Best Reads of T1 2024-2025

Here are my favorite books that I read during first trimester. Lots of nonfiction! All images and summaries from Goodreads.

Picture Books

Mindfulness encourages us to pay attention to our experiences (our feelings, sensations in the body, emotions, surroundings) without judgment but with kindness and curiosity. Scientific research has proven that there are many benefits to practicing mindfulness. With so many children suffering from anxiety, there is no better tool than learning to be mindful. And it’s never too early to get started.

This is a perfect guide with which parents and teachers can help children pay attention to their feelings and learn to control their worry and anxiety.

Every day Jimmy takes ‘Skinny Kid’s’ lunch at school. No way will he be caught dead standing in that FREE LUNCH line. Even when he’s called into the principal’s office, Jimmy just shrugs. “Yeah. Whatever.” Until a surprising act of kindness stops him in his tracks. For a split second a door cracks open into Jimmy’s heart. Who knows? Maybe he’ll just kick that door right open.

Middle Grade Fiction

When eleven-year-old Hank’s mom doesn’t come home, he takes care of his toddler sister, Boo, like he always does. But it’s been a week now. They are out of food and mom has never stayed away this long… Hank knows he needs help, so he and Boo seek out the stranger listed as their emergency contact.

But asking for help has consequences. It means social workers, and a new school, and having to answer questions about his mom that he's been trying to keep secret. And if they can't find his mom soon, Hank and Boo may end up in different foster homes--he could lose everything.

Nonfiction

Dr. John Snow is one of the most influential doctors and researchers in Western medicine, but before he rose to fame, he was just a simple community doctor who wanted to solve a mystery. In 19th century London, the spread of cholera was as unstoppable as it was deadly. Dr. Snow was determined to stop it, but his theory of how the disease was spread flew in the face of popular opinion. He needed evidence, and he needed to find it fast, before more lives were lost! (Using for Mock Sibert)

Erno Rubik grew up in post-World War II Hungary obsessed with puzzles, art, nature, and the underlying patterns and structures. He became a professor of art, architecture, and design, who was still fascinated with how objects work together. 

In a quest to help his students understand three-dimensional objects and how they move, he fashioned a cube whose pieces twisted and turned without breaking, and unexpectedly invented the Rubik's Cube, the most popular puzzle in history, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2024. (Using for Mock Sibert)

Butt or Face? Volume 2 continues the delightfully cheeky challenge with a whole new set of animals from all over the world. Examine a close-up photo of an animal and then guess whether you're looking at the top or the…um…bottom. The answer is revealed on the next page with a compete photo of the animal! Also included are factual animal details along with how these animals use camouflage or other trickery to engage with their home. (Using for Mock Sibert)

A tree is more than just a plant, but a whole ecosystem hiding in plain sight, on street corners and in backyards everywhere. Discover how one tree provides shelter, food, and clean air to a host of animals and insects. Robins build their nest in the branches and bees gather nectar from flowers. The tree keeps its neighborhood clean, healthy, and safe. Leaves clean the air and roots keep the dirt from washing away. The tree’s residents are safe through thunderstorms and changing seasons. This home is built to last!  (Using for Mock Sibert)

Did you know sloths only poop once a week? Or that they can fall up to 100 feet without getting hurt? They have hundreds of bugs living on them, including a species of moths that only lives on sloths! And they move so slowly that algae grows on their fur, which—far from being gross—can actually help sloths by camouflaging them from predators. Chock-full of amazing, kid-friendly facts and inviting artwork from the #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator of Blackout , the Meet the Wild Things series introduces young readers to endangered animals from around the globe, told from the points of view of the animals themselves.  (Using for Mock Sibert)

John Lewis left a cotton farm in Alabama to join the fight for civil rights when he was only a teenager. He soon became a leader of a movement that changed the nation. Walking at the side of his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis was led by his belief in peaceful action and voting rights. Today and always his work and legacy live on.

All living things must one day die, and Earth’s largest creature, the majestic blue whale, is no exception. But in nature, death is never a true ending. When this whale closes her eyes for the last time in her 90-year life, a process known as whale fall is just beginning. Her body will float to the surface, then slowly sink through the deep; from inflated behemoth to clean-picked skeleton, it will offer food and shelter at each stage to a vast diversity of organisms, over the course of a century and beyond.

Throwback Thursday

I just found a draft post that never went live ... from 2019! These kids are now in 5th grade! I should have them try drawing the Pigeon again and do then-and-now photos ... 

Hey, Riddle, Riddle

At the beginning of the school year, I asked kids in grades 3-5 to warm up their brains by working together to solve riddles. Can YOU figure out the 3rd grade ones? 

1. You are a cyclist in a cross­-country race. Just before crossing the finish line, you overtake the person in second place! What place did you finish in? 
   
   
2. Jimmy's mother had 4 children. She named the first Monday and the second Tuesday. The third is named Wednesday. What is the name of the fourth child? 
   
   
3. You are driving a bus. At the first stop, 2 women get on. The second stop, 3 men get on and 1 woman gets off. Third stop, 3 kids and their mom get on, and a man gets off. The bus is grey, and it is raining outside. What color is the bus driver’s hair? 
   
   
4. Which is heavier? A pound of feathers, or a pound of rocks? 
   
   
5. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it? 
   
   
6. In my hand I have two coins. Together, they total 30 cents. One isn’t a nickel. What are the coins?

I had to wait to post pictures of the students until we got the new photo permissions list. 

Grade 3 FICtion Call Numbers

Every fictional chapter book call number has "FIC" as the first line, and then the first three letters of the author's last name as the second line. 

For example, if I wrote a book, the call number would be 

FIC 

MOO 

What would YOUR call number be? 

Students figured out the call numbers for a list of books and then created their very own for a fiction book they "wrote." Here are some of their book covers: