Play Ball!

Well it has been a long winter and even though spring officially arrived a week and a half ago, spring really began on Tuesday with the start of the Major League baseball season!! I live in a baseball town (Go Braves!), am a life long Red Sox fan and am the mom of two boys who are not only baseball obsessed, but darn good ball players themselves (ok, I am a little prejudiced about that!) So to celebrate my favorite sport, I am bringing baseball to the media center this week. I will read Casey at the Bat (written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, a native of Worcester, MA, my birthplace!) I will be reading the Christopher Bing version, which won a Caldecott Honor in 2002. Since it is also the start of National Poetry Month, we will talk about how the book is a poem and I will have the kids collaborate to write their own acrostic baseball poem(for the kindergarten students I will write their poems on the white board, for older grades I will have them write their own on a piece of paper with BASEBALL already printed out) .

Here are a few of my favorite baseball books:

Zachary's Ball, Oliver's Game and Mudball all by Matt Tavares (picture book)
I was first introduced to Tavares books when my son received Zachary's Ball as a gift. Since it is the tale of a Boston Red Sox fan, how could I not like it. But in all his baseball books, Tavares pen and ink drawings are so detailed and so I might even enjoy them if they were about the Yankees (but since Tavares is a fellow Red Sox fan, I am thinking that won't happen!)

Players in Pigtails by Shauna Corey and illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon (picture book)
A great book for those girls who love baseball

Aurora County All-stars by Deborah Wiles (fellow Atlantan) (grades 3 and up)
This is a great story about a small town that only has a baseball game once a year on and this year it happens to fall on the same day as the towns anniversary celebration. This is Ms. Wiles 3rd book set in Aurora county and brings along some familiar characters and introduces some new ones.

Heat by Mike Lupica (middle grades chapter book)
I read this book last summer as we drove home from the Baseball Hall of Fame. What a great story not only about baseball, but about immigration, family and what it's like to be a thirteen year old boy. My only complaint about the book was the presence of the Yankees throughout the book!

a few of my favorite baseball links:

For a fun math game for kids, check out the Math Baseball on funbrain.com.

Cape Cod Baseball League: I have been watching Cape league games since I was a kid. This is a college summer league with the best of the best college players. Most teams run camps for kids during the day and games are held at local high schools and town fields. It is what the game of baseball is all about!

Baseball Hall of Fame: My family made the trip to Cooperstown last summer, and all of us had a GREAT time, just wish we had spent more than a few hours there. The website has great information and also some virtual field trips under the education tab.

and of course, the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves home pages.

I will leave you with one last thing, a video of a Fenway Park tradition, the singing of Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond. Looks like the video was taken in about the same place where my son and I will will be sitting a week from Friday!!

Play Ball!