Tag Archives: favourite illustrators

Row Row Your Bear

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We always enjoy wordless books in our class. Such a fantastic opportunity to build oral language skills, share creative ideas, practice inferring from pictures and celebrate the power of a great illustrator.

This past week we fell in love with the talented Beatrice Rodriguez and her delightful books featuring a fox, a hen, a rejected rooster and some would be rescuers.

The first book we read was The Chicken Thief

It starts off with a dramatic kidnapping. Fox steals a hen and her friends race off in pursuit. Bear, Rabbit and Rooster are determined rescuers and Fox ends up deep in the forest, sleeping up in a tree for the night to stay ahead of the animals. He keeps Hen snuggled close.

As the sun rises, the chase resumes and Fox manages to hide away deep in a burrow for night number two. He and Hen spend the evening playing checkers. Students began to suspect that Fox would not have the heart to eat his new companion. The chase continues the next day with Fox rowing Hen over the sea in a row boat and Rabbit and Rooster rowing Bear! I made a quick comment that it was not Row Row Row your Boat but Row Row Row your Bear and we had to stop reading as students began to compose songs! There is nothing like spontaneous group song writing: sharing rhymes and giggles inspired by a wonderfully creative text. Two verses that we sang all day (both composed on the spot by students):

Row Row Row your Bear, Off to catch the thief!

Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily

We caught him! What a relief!

Row Row Row your Bear, Forgot to get an oar

Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily

Finally, we reached the shore!

This song writing sparked many funny comments: “We’re so poetic!” “Whoever made Row Row Row your boat is fired!” “Yeah, 0 stars for Row Row Row you’re boat! We’re so much better!”

Finally, we got back to the story. Bear, Rabbit and Rooster do eventually make it to Fox’s home and here they find Hen and Fox sipping tea by the fire. In a wonderfully peculiar twist, Hen leaps up and declares her adoration for Fox and the other animals seem to accept the news and leave Fox and Chicken to a life together. Although Rooster doesn’t look very pleased . . .

We then read Fox and Hen Together which continues the story of our two curious lovebirds.

The story begins with Hen snuggling an egg that seems to be hers while Fox stands at the refrigerator in dismay. The fridge is empty. What to do? Hen takes charge passing the egg delicately to Fox and she and Crab ( a new friend it seems) head out to solve the problem of nothing to eat with determined steps and a fishing pole. As one might imagine, there is nothing typical about this fishing expedition. At one point a huge eagle snatches up the fish that Hen and Crab have caught and the two of them end up in the eagle’s nest sharing space with ravenous eaglets. Yikes! They next encounter a ferocious sea serpent and narrowly manage escape thanks to some very creative fishing line tricks and twists by Hen. When Hen and Crab race safely to shore they find a frying pan and a cracked shell on the table. Hen initially suspects the worse of her mate but is overwhlemed with joy when she realizes that her baby has hatched! Fox, Hen and Crab celebrate the birth with a toast of something bubbly and a fish roast of epic proportions (sea serpent anyone?) Students spent quite a while trying to decide what kind of creature the baby might be. A Ficken? Foxen? Chickox? Endless possibilities!

FoxHenInterior-left

Luckily all of us “squawked” loudly and in such praise of these two books that our wonderful Teacher Librarian Ms. Sheperd-Dynes purchased these titles for our library and also picked up Rooster’s Revenge, the book that rounds out this imaginative trilogy. Of course we shared it in class the very next day!

We found this title to be much darker but in a wonderully fantastical way. We first pored over the cover noticing Rooster’s body language and expression. He looked jealous, angry, overwhelmed and dejected (this was my word, helping us stretch vocabulary) This book picks up from when Rooster, Bear and Rabbit row away in the boat, leaving Fox and Hen to themselves. They hit a storm and are washed ashore onto an island, landing on huge boulders. As we looked at the full page spread though, we realized those rocks were not really rocks but instead turtles! Turtles that escorted our shipwrecked characters into a cave.

