group is different. I walked away feeling connected to N and thrilled he looked forward to the time I would pick him up from lunch. My students are only on day 17 of school, but we've connected.

I think I couldn't be excited before school because I didn't have any connections. Everything was new. I've connected with my space and it feels like home but more importantly I've connected with 45 students and to me you've got to connect and have a relationship to learn. I hope you've found some connections.

Harriet's Halloween Candy

Is the perfect book for the month of October and for any math learning with sorting. Author Nancy Carlson uses the character Harriet the dog to tell a story of sharing after the event of trick or treating. Harriet doesn't really want to share her candy. She sorts her candy, counts, her candy, hides her candy, and eats her candy. After eating too much candy, which most children hope to do with their treats she decides she isn't feeling so well. She then thinks sharing with her baby brother Walt is a better feeling than a queasy stomach. What makes this book great for mathematics is just one page.

" When she got home, she laid it all out carefully on the floor. Then she organized it. First by color. Then by size. And finally by favorites."

Harriet reminds the reader sorting can be flexible and there is more than one way to sort objects for success.

Sorting

This is my favorite nonfiction book I used or had available during our first focus on sorting. The book is part of the series Math Counts and is published by Children's Press. The book has photographed objects to illustrate each page and to guide the reader while learning about sorting. I think this book is able to reach all levels found within a primary classroom. The book begins with a collection of small objects and the following four pages each show one of the objects collected as a group, identical objects. A fairly easy sort for kindergarten students. As the book progresses, connections are made for the reader when they think about their own houses. For example, one sort is the objects found in a bathroom. Another page focuses on shoes, socks, sneakers and boots. All things worn on your feet. To extend our student's vocabulary this book did a great job defining the word set, "when like things are sorted together." The book later reinforces, "things that make up a set have somthing in common." My students found the photographs of real objects interesting and I thought they provided a higher level of engagement and interaction with the book. It's also a great model or springboard for sorting activities within the classroom.

The Baby's Catalogue

By Janet and Allan Ahlberg is an interesting book for children to look at and ponder. The book begins with five pictures of six babies, there is a set of twins. The following pictures follow these babies through a typical day. The next two page spread out is sorting the parents with photos. The Dads are on the left side of the page and the Moms are on the right. A good discussion for children to see how objects and people can look different but can be put together with the same characteristic. The shopping page is another favorite of mine for it sorts what they buy into these categories; fruit, cans, baby things, sausages, and boxes. Another page later on using the same format can be found for suppers. This book lends our youngest learners to think beyond the typical sorting by color, size, and shape attributes they are comfortable with. The text is also simple enough they won't be intimidated.

is it red? is it yellow? is it blue?

by Tana Hoban is a great book to use when talking about sorting with young children. I started the school year off with a mathematical unit on sorting and this week I'm highlighting my top five favorite books I used. Tana Hoban is a master in creating photo- concept books. She has been a personal favorite of mine since the girls were infants. This book encourages children to look at the world around and notice the colors they see. Each page is a photograph of real objects you could see in your life and underneath circles identify the colors within the photograph. My favorite pages are the ones with many objects the same in a variety of colors. This lends a discussion about what the sorting category is beyond a color rule. Identifying relationships between objects using color, size, and shape is key in understanding and using sorting in their lives.

Me Hungry!

How fun, there was a new book on my front stoop when I got home today. This summer I was introduced to Jeremy Tankard and just love his Bird character. After exploring his website I saw another book of his that was appealing because it was not about Bird. It was about a stone age boy and I was thinking I needed to add more titles that will interest boy readers. I still think this will be a goal of mine as my kdg. library grows and Me Hungry! is the perfect selection to start off my new additions!

The warm, muted illustrated Jeremy uses continue to please the reading eye and provide a sense of warmth. The stone age boy is hungry and his parents are busy. He decides to take matters into his own hands and says, "Me hunt rabbits!" I personally was a bit scared to turn the next page because we have a pet bunny at our house and I thought please don't eat the rabbit. Luckily, the rabbit hides and saves himself. The stone age boy continues to hunt a few other animals with no luck and stumbles into a very large leg, which made me think an elephant. However, I wasn't thinking about setting and realizing a mammoth would be more appropriate. Together they solve the stone age boy's hunger issues and a message of friendship finds the reader.

I'm just thrilled to have this book and think my emerging readers will love it too. They are just noticing the word a within shared writing and this book will be perfect for us to read and notice the word me. The font size and use of punctuation would be great to help readers of all ages read with inflection. I could just see a group of third grade boys having a great time reading aloud this book.