Must Read Monday: First Week Favorites!

It's the last week of Must Read Monday...I'm so sad!  I love, love, love introducing my kiddos to great literature, and read alouds are my favorite part of the day.  This link up has given me so many great ideas!

This week I am linking up with Kindergarten Planet and The Kindergarten Connection to talk about our favorite back to school books!

I absolutely love the Gilbert and Friends books from Diane deGroat.  The series begins with Brand New Pencils, Brand New Books and goes all the way to No More Pencils, No More Books, No More Teacher's Dirty Looks.  My class loves following Gilbert and his pals through their first grade adventures!

Another favorite of mine is Horus's Horrible Day (First Graders From Mars).  This super cute story is all about Horus's disastrous first day and how with the help of a new friend he finds the courage to give first grade another try.

Last summer I picked up this little gem, Lacey Walker, Nonstop Talker. It quickly became one of my new favorites.  It's adorable!  Lacey talks A LOT...all day, and all night.  Sound like anyone you know?  It seems like there's always at least one, right?  Anyway, Lacey looses her voice one day and learns an important lesson about listening.

My last pick is a silly little book by Jerry Pallotta that is always a hit with my kiddos, How Will I Get to School This Year?  Every year during the first week we talk about how week get to school and make a graph.  This book is a perfect addition to this lesson!  I like to make the class graph with my kids, read the book, and then let them draw and write about how they would choose to get to school.  Elephant?  Mosquito? Pig?  The possibilities are endless!

Well, that's it!  I hope you found a new book  you can use this year. What are your first week favorites?

Must Read Monday...on a Tuesday??

So...I'm a little late to the party.  I got caught up getting my room ready and totally forgot about Must Read Monday!  I couldn't skip this week though, because these are some of my favorites!

This week I linked up with Kindergarten Planet and The Kindergarten Connection to bring you our favorite modern day fairy tales.  These books are just the best for teaching students to compare and contrast!

The Three Ninja Pigs is a class favorite!  My firsties love anything to do with ninjas, and they thought this book was hilarious.  These pigs aren't going to take the wolf's bullying tactics anymore, so they learn karate to take him down!

I loooove Jan Brett.  I think she is one of my favorite authors to teach with.  So many amazing things are happening in her books!  The Three Snow Bears is an Arctic twist on Goldilocks.  You can use this book to compare and contrast fairy tales AND habitats at the same time!

I like to pull out The Gingerbread Cowboy when I teach my Texas unit.  It's so much fun!  This little cowboy boot scoots by ranchers, javelinas, cattle, and coyotes.  

So there you have it!  Make sure to tune in next week...we will be talking about our favorite back to school books and you won't want to miss it!

Must Read Monday: Books About Compassion

Hello all!  I'm back for another link up with Kindergarten Planet and The Kindergarten Connection. This week we are showing off our favorite books that teach our littles about compassion. Most children are compassionate and caring by nature, but it is so important that we foster this and help it grow.  There is already so much ugliness and meanness in the world, why not help our little ones learn to solve conflicts and take care of each other?

One of my favorite books to read to my firsties is A Sick Day for Amos McGee, by Phillip C. Stead.

This book came to me in a stack of books a veteran teacher was giving away when she retired, and I was lucky enough to grab it.  It is such a sweet story about a zookeeper who takes such good care of his animals that they decide to return the favor when he gets sick.  All of the animals climb on the bus and go to visit Amos and take care of him.  It's an adorable book, and has tons of great vocabulary to boot!

Another favorite, especially at the beginning of the year, is Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes.  In this story Chrysanthemum loves her name until she goes to school and the other kids make fun of it.  She begins to "wilt" until a favorite teacher shows her compassion and helps her to be proud of her name again.

My last choice is Bear Feels Sick, by Karma Wilson. I absolutely love the bear books for firsties, but I have to say this is one of my favorites.  Bear catches a cold and all of his little woodland friends care for him.  Then, as soon as he is well his friends catch his cold and he ends up caring for them!  It is a great story to reinforce the "do unto others" concept with little ones.

So, what books do you read to teach your students about compassion?  Link up with us and share!

Must Read Monday: Books About Math!

This week I am linking up with Kindergarten Planet and The Kindergarten Connection to talk about my favorite books to use during Math!  I love incorporating books into every subject I can.  I was never really great at Math, I admit, and neither is my own little man.  We are both, however, lovers of books.  Pulling good literature into our math lessons is a great way to engage even our most reluctant little mathematicians.

One of my very favorite math books is One Hundred Hungry Ants, by Elinor J Pinczes.  It's repetitive and it rhymes, which means my kiddos LOVE it.  I love it because it introduces the concept of making 100 many different ways- groups of 50, 25, 10...it's perfect for the 100th day of school!  I like to tie this book in when we learn about money as well.  We talk about how it takes 100 pennies, 20 nickels, 10 dimes, and 4 quarters to make a dollar.  

I just got this book, Full House: An Invitation to Fractions, by Dayle Ann Dodds, last summer and I loved it!  It's a cute little story about visitors joining Miss Bloom at The Strawberry Inn.  I really liked it because it introduces fractions in a way that is easy for younger kids to understand.  It's a great little book for K-3.

 I use If You Were a Polygon by Marcie Aboff and If You Were a Quadrilateral by Molly Blaisdell when I teach my geometry unit.  Both of these books do a great job of introducing shapes and the illustrations are great!  It gives my kiddos great real life examples of each shape and always leads to a great discussion about the shapes we see around us.

What are your favorite books to use during math?