Roosters-Revenge-Turtles

Inside the cave, Rooster spots a glowing something. Is it a stone? An egg? Clearly he is mesmerized. He snatches it in his wings and races away from his friends with an eerily evil expression on his face. “I think that’s a bad idea,” Khai warns as we turn the page. The next few pages have Rooster, Bear and Rabbit traveling through a strange landscape. Huge mushrooms. Glowing lizards. And then it is back out onto the open sea. (We began trying out a rhyme that began Row Row Row your Mushroom but found ourselves too caught up in the story). When Rooster reaches land, his stolen egg hatches. Our seemingly possessed Rooster is quickly charmed by this little baby dragon and he shows him off proudly to the hens back home. So it seems that this little quirky clan of animals will now be down a hen but up a dragon and all will live happily ever after. Until the next adventure?

I love these books for a variety of reasons. They are quirky. They are incredibly engaging. They provoke laughter, deep thinking questions and endless discussion. And. . . . the song inspiration was pretty incredible. “And you are going to like these books Ms. Gelson because they have a strange shape,” Catriona reminded me. Very true. I do have a penchant for rectangular books. We were so intrigued by this trilogy by Rodriguez that there were many mutterings of hope for Book #4.

Amazing reviews of these books can be found on these blogs: 32 pages and books4yourkids.com.

Love wordless books? You might also enjoy: Using Wordless Books in the Classroom,  Wonders of Wordless Magic and Few Words on Five Wordless Books.

More fabulous picture books with a Garden theme

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As we continue to learn about plants, seeds and gardens, it feels like there are garden themed books blooming everywhere we look.

See our first list here which includes many more titles.

Ava’s Poppy by Marcus Pfister

We read this book today and students were inspired to create a list of all the great reasons this book should be shared: we can learn how to grow a flower, it teaches us about life cycles, we learn how to take care of a flower, there is lots of information about seeds,  and it has important themes of kindness and friendship. Lovely little Ava makes friends with a gorgeous red poppy in a field of green and cares for it in changing weather and over time. When she buries a seed capsule, she has no idea that the next spring her poppy will return to her!

 Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine written by Allison Wortche and illustrated by Patrice Barton

Students loved this story about a little girl who learns about friendship, kindness and surviving competition while tending pea plants in her classroom. Shared in our classroom here.

The Giant Seed by Arthur Geisert

Another wordless book by the brilliant Geisert and a follow up to the equally wonderful Ice (reviewed here) Explore the concept of seed dispersal and how seeds travel in this fantasy story. How the pigs happen to be saved from volcanic disaster is a reason to share this story many times.

And then it’s Spring written by Julie Fogliano and illustrated by Erin E. Stead 

Explore the magic of the transformation from brown and boring to the wonder of green that comes in spring. What treasures lay buried deep waiting for the sun, warm temperatures and the power of spring showers?

Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms written by Julia Rawlinson and illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke

Is that snow in the middle of spring? Fletcher certainly thinks so. But he learns that blossoms can cover the earth in a blanket during the spring just like snow does in the winter. A beautiful celebration of spring.

Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine

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Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine, written by Allison Wortche and illustrated by Patrice Barton was our read aloud wonder of the day! Students were completely engaged with the story and had lots to talk about as we read.

I could talk on and on about why this book is a fantastic book to share in the classroom but today, the book love comes from the students. I asked them why a teacher should share this book in the classroom and here is the list we came up with.

* “It teaches lots about gardening.” Isa

* “It shows you that it doesn’t matter if you are the best.” Manny

* “It is an example of forgiveness.” Truman

* “It reminds you that everyone is good at something.” Jacky

* “It has a theme of kindness.” Carmen

* “It also has a theme of courage.” Truman

* “There is a lot about caring – caring for the plant, caring for someone. . .” Catriona

A gem of a book. Set in a classroom, it does explore many important themes relevant in a primary classroom: envy, friendship, forgiveness, competition, desicion making, etc. And perfect to supplement a unit on growing seeds. We made lots of connections to the plants we are growing in our windowsill gardens!

