So You Want To Be President? by Judith St. George

This book by Judith St. George is a great book to introduce kids to Presidents, as well as history. Because the elections are coming up, I think this would be a great book to read to kids to share that information with them and to let them know how important being the president is. At the end of the book, there is also a list of all the presidents so far and some important details about them. This book provides great pictures by illustrator David Small and fun language for the kids to follow along with. There are funny parts to this book, but also gives the correct information about presidents. Below is a snippet of the book:

“There are good things about being President and there are bad things about being President. One of the good things is that the President lives in a big white house called the White House.

Another good thing about being President is that the President has a swimming pool, bowling alley, and a movie theatre.The President never has to take out the garbage. The President doesn’t have to eat yucky vegetables. As a boy, George H. W. Bush had to eat broccoli. When George H. W. Bush grew up, he became President. That was the end of the broccoli!

One of the bad things about being President is that the President always has to be dressed up. William McKinley wore a frock coat, vest, pin striped trousers, stiff white shirt, black satin tie, gloves, a top hat, and a red carnation in his buttonhole everyday! The President has to be polite to everyone. The President can’t go anywhere alone. The President has lots of homework.”

James Stevenson

Author Presentation on Prezi

Humorous poetry is hard to come by but it is all James Stevenson does in his colorful books. He writes about his experiences and for students this is a great reference if you are doing a unit on personal writing. His illustrations are beautiful and when you know so little about him (his background information is provided no where on the internet) your class can use context clues from the text in order to find out more about his past. Students will find his writing exciting and inspiring for their own writing and his story is very compelling.

Cobblestone Magazine

Cobblestone Magazine is a great resource for social studies topics. Their articles are well researched and thoroughly reviewed before publication. In addition to numerous non-fiction articles, they have multiple features every issue that help with reading comprehension/checking for understanding. The best part about this magazine is the articles are geared toward kids which makes the articles easy to read.

September 2009.Volume 30.Number 7

In the particular issue listed above, there is an article called “A Historic Rediscovery” by Robin Chalmers. It describes the discovery of a cliff dwelling in Colorado that was once inhabited by pueblo families somewhere around A.D. 1200. The article explores the wonders archeologists and scientists have discovered through certain excavations of this ancient civilization. I highly recommend this article if your class is learning about ancient cultures, especially if you have a 4th grade class who is learning about American Indians as designated by the TEKS. This is a good article to spark your students on the subject!

Snippet:

“Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charles Mason were searching for stray cattle on December 18, 1888. Through the falling snow, they saw “a magnificent city” built into the aclove of the mesa across the canyon.

Almost 600 years had passed since the ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellers had left Mesa Verde (Spanish for ‘green table’) in present-day Colorado. It is believed the Pueblo people lived in the area from A.D. 550 to A.D. 1300. Yet the two ranchers clearly saw the outlines of walls, towers, windows, and doorways. Awestruck by their discovery, the men decided to explore.”

Jason Chin

It can be hard to get students interested in non-fiction texts, but Jason Chin has come to save the day through his widely acclaimed books Redwoods and Coral Reefs. Chin’s books are filled with accurate, factual information on various science topics. The information he provides is brilliantly complimented by his stunning illustrations, which are the real key to Chin’s books. The words on the page talk about the science topic at hand while the pictures themselves not only illustrate the facts but also tell their own narrative story of how one can get lost in a book and learn so much in the process. Not only are his books likely to hook a variety of readers, but they can also be used to help reinforce the ideas of plant life cycles and the complexity of ecosystems.

Joyce Sidman by Megan McAdams

Joyce Sidman is a poet who can’t help but share her love for nature with readers. Her attention to detail and connection to the natural world will captivate any child. Her poems can be picked up by almost any student and read with ease. Sidman has published several books of poetry whose themes include animals, outdoor settings, the natural world, and insects. She is a perfect fit for any student who loves being outdoors or adventure. Her poems could be paired nicely with various elementary science lessons.


Link to Sidman reading some of Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night
and explaining why she wrote this book.
Poems read:
•Welcome to the Night
•Dark Emperor

Snippet: Holes

Holes
By: Louis Sachar

Holes is a fictional novel for children and young adults. This novel won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year’s “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children”, and was made into a Walt Disney Pictures film in 2003.

Holes is a story about a boy named Stanley Yelnates who is cursed with bad luck. He has been unjustly sent to a boy’s detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by digging holes everyday. Over the course of the novel, Stanley tries to dig up the truth about Camp Green Lake, meets a true friend, and tries to break his family’s curse.

As a teacher, you could use a snippet of this novel to introduce Newbery Medal winning books. You could also use this book to talk about imagery, figurative language, and other literary techniques. Overall, this book is exciting to read and difficult to put down. Regardless of whether you use this book in the classroom or not, it is still a must read and should be apart of your book collection! Below is a snippet from the book.

     Stanley was arrested later that day.

     He looked at the guard who sat slumped in his seat and wondered if he had fallen asleep. The guard was wearing sunglasses, so Stanley couldn’t see his eyes. Stanley was not a bad kid. He was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

     It was all because of this no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. He smiled. It was a family joke. Whenever anything went wrong, they always blamed Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

     Supposedly, he had a great-great-grandfather who stole a pig from a one-legged Gypsy, and she put a curse on him and all his decedents. Stanley and his parents didn’t believe in curses, of course, but whenever anything went wrong, it felt good to blame someone.

     Things went wrong a lot. They always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

     He looked out the window at the vast emptiness. He watched the rise and fall of the telephone wire. In his mind he could hear his father’s gruff voice softly singing to him.

“If only, if only,” the woodpecker sighs,
“The bark on the tree was a little bit softer.”
While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
He cries to the moo-oo-oon,
“If only, if only.”

Snippet: In My Family/En Mi Familia

by: Carmen Lomas Garza

This beautifully written book is very informative and full of important cultural traditions. Carmen Lomas Garza grew up in Kingsville, Texas, in a Hispanic household and community. Each page includes one tradition she remembers from her youth. The book is written in English but has a translation in spanish for each section. The spanish translation creates for a sense of openness for the Hispanic community. This story places Spanish culture in the limelight, which teaches children to appreciate all cultures. The second grade Social Studies TEK about culture fits perfectly here by understanding the importance of family and community believes, customs, language, and traditions.

Here is a short snippet of her work:

“This is my grandfather, Antonio Lomas. He’s shaving off the thorns from freshly-cut cactus pads, called nopalitos. My sister Margie is watching him work. Napolitas are called “the food of last resort,” because back when there were no refrigerators and your winter food supply would run out, you knew you could eat the cactus pads through the last days of winter and the early days of spring. My grandmother would boil the nopalitos in salt water, cut them up, and stir-fry them with chile and eggs for breakfast” (page 2).

“This is a Saturday night at El Jardin, a neighborhood restaurant in my home town. It’s the summer, so warm that you can dance outside. A conjunto band is playing–drums, accordion, guitar. and bass. This is the music I grew up with. Everybody’s dancing in a big circle: the young couples, the older couples, and the old folks dancing with the teenagers or children. Even babies get to dance. I learned to dance from my father and grandfather. This is where my love of dance started. To me, dance means fiesta, celebration. You have the music, the beautiful clothes, and all the family members dancing together. It’s like heaven. It is heaven” (page 13).

Patricia Polacco

Patricia Polacco is prolific children’s book author and illustrator. She has won numerous awards and has published over 50 books. Patricia Polacco is known for writing about her personal anecdotes as well as culture, history, and relationships. If you want your students to write about their lives, feelings, and experiences, Patricia Polacco is the author to introduce! Below is a presentation that features Patricia Polacco’s biography, list of published works, her themes and writing techniques, a snippet of her writing, and how to use her books in the classroom.

This is a short clip of Patricia Polacco reading parts of her book The Keeping Quilt.

Snippet from Multiplying Menace: The Revenge of Rumpelstiltskin

Pam Calvert is an award winning children’s author of many nationally acclaimed picture books. She speaks to thousands of children every year, encouraging them to achieve their dreams and to love math through the use of literature. This book is a great way to introduce multiplication and problem solving. I would use this book for 3rd grade when starting a lesson on multiplication. TEKS: 1B, 3C, and 4E. These are just a few connections to the Mathematics TEKS.

Here is a snippet from the Multiplying Menace:

The castle was full of guests celebrating Peter’s tenth birthday.

“You have one gift left,” said his mother, the Queen. A big bouncy puppy ran out and licked Peter’s face.

“This is the best birthday ever,” Peter said as he ran his fingers over the dog’s soft fur. Just then, down the stairs came a thunderous rumbling and a cloud of smoke.

Peter watched as the smoke cleared. There stood a strange little man who said to him in a high, squeaky voice, “I have come for you.”

“Go away!” the Queen gasped. “I said your name ten years ago, and I will say it again. Rumpelstiltskin!”

“You can’t get rid of me so easily this time. Ten years ago, I turned your worthless straw into gold. Now I demand what you owe me.”

“Guards!” the Kind ordered. Ten guards rushed forward.

Rumpelstiltskin pointed his walking stick at them and muttered some words. There was a sudden flash and eight guards disappeared. Only their hats remained.

“By tomorrow you will see that the only way to save your kingdom is to give me the boy,” the little man cackled, and then he was gone.

 

Shel Silverstein

 

I remember discovering Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic as an Elementary student and realizing poetry did not have to be boring or sad or hard to understand. Instead, his work made me laugh out loud and sparked my interest in humorous poetry.  As an educator one of my primary goals is to help my students learn to enjoy reading and I feel Silverstein is a great author to introduce as a part of this initiative.

 Silverstein on Prezi