Welcome!

You have accessed the blog site for Choosing and Using Books for Children. Throughout the term we'll use our blog to record the books we read and the ideas we have for using them when we're teachers. By the end of March, our class will have read at least 280 books. Happy reading!

Two important protocol actions for EVERY post:
1. Underline or italicize all book titles (choose one formatting style and stick with it--underline OR italicize for all book titles)
2. Add your name in the "label" box before you post each documentation.

One important recommendation:
Create your documentations in a separate Word document, then cut and paste in a blog post.

Basic Documentation

Book Title:

Author(s):

Illustrator/Photographer/Artist:

Publisher:

Copyright Date:

Genre:

Brief Annotation:

Your Rating (1-5) and why:

Readers who will like this book:

Teaching Strategy from Tompkins or Yopp & Yopp (you'll link a strategy to at least 10 of your 40 books) :

Question to ask about this book before a read aloud:

Optional, but noted as extra effort:

1. Interest Level (age):

2. Grade Level Equivalent (grade):
Use book wizard to help with the previous 2 areas


3. List awards

4. Does this book have a book trailer? If so, cut and paste the web address here.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Spuds

Book Title: Spuds


Author: Karen Hesse

Illustrator: Wendy Watson


Publisher: Scholastic Press


Copyright Date: 2008


Genre: Picturebook: Historical Fiction


Brief Annotation: Three young children, noticing how hard their single Ma works, set out on a cold night to try and help. They have a plan to harvest spuds, as many as they can carry, to feed the family. Things don’t go quite as planned and Ma’s reaction isn’t what they had hoped. But in the end, lessons are learned and love is shared… along with some potatoes.


Your Rating (1-5) and why: 3 – The theme and message of the story is nothing new. That, in and of itself, isn’t an issue – we can experience the same messages and themes over and over, and enjoy it, if the story is done well. Unfortunately, this story is not that interesting (or more so, it's not told in an interesting way). The upside, is this book uses language unique to it’s time period and could help facilitate a discussion about this time period, what these words mean, why we use different words today, etc.


Readers who will like this book: Young children who are able to begin learning about “messages” – you can talk about honesty, kindness, and charity.


Question to ask about this book before a read aloud: What are “spuds”? What does it mean when you say that someone had “good intentions”?


Interest Level (age): 5-8

Grade Level Equivalent (grade): 3.3

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