Last Month of School

What a wonderful year it has been in the Lower School Library! I cannot believe that it is already Memorial Day Weekend and the last week of school is upon us. Where did this last month go? As always it has been busy busy. Here is some of what we were up to and a few of the books we read.  I think if I listed everything we had going on you might be reading this blog for a few hours, so I'll spare you!

This year we have added so many great books to our collection and it just so happens that many of them go great together. In a few of our last lessons we practiced how to compare and contrast, squeezed in an author study, and continued to practice other skills such as making predictions. We also discussed how we would continue to read throughout the summer and I introduced or reviewed how to access our eBook collection.

I'll start by sharing two new books to our collection that I shared with several classes.

Open Very Carefully: A Book with Bite by Nick Bromley

Warning: Do Not Open this Book! by Adam Lehrhaupt

These two books were a big hit with our students. Kids in general love books that tell them not to open them, and all of my classes agreed that when a book tells us not to open it, we can't help but break the rules! These books were super for practicing making predictions and fun to compare and contrast. If you are going to share them with your students or children, I would read Open Very Carefully first and then read Warning: Do Not Open this Book! second. I think you will see why when you read it! 

Another couple lessons that I did were an author study all about, you guessed it, Mo Willems! I cannot tell you how popular Mo Willems' books are with our students. We can't keep them on the shelves so I thought it would be fun to share some aloud.    

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Mo Willems

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! Mo Willems

I decided to share two of his pigeon books because it is one of his main characters that he is known for. The books are just laugh out loud funny and they are great to compare and contrast because Mo Willems does many of the same things in his books.  He uses the speech bubbles to show the characters talking, and he uses the tornado symbol (or that is what we called it) to indicate that the character is frustrated or mad. The kids also noticed when the symbol would get bigger and they made the connection that it meant that the pigeon was getting even angrier! The list goes on. I also had fun showing them a few of Mo Willems'  other books that we have in our library where he likes to sneak small pictures of his famous pigeon throughout. I now think our kids will forever be searching for the hidden pigeon in all of his books!         

With summer upon us I couldn't help but share these two books!  

The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli

Watermelon Day by Kathi Appelt

When I think of summer one thing I think of is watermelon! As a child this is what I ate all summer long, so I decided to share some books about it. In the first book, the character accidentally swallows a watermelon seed and worries what will happen to him. Many of the kids shared that they too were once told that swallowing a watermelon seed would make one grow in their stomach and other fears that the character faces, but everything turns out alright. In the second story the little girl is patiently waiting for her watermelon to grow so she can have a watermelon day. After both stories it was fun sharing aloud what other foods we enjoyed eating during the hot summer months.    

Finally, to encourage as much summer reading as possible, I introduced and reviewed how to access our eBook collection. This year we have added so many great new titles, but they don't do anyone any good if they can't get to them. As you can see from the picture after we discussed them with the classes our kids were checking them out like crazy, and that always makes me happy!

I hope everyone has a relaxing and wonderful summer!