Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

Title: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus 

Author: Mo Willems is a three time Caldecott winner. He has written a number of children's books since he started writing in 2000. Before writing children's book Mo was an animator and writer for the children's show Sesame Street. While a writer for the beloved children's show he won six Emmys. 

Genre: Picture Book 

Grades: K-2

Subject Area:  ELA

Summary: Throughout this story all the pigeon wants is to drive the bus. However, the bus driver has left the readers with one task DON'T let the pigeon drive the bus! The pigeon tries everything to get to drive the bus. This story will have children of all ages laughing. 

Pre Reading Activity: Have students close their eyes and picture they are on the bus. Have students describe what being on the bus sounds like, feels like, what they see while they are on the bus. This will allow them to make a connection with the book before reading. This will make the story more enjoyable for all students. 

Post Reading Activity:  Have students do a short writing piece. Students will write about if they would allow the pigeon to drive the bus. Talk to the students about using details why the would or wouldn't let the pigeon drive the bus. Then have students draw a picture to go along with their writing piece. 

Yo! Yes?

Title: Yo! Yes? 

Author: Chris Raschka has had many books with honors. One of his most well known book is his 2012 Caldecott winning A Ball for Daisy. Through his books he tell stories using few words so children can understand the concept through the picture. This is very enjoyable for children of all ages. Chris is also a very talented violist. 

Genre: Character Education 

Grades: K-3

Subject Area: ELA

Summary: This is a cute story about how two boys become friends. They are an unlikely pair but it shows children how two people that may not have a lot of things in common become friends. 

Pre Reading Activity: Talk to students about what makes a good friend. Create a list on the board on things that make people friends. See what children have to say about friendship. Ask students things like what makes someone your friend?

Post Reading Activity: Have children close their eyes and try to remember the way each boy looked in the story. Encourage them to describe the two boys in detail. After children explore the boys’ clothing and physical appearance in general, have them consider the things that were similar about the two boys. Ask: In what ways do you think the two boys might be alike? What kinds of things do you think the boys might enjoy together? As children talk, help them to see that when we look beyond superficial differences we become capable of seeing the many ways in which we have things in common with others. (http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/westonwoods/study_guides/yo_yes.pdf)

Give Me Half

Title: Give Me Half 

Author: Stuart J. Murphy was born in Rhode Island. He went to school design and art direction. This has allowed him to have a strong background to write children books for MathSmart. He now lives in Boston with his wife.  

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Grades: K-3

Subject Area: Math 

Summary: Throughout this story a brother and a sister have to learn how to share. They learn to share through fractions. They have to share there pizza, juice, and cookies. Then end up making a mess because they can’t share well with each other. 

Pre Reading Activity: As a class talk about what factions are. Explain that factions are making whole things such as pizza into parts. A slice of pizza is a part of the whole pizza. Have students talk with one another and try and get a better understanding of factions. Then give them a warm up worksheet on factions and see if they are understanding. Children can work with a partner on this worksheet to make sure they have the basics of factions. 

Post Reading Activity: Make a list of all the foods that the two children in the story shared with each other. Have students draw pictures of the foods that are seen in the story. Then tell students to cut the pictures in equal half like they were going to share the food with someone. This is a great way to talk about sharing and how important it is to share with other people. Have them do another worksheet on factions by themselves to see if they have a better understanding. 

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Title: Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

Author: Bill Martin Jr. was born in 1916. One of the most famous books that he wrote was Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See. Bill was a writer for 30 years. During his life he wrote over 300 children's books. In 2004 Bill passed away. 

Genre: Picture Book/Fiction 

Grades: K-2

Subject Area: ELA

Summary: This book follows a class when they go to the zoo on a class trip. Students talk about what type of animals sounds they hear well at the zoo. Students learn how to make animal sound throughout the story. It is a great way to learn about animals and the sounds they make. 

Pre Reading Activity: Create a graph that documents the different types of sounds children hear both in and out of the classroom over the course of a week. Create categories for each column, such as transportation, human sounds, machines, animals, and weather. Invite children to list the types of sounds they hear. Compare the different categories. Which column on the graph had the most sounds? Which had the least? (http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3746658)

Post Reading Activity: Have students make a puppet of their favorite animal in the book. Put the kids in order of the animals in the story and act out the story and noise there animals make. Students will say Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you see? Polar Bear puppets will say I hear a lion roaring in my eye...this will continue for the whole story. 

Fables

Title: Fables 

Author: Arnold Lobel is most well known for his series Frog and Toad. His book entitled Fables won the Caldecott Award in 1981. Lobel has been an illustrator for many books that he has not written. 

Genre: Fables 

Grades: K-3

Subject Area: ELA

Summary: This book has many different fables in it. These are a great way to teach students about this genre of story. Through reading students these fables they can learn all about stories that teach a lesson. 

Pre Reading Activity: Talk with the students about what a fable is. Then give students a writing prompt from a fable. Have the students sit in groups of four. Each student will start writing their own story. Then after a few minutes I will say pass the papers. Then the next student will write on the story. This will continue everyone in the group has written on each story. Then each student will have a similar yet different fable. 

Post Reading Activity: Now we are going to read the story the Ginger Bread Man. We are going to make a venn digram about the similarities and differences between the two stories as a class. Then the students will write an essay comparing and consternating the two stories in two or three paragraphs. This will depend on the age of the students. They should talk about the morals of the two stories.  

M is for Music

Title: M is for Music 

Author: Kathleen Krull has written over sixty books. However, writing was not always her dream. In college she got her degree in Music. From her love of music she decided to start writing children's books about music. Once she started writing she found a new passion, so she started writing about all different things. 

Genre: Fiction 

Grades: K-3

Subject Area: Music 

Summary: This book gives children words that have to do with music from a to z. Some of these words are new vocabulary that has to do with music. It gives children a way to learn music terms in a book. This way the child can see pictures to go with the terms and introduce new terms. 

Pre Reading Activity: On the white board think of words that might be in the book? Have students try and come up with one word for al least every letter on of the alphabet. If the students are struggle with a letter skip it an move on. This gets the children think about words that have to do with music. 

Post Reading Activity:  Have print out of pictures of some of the most popular vocabulary in the book. Have students write on the lines of the worksheet about the vocabulary word and define the picture in there own words. Have students color the picture. Then come up to the the front of the class and explain what they learned about the word they picked.  

Which Way to Witch School

Title: Which Way to Witch School 

Author: Scott Santoro started writing in his school for the schools new paper. Not only did he write articles for the school paper but he also had a cartoon stripe too. Besides writing Scott has work for Disney and Dreamworks as a storyboard writer. In 1999 his first book was published. 

Genre: Poetry/ Fiction 

Grades: 1-3

Subject Area: Holiday 

Summary: This story is about a school where witches go. Throughout this story there are many lessons to be learned for young witches, sometimes witches have to learn their lessons the hard way. Some lesson the witches learn included how to make a potion and how to fly on a broom. 

Pre Reading Activity: Explain what on homophone is. This is a word that has different meanings. An example is which and witch. Explain that these are the same words but the mean different things. Have students make there own list of different homophones. Then have the students count how many they came up with after five minutes. Create a class list of all the different homophones the students came up with.  

Post Reading Activity: Have students write their own story about Halloween using homophones.  They should try and use as many homophones as possible while the story still makes sense. They should at least include ten different homophones. They will complete a graphic organizer , a rough draft, and a finial copy. The final copies will be hung around the room. The final copies should also included a picture that relates to their story.