New Spring books from Scholastic

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Our New Books display has had a lot of traffic recently with many students enjoying some recent purchases that I’ve ordered for the class through Scholastic book clubs.

Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake written by Michael B. Kaplan and illustrated by Stephane Jorisch (one of my favourite Canadian illustrators) has been a favourite to read and reread especially with a buddy. Betty Bunny is very dramatic and says some very out there stuff like “I am going to marry chocolate cake!” and “I am a handful and I love chocolate cake.” Comments made all the better when read out loud. With huge sighs, gasps and artistic flair. We appreciated Betty’s chocolate cake obsession, loved her spunk and giggled over her decision to keep her cake in her pocket and the resulting brown, goopy mess! Betty Bunny shows us that you shouldn’t mess with a little bunny and her love for chocolate cake. Go Betty!

Another favourite story to read and share during buddy reading (also made a fantastic read aloud) is Huck Runs Amuck! This charming story about a flower obsessed goat is written by Sean Taylor and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. Poor Huck is a goat of rather discerning tastes. Yes he will eat run of the mill goat things, which means basically anything, but . . . If he had his way, he would eat flowers all day long. But flowers in his end of the world are also readily enjoyed by other goats and in short supply. Thank goodness Huck is a climbing sensation. He can find flowers in the strangest of places, high up places that seem out of reach. But what happens when his stomach and his morals face off? What will a flower loving goat do? A hilarious fast paced story.

Books by Steve Jenkins never disappoint. Many are favourites in our classroom library. The newest book in our collection is Bones. Not only is it great to look at the illustrations o bones (many of which are actual size) but we also love the comparison of bones from multiples species like all of the skulls pictured in a fantastic pull out page spread. This is also a fun book to fact collect. There is something about learning that a small python has 200 pairs of ribs that makes you want to ask everyone you know: “So how many pairs of ribs do you think a python has?” (Humans have 12 pairs just to give you some perspective) This book frequently has to be coaxed out of someone’s book box to be passed onto the next person who can’t wait to explore it!

We adore Marie-Louise Gay. Stella, Sam, and Caramba are all well loved characters! So, we were very happy to meet Rosyln Rutabaga and read about her plan to dig an enormous hole in the story: Rosyln Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth. Some days you just wake up with a plan. So when Rosyln announces her plan to dig an enormous hole and gets a calm, but positive response from her father, this little bunny begins to dig. Her all day digging brings her many interesting interactions, big piles of dirt and an experience about what it is to follow your determination. Wonderfully imaginative illustrations.

Mammoths

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Our reading group has continued to practice strategies to handle unknown vocabulary in text. See the strategy list that we came up with earlier this month here. We spent part of a few reading classes with this great text: Wooly Mammoth by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom. (A Natural History Museum Selection)

This book reads as an information story book: rhyming text accompanies the large pictures on each two page spread while black and white drawings and information reads in a column down one side of each page. You can read this book as just a storybook, concentrate primarily on the information or focus on both. Students enjoyed the mammoth time line at the end of the book and reviewing what they had learned by quizzing each other on the glossary words.

We then read Kali’s Song by Jeanette Winter.

We started by comparing the covers of Kali’s Song with a Wooly Mammoth. All year we have been talking about the different text features of fiction and non-fiction books. It would be interesting to see what we noticed when looking at Wooly Mammoth because it has both fiction and non-fiction elements (what we like to call an information story book). Students observed that even though both covers had illustrations rather than photographs, the mammoth on the cover of Wooly Mammoth looked more realistic. We talked about fur colour and the shape of the tusks. We also discussed how one mammoth was standing in the snow and another on grass/ground next to a little boy and a dog. “How could they stand so close?” someone wondered.

