Sunday, August 26, 2012

Back to School Books Linky Party & Giveaway



With my first week behind me, and my daughter's tenth birthday weekend finally over, I am excited to share a few of my favorite back-to-school books with you!

On the first day of school, I always read Chrysanthemum.  I love the story, and so do my students, no matter how many times they may have heard it before.  After reading, we make our own names for my word wall.  I print out each student's name in a big, open font, and they decorate it to represent how special their names are.  We talk about how this is a way of making a text-to-self connection, because we all have different names and they are all special.  We graph the length of all our names, as a math tie-in, too.


 I read Missing: One Stuffed Rabbit very near the first of school.  I have a bunny I made at Build-a-Bear Workshop, and a binder with his picture on it.  The bunny's name is Forest (after my school, Forest Acres Elementary), and each week, the Student of the Week takes him home one night and adds an entry about what they did together in the binder.

Judy Blume's The Pain and The Great One was my absolute favorite book as a child.  My brother (who's five years younger than I) was the Pain, and I was The Great One!  I absolutely have to share this favorite with my kiddos during back-to-school.  It's perfect for me to model text-to-self connections, as well as introduce myself.  I talk to my students about how my brother and I always fought over just which one of us was The Pain and which one was The Great One, just like in the book!  I have to admit, on my brother's fortieth birthday, I gave him a brand-new copy for himself.

What books are on your back-to-school list?  Link up at Blog Hoppin' to share a few, and enter the contest to win $50 in books from The Clever Teacher.  If you haven't found their website yet, you absolutely have to check it out!  Search by skill, genre, author, standards, and more, all by grade level.  You can purchase your finds right there, too!

Good Luck,
Brooke


3 comments:

I love to hear from you! Send me your comments, but be sure you're not a "no reply" sender, so I can write you back!
XOXO,
Brooke