Monday, February 28, 2011

The Wonderful Book

The Wonderful Book by Leonid Gore is an engaging story to share with preschool and elementary aged children. Animals find a variety of uses for a book and at the end a boy finds the book and reads it to all the animals. The story is brief and the pictures are appealing. I have read it several times in the past month to different groups of students and have not grown tired of it.

Friday, February 25, 2011

bookgirl

Today I dressed up as Bookgirl, a character I made up, for I Love to Read month. I wore a cape and carried a bag with books to read and some to give away. The second and third grade students LOVED it. Since I don't usually wear glasses, a cape, or pigtails some people had to look twice to know that it was me.

Monday, February 7, 2011

bags

Here are two bags that I made following a pattern I found at morsbags.com. I adjusted the pattern a bit so I only need a half a yard of fabric. If you are an experienced seamstress, you could probably get one of these bags done in less than an hour. There are some French seams so there are no raw edges exposed when it is complete. This bag is a great quick project to make for a gift for a friend.

Friday, February 4, 2011

some books by Grace Lin

This week in my class we focused our reading on books written by Grace Lin. Below are a few of my favorites. The Ugly Vegetables is the first book Lin had published. It is a great story about gardening and sharing with others. A little girl wishes that her garden had something pretty in it instead of plain green plants. Her neighbors all have flowers and she thinks growing vegetables is terrible. As the story progresses, she realizes the good things about the vegetables growing in her garden, including being able to make a great smelling and delicious tasting soup. There is a recipe for the soup at the end of the book.
Lissy's Friends is the story of Lissy. She is new at school and is having a hard time making new friends. She eats lunch alone. Lissy ends up folding paper cranes to keep her company. A sweet short story. When my students voted for their favorite book by Grace Lin, this was the one that was in second place.
Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same! is Grace Lin's newest book. It is a 2011 Geisel Award Honor book. Ling and Ting are identical twins that share some fun experiences together. The book is divided into six short chapters, but the first one is my favorite. This is a great book for children just learning how to read because the word choice reflects what a new reader might be able to tackle. Children that are always compared to their siblings will be able to identify with the story found in this book. This was the most popular book among my students this week.

Some of Lin's other books focus more on aspects of Chinese culture like food and different holidays. If you are more interested in Grace Lin you can also look at her blog here.