Before we began reading Kali’s Song, I asked the students, “Even though this is clearly a fiction text, do you think we will be able to link some of our learning from Wooly Mammoth to what we read?” We were ready to look for any text to text connections. Would our sense of the story be enhanced by our newly acquired background knowledge? (schema)

Immediately students were excited to see Kali’s mother painting animals on the cave’s wall. “We learned about how they did that in the other book! In the future some people might discover those paintings to see what animals looked like!” 

We also appreciated that a work of fiction had beautiful elements of story telling and images that a non-fiction book wouldn’t have. When Kali plays the bow string, Winter writes: The stars came close to listen. Such a wonderful image that makes the story more powerful. We liked how Kali’s Song challenged our imaginations and had us think about things differently.

Kali’s music lures the mammoths to him and fascinated, all of the other hunters lay down their weapons. Kali must be a shaman they decide. Winter leaves us wondering – do the hunters not kill any of the mammoths? Or do they eventually resume their hunt? In Wooly Mammoth we had learned that the people’s survival depended on the hunt and that they used all parts of the mammoth (meat, fur, tusks, bone) for things that they needed. Our discussion was intense. Kali had the skill to lure the animals and he seemed to love them. But he loved his people. Wouldn’t his skill help the hunt? What would he do? The students decided that Winter left us thinking on purpose. We would have to come to our own decisions.

Because the mammoths seemed so majestic and wonderful we wanted to think they wouldn’t be hunted but now that our knowledge included information about how people who lived thousands of years ago depended on the hunt, we had some different ideas about the outcome. Students were able to make text to text connections and this furthered their thinking.

Kali’s Song is a beautiful book. Highly recommended.

How do you help students make text to text connections? Recognize that their background knowledge influences their thinking? 

A Bus Called Heaven

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Our latest BLG treasure: A Bus Called Heaven written and illustrated by Bob Graham, read to us by Bill. 

We were excited as soon as we saw that Bill had a Bob Graham book as we are definite fans of Graham’s work. How to Heal a Broken Wing was a book we used during our kindness unit and April and Esme Tooth Fairies was a BLG book from last spring that often makes it back to our classroom via our library book basket.

What happens to a community when an abandoned bus gets parked in its midst? Well . . . People start talking. They do some exploring. They begin to take ownership. Soon that bus is pushed into a front yard. It is cleaned and scrubbed. It gets a paint job. And people begin to congregate. They play and interact. They eat and laugh. The old bus has new life. And when a tow truck arrives to tow the old bus away, the community has new purpose.

This story tells the story of a community coming together and of a little girl with a lot of gumption. We read this book and looked around to see everyone smiling. A feel good story perfect for rereading.

Our student reviewers report:

Truman: I liked the part when Stella won with no goalies and bought the bus back with all the kids who were energetic and the adults who were exhausted!

Carmen: The book started with a girl named Stella. She saw a bus and made a bus be like a house. They had a party and music. One night, guys came and sprayed black paint and wrote Street Ratz!

We imagined some gardens . . .

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This gorgeous book written by Andrew Larsen and illustrated by Irene Luxbacher was our inspiration for some beautiful flower art. The Imaginary Garden tells a story of grandfather and granddaughter who paint a lush garden mural when a real garden is no longer possible in Poppa’s new apartment.

Just as little Theodora and Poppa created flowers from bright green stems and blobs of paint colour, the students used dabs of paint to create beautiful imagined gardens, each one unique.

Students began by adding dibs and dabs, blobs and swirls of bright coloured paint to their papers.

Adding the blooms

Some chose to make huge blooms. Others, a mixture of shapes and sizes.

Then with vibrant green paint, stems were added.

Carefully snaking the stems up to the flowers

We let our pictures dry overnight with plans to add details the next day with felt markers.

When we were ready to add more detail to the flowers on Day 2 we used two books by Lois Ehlert for inspiration.

Planting a Rainbow takes us on a garden tour colour by colour.

