Mrs. Lovett's Top Picks

This would be a very fun and appropriate book for a kindergarten class to do a lesson on sequencing. There are many activities like passing out manipulatives with each animal on a card for the students to put in the order that the gold lady eats them. Another lesson that could stem from this would be the story read in song. Each student can be chosen as an animal and every time their animal is mentioned they stand up. Both of these will specifically help with sequencing & repetition of the book.

Another great book for early grades like kindergarten, first or second for making inferences! A lesson idea would be to tell the students they will be inference investigators! They will use their knowledge plus what they hear during the book today to make their own ideas, or inferences, about the story. The teacher will start with the front cover, letting children get a good look at all of the pictures on the pages. This lesson could be taught throughout an entire week at centers and small group. Today have the students write three inferences starting with our beginning words or phrases. Let the students interact by having them give a thumbs up or tuning down if they don't agree. 

This would be the PERFECT book to read on the first day to either a kindergarten or first grade class. This story explains Chester'a feelings about the first day of school, and most students have these same feelings about the first day. So, this lesson would be like an ice breaker on the first day. The teacher will have a small cut out of paper on each student's desk and they will be asked to write their name and color it with how they feel today. The teacher will explain that these feelings can be called emotions. The teacher will have a chart with emotions along the top like happy, sad, nervous & excited. The teacher will call on students to come Place their name that they colored underneath the emotion that they feel. The teacher will express that it is very common to feel all of these ways on the first day, and if you're sad or nervous that will go away because we're going to have a great year learning together! 

No David! is a picture book that I feel to be appropriate for either a kindergarten or first grade classroom. A lesson that would dig deeper into this book without words, only small dialogue, would be to make inferences. The teacher would explain using an anchor chart before reading that inferences are schema (or what you already know) plus evidence from the story. The teacher will read the book one time showing each page carefully, letting children gather their thoughts of what they think is happening based on the pictures. The teacher will present another anchor chart with descriptions of what David was doing on each page. The teacher will read the story again, asking students to have their ideas ready to share. As a class, the students will list the inferences on the anchor chart that they have for each page while the teacher reads and stops on every page. 

This book would be most appropriate in a 4th or 5th grade classroom setting because of the math that it explains. Not only does this story pertain to literature and teach a lesson about being too prideful, it also hits on many math lessons. This story teaches children that illustrations can help them solve math, particularly multiplication. A lesson that could be brought from this would be having the students create their own visual for a math word problem. They could do this in groups and then share with the class so everyone sees multiple examples. 

The giving tree is book that could be read to classes from kindergarten to 2nd grade. I think it would be appropriate to read around Christmas and discuss the heart of giving. It is important to teach children that giving is more important than receiving, and for the activity the children could draw names and each make something special that they will give to that person. This will inspire children to be more giving during this holiday season and it could be a change from the regular holiday party to something special they will cherish. 

This book would be appropriate for most classrooms from 1st to 3rd grade. The little girl in the story, Sophie, falls asleep and dreams about a garden. This takes my mind a few different ways for lessons because there are a few things I could cover. The first thing to come to mind is letting the children draw out their own happy place and asking them to write a short summary about why they would consider it their happy place. I would let them share this with the class. Another lesson idea could be repetition or sequencing. The little girl keeps exploring finding one thing after another. Each time she finds something new she says the same thing, "Somebody will be looking for this!" 

Pete the Cat is a exciting and fun way for young children to learn. This series is most appropriate for kindergartners, and some of the lessons that came to mind with this specific story is sequencing and personification. After reading the story, we can discuss as a class the sequence of events in the story, and the teacher can have manipulatives ready for students to use to practice. For personification, after teaching the students about how this is used in literature, the teacher will read the story to the children. While they are listening they will record the different ways Pete the Cat is given human-like characteristics in this specific story. They can record this on a character web graphic organizer that the teacher gives to them before reading. 

Thundercake is another book I read with my 4th grade class. We discussed the theme of the book, along with the setting, characters, and plot. Another lesson that came to my mind is onomatopoeias!! Growing up this was one of my favorite lessons, we learned a song and I still know it. Before reading the story, I would introduce the lesson on onomatopoeias and I could even share the song I learned. After learning about what an onomatopoeia is, I would read the book to the class. The students would be assigned to record every onomatopoeia they heard during the story. (zip, roar, boom, kaboom, crash, etc)

This is such a fun twist to the original Three Little Pigs! Not only is it entertaining, it's also educational! For my 4th grade class, I did a lesson comparing this story with the original. First I read parts from each story, and I purposefully chose the parts with the biggest differences along with some similarities. While the students were listening I had them record the characteristics of the wolf in the first story, and then in the second. After they had a character web organizer about the wolf completely filled, we took that information and completed a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two stories. For fun after the lesson, they voted for whose story they believed: the wolf's or the pig's.

This is a classic book that so many lessons can stem from! One idea would be comparing it to all of the other stories about the three little pigs. For each story, you can create your own book summarizing the story and recording the setting, characters and plot along with a picture. After doing a few different stories, you'll have your own Three Little Pigs library! I think this would be fitting for any grades between 1st and 4th. For younger students, the teacher could read the story to them, and for the older ones they could have a book at different stations to do as a group or read independently. Another idea for a younger group, like kindergarten, would be taking parts from the story and having them put them in sequential order.

Another story I have read to my 4th graders! I read this book the same week as Teammates, and we compared & contrasted the two. We talked about theme again, and how the moral was the same and different. We also discussed the time period again and how it was the same as Teammates (the civil rights movement). Another part of the book we discussed as a class is how the characters felt. We used pictures and context clues to determine if they felt happy, sad, determined, upset, encouraged,etc. 

I think this would be an appropriate read for any 2nd to 4th grade class. For those same grades, you could teach a lesson on compound words. Before reading, you would discuss what a compound word is, share some examples and explain how you know the definition of each words by using context clues. While reading the story, have students write down compound words that they hear throughout the story on a post it note. After reading, let them share their words and put their post it on the front board. You can also have the students make a flip book and behind each compound word they write, they will use their context clues to figure out the words meaning. 

I read this with my 4th grade class to discuss theme, which I felt very appropriate. First I had to explain the setting to be during the civil rights movement when blacks and whites were separated. They helped by adding to the discussion and sharing their own thoughts on this. Then I asked them if they knew what theme was. We discussed as a class that the theme is the moral of the story or lesson learned by the end. While keeping this in mind, I read the book only stopping at points to explain vocabulary. After reading,we talked about the theme of the book and what lessons they learned from it. 

I read this to my 4th grade class this semester and they really got into the theme of the story! Before reading, I gave a brief summary of the book's plot and asked the students if they had ever been accused of doing something they didn't do because in the story that is what happened to the children. While reading the story, they made connections to how they felt during those times and what they did to change the person's mind (text to self). We also discussed how the pictures and description of the characters in the story gave away the time period/setting. The little girl (narrator) discussed how she was not really part of their family, but her friends grandmother had "adopted her". The pictures gave away that she was white and the rest of the characters were black. This story tied into a few others that we had been reading with the same theme so we connected text to text. 

This is a super fun, silly story that I think any class would enjoy! I would read this to a kindergarten or first grade class, because it is a very low reading level. Some lessons that could be taught from this book are rhyming words, and fiction. The story keeps a rhyme scheme of ABAB through the entire book, and it is a very obvious way to explain fiction books. Another way to explain this as a fiction book would be to compare this book about pirates to a non fiction book or article about pirates. 

This would be a wonderful book to read the first few days of school! This could be introduced as a bullying prevention, and can also be considered for creating a "family feel" within the classroom. I would do this by telling the students in our class we all work together to achieve one goal. Another lesson that could be taught on this book would be inspiration stories, and the example of this from the story is the story that the mother told all of the forest animals. She used this story to inspire them to make a decision together to overcome and invite the bully to play with them.