What Ms. Moore Read in October and November

Here are some of the most recent books I've read and recommend for my students. They're all available from the public library, but any donations towards getting them into our collection are most welcome! Cover images and descriptions are from Goodreads. 

Picture Books

Edward the giraffe can't understand why his neck is as long and bendy and, well, ridiculous as it is. No other animal has a neck this absurd. He's tried disguising it, dressing it up, strategically hiding it behind bushes--honestly, anything you can think of, he's tried.

Just when he has exhausted his neck-hiding options and is about to throw in the towel, a turtle swoops in (well, ambles in, very slowly) and helps him understand that his neck has a purpose, and looks excellent in a bow tie.

A humorous picture book about a bad guy who makes an important and life-changing realization.

At the moment, all Lola can talk about is dogs. She says she would like one more than anything you could think of. "More than a squirrel or an actual fox," she says. Sometimes she pretends to be a dog. And sometimes she pretends that her brother, Charlie, is a dog. The two of them love to talk about what sort of dog they would choose if Mom and Dad didn't always say, "ABSOLUTELY NO DOGS!" 

There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it's how you look or talk, or where you're from; maybe it's what you eat, or something just as random. It's not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it.

Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael Lopez's dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders sometimes-and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway.

Poor Allie! She’s in a rage, throwing a tantrum, and having a fit! Her emotions have built and built and now they just burst. Is there a sweet little girl hiding somewhere under all the angry layers? And can her big brother find a way to make things all right again?

In 1994, Yuyi Morales left her home in  Mexico and came to the US with her infant son. She left behind nearly everything she owned, but she didn't come empty-handed. She brought her strength, her work, her passion, her hopes and dreams...and her stories. Yuyi and her son Kelly's passage was not easy, and Yuyi spoke no English whatsoever at the time. But together, they found an unexpected, unbelievable place: the public library. There, book by book, they untangled the language of this strange new land, and learned to make their home within it.

Early Readers

In I Lost My Tooth!, Zoom Squirrel has lost his front tooth. The Squirrels leap to the rescue to find the lost tooth. When they discover it is a baby tooth that is lost, the stakes are even higher. What will become of the poor, lost, sad, hungry, baby tooth!?

Buzz is making a movie about aliens from outer space. When the action begins, superheroes Fly Guy and Buzz Boy are protecting a secret fort in the sky when an alien ship captures them! The duo must outsmart the aliens and the space pirates with the help of Dragon Dude and Fly Girl.

Middle Grade Novels

Liam has always felt a bit like he's stuck between two worlds. This is primarily because he's a 12-year-old kid who looks like he's about 30. Sometimes it's not so bad, like when his new principal mistakes him for a teacher on the first day of school or when he convinces a car dealer to let him take a Porsche out on a test drive. 

Liam cons his way onto the first spaceship to take civilians into space, a special flight for a group of kids, and he is going as the adult chaperone. It's not long before Liam, along with his friends, is stuck between two worlds again--only this time he's 239,000 miles from home.

Grade 2 Covers Inspired by The Z Was Zapped

Second graders are reviewing how call numbers help us find books in the library.

 We read The Z Was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg, which features the letters of the alphabet meeting sad fates. The students had to guess the action happening to them, which started with the same letter; for example, the F was flattened by a foot and the Q was quartered.

Then the kids created their own version of the book, as well as their personal call number. I've added  their work into a binder that can be checked out and brought home as a library book. Here is a preview:

Don't Let the Pigeon Touch the Books!

In case you haven't been introduced to the Pigeon yet, he is the star of a series of books by Mo Willems; the first one is Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! We read that and Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! in K, and I am happy to report that MOST students resisted his arguments (a few were willing to be bought off by his promise of five bucks).

Then we watched this video:

Finally, the kids came up with their own rules for the Pigeon that he would need to know in order to check out books. I trust this means that all kindergartners will avoid bringing their library books in the shower or eating them. 

What Ms. Moore Read in September

Here are some of the most recent books I've read and recommend for my students. Sadly, I have a lot less time to read now that school has started back up again, so only 4 that I liked enough to share. They're all available from the public library, but any donations towards getting them into our collection are most welcome! Cover images and descriptions are from Goodreads. 

Picture Books

Evan and his dog do everything together, from eating ice cream to caring for their award-winning garden, which grows big and beautiful. One day the unthinkable happens: Evan’s dog dies. Heartbroken, Evan destroys the garden and everything in it. The ground becomes overgrown with prickles and thorns, and Evan embraces the chaos.

But beauty grows in the darkest of places, and when a twisting vine turns into an immense pumpkin, Evan is drawn out of his misery and back to the county fair, where friendships—old and new—await. 

Adrian Simcox tells anyone who will listen that he has a horse--the best and most beautiful horse anywhere. But Chloe does NOT believe him. Adrian Simcox lives in a tiny house. Where would he keep a horse? He has holes in his shoes. How would he pay for a horse?

The more Adrian talks about his horse, the angrier Chloe gets. But when she calls him out at school and even complains about him to her mom, Chloe doesn't get the vindication she craves. She gets something far more important.

Nonfiction

The true story of eighteenth-century mathematician Sophie Germain, who solved the unsolvable to achieve her dream.

When her parents took away her candles to keep their young daughter from studying math...nothing stopped Sophie. When a professor discovered that the homework sent to him under a male pen name came from a woman...nothing stopped Sophie. And when she tackled a math problem that male scholars said would be impossible to solve...still, nothing stopped Sophie.

Early Readers

Melonhead is my preferred name. Preferred by me, not my mom. She likes people to call me by my real name, Adam Melon. Luckily, it’s too late for that because when my friend, Lucy Rose, invented Melonhead, it caught on fast.

Usually I am the one doing the inventing. All my life, which is 10 years, great ideas have been popping in and out of my melon head. Sometimes they work. This year they’d better, because our class is entering an inventing fair. My friend Sam and I are dreaming up plans. And Capitol Hill has a ton of places to find invention parts. We just have to make sure to get home on time, with no excuses. If we get first place at school, it will be Chantilly, Virginia Regionals, here we come!

Three of These Things with Grade 1 - Part 2

A big part of information literacy is being able to recognize patterns and to categorize facts, sources, etc. We're starting to work on these skills in first grade. 

See Part 1.

Our next lesson in the unit is one of my favorites; it involves the original Three of These Things from Sesame Street. Original as in from the 1970s. I showed several sample videos to the kids, and they raised their hands as soon as they figured out what didn't belong. Here's one of them:

Then it was the students' turn to pretend they were segment producers and come up with their own "Three of These Things" example. Can you tell what doesn't belong?

Three of These Things with Grade 1 - Part 1

A big part of information literacy is being able to recognize patterns and to categorize facts, sources, etc. We're starting to work on these skills in first grade.

First we read Different? Same! by Heather Tekavec and Pippa Curnick, and the students shared their observations on what certain animals that, say, live in different habitats have in common. Then they each got a card with a colored shape and had to find at least one other person whose card was the same in one way: