chicken babies: books

Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

October 30, 2015

Books to Teach Gratitude

Thanksgiving is a great time of year to help children focus on gratitude and teach them how to live a life full of it.

Great list of books to read with your kids! Perfect for teaching about living with gratitude.

This post contains affiliate links

It's easy to get caught up at this time of year on getting more stuff, especially as Christmas approaches. How can we help kids be happy with what they already have? The books I'm sharing are a great way to start discussions with your kids about living a life full of gratitude. People who are able to live this way are happier than those who are always looking at what they lack. And while these books are more about the feeling of gratitude than specifically about the Thanksgiving holiday, they are still very appropriate at this time of year, or any time of year!

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau

A greedy king learns true happiness thanks to a gifted Quiltmaker.
This is a longer picture book, so give yourself time to read it aloud, but it's a great message and really resonates with kids.

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
Sylvester finds a magic pebble but accidentally turns himself into a rock. A great story about what really matters in life.
This is a family favorite. I have read this book aloud at least a hundred times to my kids yet I still tear up at the end EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback

Joseph has an overcoat that is getting old and worn. What should he do with it?
A great story about making do with what you have.

The Stonecutter: A Japanese Folk Tale by Gerald McDermott

This is a favorite of mine. A man becomes greedier and greedier only to find in the end that what he had in the beginning was enough.

Hey, Al by Arthur Yorinks
Al is not happy, so when a mysterious bird invites him to an exotic island in the sky he goes with him, not realizing the dangers in paradise.
A nice story about finding joy in your current life.

The Table Where Rich People Sit by Byrd Baylor
A young girl is jealous of her rich friends but eventually is able to see the richness in the world around her.

Chapter books:

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Minli sets off on a quest to find out how she can change her poor family's fortune and discovers much about what brings happiness in life.
LOVE THIS BOOK! You should read it aloud to your kids. They will love it too, and it's a great book about living with gratitude.

Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter

You've most likely seen the movie, but the book is even better! (isn't it always?) I wish I could get my kids to play the glad game at times . . .

The next three books are all on the same theme and based on the same tale - be grateful for how things are now because they could always be worse:

It Could Always Be Worse: A Yiddish Folk Tale by Margot Zemach
The original tale of a poor man living in a small house with a large family. He asks the Rabbi for help and things go from bad to worse, but in the end finds peace.

Too Much Noise by Ann McGovern

The too full house becomes a too noisy house in this telling of the tale.

"Could Be Worse!" by James Stevenson
A grandfather helps his grandkids see that life could always be worse. This book is not really related to the first two, but is a more humorous take on the phrase.

What would you add to this list?

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter or sign up for my email list.

April 13, 2015

Booking Across the USA with George Ella Lyon

For Booking Across the USA this year, bloggers are sharing a children's author from their chosen state and an activity to go along with it. For Kentucky, I chose George Ella Lyon.

George Ella Lyon grew up in the mountains of Kentucky. She writes for children and adults. She has a great website you can visit to learn more about her and her works.

fun water activities using "All the Water in the World" by George Ella Lyon

*This post contains affiliate links

For our activity, we chose All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon. This book is a great introduction to the water cycle for young elementary students.

After reading the book, it was time to talk about water in our lives. What did we use water for? We brainstormed and made a list of all the ways we use water each day - from brushing our teeth and boiling macaroni to watering our plants and making sure our pet rat has enough to drink.

Here are some questions to ask your kids about their water use:

What do you use water for? Make a list on the board.
Where does your water come from? Explain the different ways people get water around the world.
Does your water cost money? Talk about how water is treated and delivered to our homes.
What happens if it doesn't rain where you live? Talk about droughts and desserts.
What happens if your water is dirty? Talk about pollution and keeping our water clean.

After discussing how important water is in our lives, we did some experiments to further explore the water cycle.

We boiled water and watched the steam rise up into the air. We talked about the water vapor in the air around us and what humidity means.

Then we put a glass of ice water on the table and observed how beads of water were collecting on the outside of the glass. We talked about condensation and rain.

We also watched a Magic School Bus video about the water cycle to further understand the things we had observed. They also have a great Magic School Bus book for kids who want to read more.

Then we played with water!

We painted with watercolors. The boys loved watching how the water moved the colors around and mixed them up.

We explored sink and float. The boys gathered items from around the house. Before putting an object in the water they would guess if it would sink or float. We made piles for both groups.

We talked about water displacement by dropping glass marbles in a cup and seeing the water rise.

And we made boats out of air dry clay to see if they would float. We talked about how boats can float because the water the boat pushes away weighs more than the boat. It took a couple tries to get the right shape boat so it would float.

We even got out our ice shaver and had a shaved ice treat.

Other things we could have done but didn't:

- drop jelly beans (and/or other food) in water and watch them dissolve
- explore how to make ice melt more quickly by using salt, a hair dryer, their hands, or chopping it into smaller bits
- "paint" outside on the ground with water and watch the water evaporate!

Hooray for water!!

There are some other great books by this author too. A couple more favorites are The Pirate of Kindergarten and Trucks Roll!

Be sure to check out the rest of the posts about authors from each state over at Growing Book by Book!

December 3, 2014

Favorite Series Books for Early Readers

As a teacher and a parent, I'm always on the look out for good books. These beginning chapter book series are some of my kids' favorites!

this post contains affiliate links

There's a magical moment in a child's life when reading clicks! Suddenly they just get it, and their reading takes off. This can happen anywhere between Kindergarten and Third grade. This is the time when kids love reading easy chapter books and especially love reading stories about favorite characters. Series are very popular at this age. Kids don't seem to mind that plot elements are incredibly similar and predictable. In fact, that's what makes them so great for young kids. The predictability factor helps in their fluency and builds confidence.

If you're like me, you love giving books as gifts. These series books are some of my children's favorites (and I've read them too). Any one or set of these books would make a great gift for birthday or holiday.

Mercy Watson

What can I say about this porcine wonder? I love the Mercy Watson books. They have great colorful pictures and silly stories. The large text and lots of pictures make it very accessible to early readers. The hardbound books and chapters make children feel grown up for reading chapter books. We love these!

Captain Awesome

This is a fun new series for early readers. The print is large and there are lots of pictures. The stories are clever and funny. And with a name like "Captain Awesome" you know it's going to be good.

My Weirder School

This is a newer series and one that my kids love! Even Maren who is way beyond this level enjoys reading them.

Judy Moody

Judy has been a favorite around here for a long time. She's spunky and kids will relate to her moodiness. But she also is able to figure out how to get around her moods which is great for the kids to read about.

Stink

My boys (and girl) have enjoyed reading about Judy's younger brother Stink. The words are big and the chapters short which make for good reading for young kids.

Kung Pow Chicken
Do I even need to say anything? Doesn't the title speak for itself? Crime fighting ninja chickens. Yup. That's a winner in this family.

Galaxy Zack
A new series I haven't yet read, but my kids have enjoyed. Sorry for the lame review. I hear they're good.

Magic Tree House books

Magic Tree House are classic books for a reason. One thing I especially love about them is the positive brother/sister relationship portrayed. We need more books where kids are kind and polite to each other! Jack and Annie go on fun adventures and the kids learn things. Maren and Joshua used to go around yelling "Mt. Vesuvius" after they read the "Vacation under a Volcano" book and that always made me laugh. There are also "research guides" you can buy that have more information about each topic. My kids have liked those as well.

The Rainbow Magic Fairies
There are a million of these books (well, not really, but it seems like it.) Maren LOVED reading every single one of them. They are very predictable, but that helps make reading them easier.

Secrets of Droon

This is the series Christopher is currently interested in. Maren read and liked them too. They are fun early reader fantasy books for kids who like that sort of thing.

A to Z Mysteries

There's something about mysteries at this age - kids just love them. This series about three friends solving mysteries is great. There are other series by the same author and in the same format that my kids have liked - The calendar mysteries, and the the capitol mysteries come to mind.

Clementine

This funny little girl has spunk. Maren loved reading about her adventures.

Andrew Lost
These books are great for kids who love science. Each book takes Andrew on a new science adventure, discovering new things. They are similar in difficulty to the Magic Tree House books.

Cam Jansen

These books will always hold a special place in my heart. This was the first series Maren devoured as a child and she used to love to pretend she had a photographic memory like Cam. She'd close her eyes and tell me to quiz her about what was in the room. It was extremely cute. Kids love these mysteries and how Cam is able to solve them.

The Littles

Fun stories about little people living in your walls! These are great classic books my kids have loved.

Beast Quest
Joshua and Christopher have both loved these books. Honestly, I was surprised because parts are scary and my kids don't do scary very well. There's another series about the same land I've stayed away from because I've read reviews that they were gory, but these ones are good. The idea is that there are several beasts around the land who are being controlled through magic collars and a boy goes on a quest to free them from the collars and save the land.

Bailey School Kids
These are popular with the kids. Any stories about school actually seem to do well, and a school where the teachers may be magical or mythical beings? Definitely high interest there.

Flat Stanley

Everyone loves Flat Stanley! These books are classics and a great place to start for kids beginning chapter books. Christopher and I started reading these together last year, and he liked them so much he wanted to just read them on his own rather than wait for me to read them with him. I call that a win!

Zack Files

This is one of the series I have not read any of, but my kids like them.

Junie B. Jones

I know, I know. Some people CAN'T STAND Junie B., and I get that. But personally I just love her. She makes me laugh. Just as long as none of my children try to behave like Junie. Maren loved these books, but she didn't read them on her own. We read them aloud to her, and it was a great bonding experience. We laughed together, but we were also able to talk about what wrong choices Junie B. was making and what she should've done. Christopher can't get past the first chapter of these books. He has a hard time with suspense caused by kids doing wrong things. He gets too nervous for them and the consequences. So clearly, not for everyone, but it was Maren's favorite so I included them. Just be warned.

Notebook of Doom

The titles of these books are very appealing to my boys. Doom! Aghh! Christopher says they are good.

Encyclopedia Brown

There was a time when Joshua devoured every Encyclopedia Brown book he could find. Again, it's that mystery thing. These are great books for kids on the older end.

There are LOTS of series out there for the beginning-to-read-chapter-book child, and it can be hard to sort through them all. I hope this list of our favorites has helped as you try to find books that will be your child's favorites. What ones that you loved would you add to the list?

October 1, 2014

Halloween Book Activity: Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance

My kids love doing activities with books, so we decided to do some fun Halloween Monster Activities with a favorite Halloween book.

One of our favorite Halloween books is "Frank Was a Monster who Wanted to Dance" by Keith Graves. It's a short, quick, silly read. In this book, our monster friend Frank decides to follow his dream to be a dancer, but after parts of his body start falling off as he dances, the audience leaves. Frank doesn't let that stop him though and continues to boogie.

One of the first body parts Frank loses is his eyeball, so we decided to play some eyeball games!

First, we turned some ping pong balls into eyeballs with markers. We used permanent markers, but I closely supervised them. You could also just make them yourself. While we made them, we talked about the parts of the eye and what each one was for. Art- check. Science - check.

Then we tried bouncing them into pumpkins. The boys loved this game. We gave each pumpkin a different point value and then added up points to see who won. So, ya know, math.

Frank also loses an arm. We figured an arm would make a good golf club. The boys traced around their hands, colored them in, cut them out, and taped them on to wooden utensils to make our arm golf clubs. We also looked at a picture online of a skeleton arm and hand and marveled at all the little bones that are in our hands. Developing fine motor skills - check!

Christopher made a simple golf hole for them to try and hit the ball in. We counted how many tries it took for them to get the ball in hole.

The boys decided it would also be fun to play a game of basket"eye"ball. Nathan would hold the bucket and Christopher would try to throw the eyeballs in. Nathan tried to hold it really high to make it hard.

hey! get down from there! (but not until after I take a picture)

Since Frank likes dancing so much, we decided we should give it a try. One of my kids' favorite songs to dance to at Halloween is "Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg. It's part of the Peer Gynt Suite.

In the beginning, the music is very quiet. We like to pretend we are tiptoeing around a cave where there are sleeping trolls.

It starts to get louder, and we start moving faster.

When it gets really loud and fast, we must have accidentally awakened the troll king!! All the trolls are chasing us and the kids are dancing (ie. running around) like crazy.

We ended our fun with some deliciously monstrous snacks - Eyeballs made from powdered donut holes, gummi life savers and chocolate chips. Yum!

We had a fun book activity and the boys are already planning another for next week! It's a good thing we have all these activities from other bloggers to choose from: