January Story Time

Who knew when I planned my story times for January that it would indeed be FREEZING here in "hot"lanta. I know most of the country is in an arctic freeze right now, but us southerners (even those of us who grew up in the North) just aren't prepared for this kind of weather!

Many of my teachers do an author study of Jan Brett in January (which means that our Jan Brett books are flying off the shelves) so I decided to help them kick off their unit by reading her book, The Three Snow Bears.

After we read the book, I show them a video of Jan teaching how to draw a baby bear that I downloaded off her FABULOUS website (go to the video tab and she has a TON of videos you can download).

Then to have them understand a little bit more about REAL polar bears, I show them this video from the National Geographic site. This site has some great, short videos about all kinds of animals, my only complaint, the ads before each video, but I guess they have to pay the bills somehow, just wish there was a way I could turn them off.

This story time will lead me into my next story time where I will make SNOW with the kids - although we actually might get some of the real stuff tomorrow - for once, I am hoping for NO snow day, we already have to make up 2 days for our flood days in September!

Happy New Year!!

Johnny Appleseed story time

We have dried out here in Georgia, but some of my friends have been hit HARD by the flooding, My former school had a lot of flood damage and is STILL not open yet and there are many families that still cannot go back to their flood damaged home. I have seen flooded areas on the news before but NEVER imagined that it would happen here.

On a happier note, we are celebrating apples in the media center this week. Check out my Whrrl story about our story time and art project.

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A garden for a sunny Saturday

I can't believe I haven't heard of this before, but one of my favorite authors - Peter Reynolds (I swear he wrote his book Dot for my son and Ish for my daughter - too bad HE doesn't know that - LOL!) has a new book coming out! I read in Publishers Weekly today that he is coming out with a new book, dedicated to Rose Kennedy called Rose's Garden. The article was about the publisher (Candlewick Press) moving up the publication date to October and they also provided a link to the Telefable version of the book on the Rose Kennedy Greenway website.

It is another great story - whether you are a fan of Mrs. Kennedy and have visited the Greenway or have never stepped foot in Boston, you will love the story about a girl trying to beautify a city and of a girl trying to make her way in a new place.

Of course as I was reading the Telefable I was already planning the story time I will do with it - I can see the students making their own paper flowers and I will have to show them some pictures of the REAL Rose Kennedy Greenway (which I walked on this summer) and maybe include a picture of the famous steaming tea pot, which I used to walk past every day one summer when I was working in downtown Boston and was the inspiration for the tea pot that Rose rides on in the story.

Now off to pre-order the book!

Story time this week: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

With 950 kids in my school (K-5) I do a different story time every two weeks. This week and next week I am reading Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett. If you frequently tune into the Disney channel or Nickelodeon, you know that there is a movie coming out based on the book (they show the preview every 10 minutes!) so I wanted to make sure the kids knew that the book came before the movie - LOONG before the movie - when I tell the kids I was 9 when the book came out they all say "WOW" - so far nobody's called me old... but I am waiting!

After we read the book I do a little science lesson with them. I created a Whrrl photo story to show you highlights from our story time.

Happy Friday!

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