Waiting for Wings tells the story of butterflies flitting flower to flower in a garden in full bloom. Both books are gorgeous.

Each student approached this step very carefully creating a variety of interesting effects. Markers were used to add details to blossoms and stems.

Adding details

Finished pieces are stunning. Come check out our display in the hall and walk through an imaginary garden or two or three . . .

Can you pick a favourite flower?

We were so pleased with how these pieces turned out that our Mother’s Day cards are painted in the same style!

Another one just because they are that beautiful . . .

 Tempted to come visit our display yet? They really do look beautiful all together!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Moms, Grandmas and important women who love us!

Stuck

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Picture Book Love #5: Celebrating picture books that are just too good not to gush over.

“Ms. Gelson have you blogged about that book yet?” I am asked this question about six times a day. I have been asked this question since last week. I am asked this question everyday at least a half a dozen times because it is basically the class consensus that I am holding the book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers hostage. I have the book at home to blog about it and share how much we absolutely adored it. Therefore, I am preventing it from being on our “New Books” stand in the classroom where it could be fought over daily so that children could relive their joy independently or in small groups (I’m pretty sure this book is one of those books that has a child magnet in it – no child can be within 2 meters of it without being lured closer and closer). All of my excuses do not suffice. I have extreme guilt. I have been busy but I know that doesn’t count because this book needs to return to our classroom NOW so we can give it the love it deserves! So here we go:

WE LOVE THIS BOOK. LOVE OF THE “READ IT AGAIN” CHANT KIND. LOVE AS IN WE LAUGHED, WE CRIED, WE ALMOST DIED. LOVE. LOVE LOVE.

Why? It’s not because we are already Oliver Jeffers fans.  (Even though we are) It’s not because this book is about some fantastically amazing creature or place. No monsters. No wild beasts. No magic. It is beautifully simple really. Just a boy. A kite. And a tree. But Jeffers weaves little boy logic with the right dose of the absurd and creates a picture book that sends children into laughing mania. Beautiful shout out laughter that makes you laugh even more when shared. This book read aloud in a classroom of book lovers is a force to be reckoned with.

The plot? Floyd gets his kite stuck in a tree. He can’t pull it down so he throws his shoe at it. It also gets stuck. So he throws his other shoe. Stuck. Up went Mitch the cat. (He was tossed. He didn’t amble up of his own accord in case you might be wondering) Again, stuck. When Floyd fetches a ladder and ends up tossing it into the tree in the attempt to dislodge everything, a few students fell over. Really! “Why would he throw it? Oh man!” This tossing of items up the tree continues. When the kitchen sink goes up, we really were losing it. “He’s crazy!” “My God!” “At least it’s just a kitchen sink!” More things end up in the tree. Much larger and seemingly impossible things. The absurdity did us in. We were bowled over by giggles. I heard a few, “Please. Make it stop,” requests. Almost as if I was tickling each child without mercy. But no, I was just reading the book!

When Floyd finds the saw . . . Well let’s just say that his decision completely put us over the edge. The laughter engulfed us. Nobody could get a word out. When the book ended and the breathing slowly returned to normal, the unsolicited reviews began:

“That’s the best book ever! A 10 out of 5!”

“That book was awesome. The most awesome. The best book in the world!”

“I loved it infinity and beyond!”

So mission accomplished. Book is blogged. It is going in my bag to return to the classroom tomorrow. My prediction? I will be begged to read it immediately again and then it will travel from desk to desk spreading picture book joy.

 

 

 

When Randolph Turned Rotten

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Today we started reading books that help us to address the bully/bullied/bystander dynamic. When Randolph Turned Rotten by Charise Mericle Harper was our first book.

Many would not categorize this as a book about bullying. It would more likely be labelled a book about feelings, friendship or forgiveness. While it does teach us about all of those things, I also think it is the ideal book to introduce the concept of how our feelings translate into our actions. Quite simply here: rotten feelings = nasty actions.  We are going to learn a lot in this unit. To start, why does someone act like bully/engage in bully behaviour? Next, what does being bullied feel like? What emotions does someone go through? Third, what about when there are bystanders? What are their roles? And finally, how does all of this work together? What happens when bullying begins and isn’t stopped?

In When Randolph Turned Rotten, we gain insight to what made Randolph go from being a good friend to a guy with “stinky rotten insides” that wishes ill on his best friend. In Randolph’s case, he is impacted by envy. His lovely best friend Ivy is invited to a birthday party. An all girl birthday party. A birthday party that Ivy is super duper excited about and that Randolph is NOT invited to attend. Randolph wishes he could go. He wishes Ivy would not go. He wishes he wasn’t going to be left alone. Then his wishes get mean. He hopes Ivy will have a horrible time and he devises a plan to ensure it. Randolph turns into nasty Randolph (Harper creates the perfect labelled diagram complete with mad hands – we all practiced trying to smile with clenched fists like that and it was close to impossible!) Mean thoughts invade his brain.

Randolph does a number of things to try and mess up Ivy’s trip – many of them focussed  on getting her to pack ridiculous items in her bag and scaring her about potential beach hazards like the awful beach bears that she will need a poiny stick to ward off! This book has  very interesting twist when Ivy arrives at the party. The geese (Ivy happens to be a goose!) get locked out of the house and must spend the night on the beach. All of the items Randolph inist Ivy pack turn out to be incredibly useful. Instead of ruining the party, Randolph is a hero! But, not to himself. Randolph, once alone with just time to contend with, feels guilty for what he has done. He apologizes. Ivy forgives him. They are best friends as always. But, we the readers, learned a lot. When we let our upset feelings take over and take us from thinking to acting in mean ways, we are engaging in bully behaviour. Wanting others to feel as bad as we do is a normal feeling but not one that we want to allow to cloud our judgement. It helped us understand why someone might do and say cruel things. It allowed us to start having those conversations about why someone might bully.

We are looking forward to reading more titles on this theme and the conversations that they might inspire.

Garden themed Books

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Division 5 is participating in the Growing Chefs program and learning all about growing plants, urban agriculture and the wonder of vegetables! Our windowsills are full of seedlings and we are indulging in many garden themed read alouds to learn more about the magic of gardens, growing and green. The following is a list of books that will be part of our reading:

The Bumblebee Queen by April Pulley Sayre and illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne

An informative information story book that details the lifecycle of the Queen bee. Touches on hive life, pollination and human behaviour towards bees.

Deborah Hodge‘s Watch me Grow and Up we Grow (photographs by Brian Harris)

These books have special meaning as Deborah Hodge gifted them to our class when she visited in the fall! These books immerse us in the world of gardening and growing! One focuses on life on a small farm and the other looks at growing food in the city.

The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone by Timothy Basil Ering

 In Cement Land, the promise of a packet of seeds is huge admist the gray drab world. Highlights the magic of watching seeds transform into plants!

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart and illustrated by David Small

Can a package of flower seeds bring happiness and beauty to a family during the Great Depression?

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

Liam lives in the city and nurtures a struggling garden into a majestic green world. The power of a garden to invade (in the best of ways) stark city life.

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

We each need to do something to make the world a more beautiful place. Miss Rumphius spreads lupine seeds throughout the countryside and the resulting flowers have a transformative effect on everyone who stumbles upon them.

Westlandia written by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes

Wesley creates Weslandia, his own civilization using the plants he grows from some mysterious seeds and the products he makes from them.

A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Aston and Sylvia Long

Poetic text and beautifully detailed illustrations introduce us to the wonder of both familiar and unfamiliar seeds.

The Imaginary Garden by Andrew Larsen and illustrated by Irene Luxbacher

When Theodora’s Grandfather must leave his beloved garden when he moves to an apartment, granddaughter and grandfather create a beautiful garden from seed to flower through the power of art and love.