Daily Archives: October 1, 2017

Todd Parr: Reading Under a Tree!

If you’ve been around here for the last couple of weeks, you’ll know that we have become LOVERS of Todd Parr (and even Todd Parr himself!), and we’re on a mission to read all of this books.  We’re at 10 so far, and one of the latest ones we shared together was The Feel Good Book.

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Before I even start I have to say how much I love this cover.  Doesn’t it make you feel good before you even read it?  Makes me want to dance. 🙂

Ok, well…we read this one the other day, and kiddos were asked to think about this question:

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We found out that for a lot of us, hugs  (especially from our siblings!) and our animals make us feel good!

Well…as we read the page that said: Reading under a tree makes you feel good, someone said, “I’ve never done that before.”  “WHAT?!” (I’m pretty sure I shouted).  “You’ve never read under a tree?!  We have to change that!”  So yep, we made a plan to make sure everyone knew what it was like to read under a tree. 🙂

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Besides just being fun (and making us feel good, like his books remind us), this was the perfect fall-weather day to enjoy outside, and I was reminded of how wonderful our outdoor spaces are at Robinson.  And this isn’t even the end of it!  There are at least two or three other places I can think of that we can snuggle down with a good book!  Kids were already asking when we could do this again, and I was totally ok that everyone complained that we came in too soon. 🙂

THANK YOU TODD PARR, for making things like this so much fun and giving us great ideas for more ways to enjoy great books!

Mrs. Cohen: Personal Space Camp

Mrs. Cohen came back to visit us this week and again brought along a book (yay!) and a smart strategy for our toolboxes. 🙂

The book was Personal Space Camp and was a very timely story for many friends in Rm. 111.  If you haven’t read it, it’s about a boy named Lewis who has a hard time understanding that Personal Space Camp is NOT about outer space but how your body moves in your own space and how to make sure that you give people bubbles around them instead of getting IN their space.  (Wow–that was a weird sentence and you probably could’ve figured out the plot without my telling you, but hey…)

We took some time to experience what that book meant with the help of a hula hoop.  She used our very own Louie to demonstrate how much room around your body you should have when you are sitting down.

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Then she demonstrated what that hoop (his space) looked like when he stood up.  All of a sudden it was much bigger and so they tried to see how many more kiddos they could squeeze into it.  Man…

They all agreed that it was NOT better when they were all in there together, and that they were squished and uncomfortable.  And after that last picture I’m pretty sure they fell over. 🙂

So they tried that original personal space again and Louie, at least, agreed that that was the way it should be.  We talked about how respecting everyone’s personal space is an important part of working together in a classroom, as well as a crucial step in keeping us all safe and happy.

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After this, Mrs. Cohen taught us about shrug-it-off breathing.  It’s similar to the two techniques she had already taught us, and really just involves pulling up your shoulders close to your ears while you inhale and then exhaling slowly and pressing your shoulders down as far as they can go (sorry–I didn’t get a video for this one!).  We tried it and just like the other ones, it helped us feel calmer and more relaxed.  We will be applying these very soon, I’m sure!

Oh, and here’s just a quick sneak peek of something we did the other day.  Remember the toolboxes that I mentioned Mrs. Cohen always talked about?  I had kids draw them and explain what they looked like in Seesaw.  And I feel like I must tell you that we had to have a little discussion before hand about how they are imaginary toolboxes.  Many friends were adamant that they didn’t have one. 🙂    I am only sharing a couple that came up first in the feed, but don’t worry–the rest are equally AWESOME!  (If you’re connected to your child’s Seesaw learning journal, you’ll be able to see theirs if it’s not here. 🙂 ).

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P.S. I love Seesaw.  🙂

#classroombookaday 2017 UPDATE: Week 7

Hello, #classroombookaday friends!  Another super week and we’ve read loads of great ones!  Here’s our wall as of Friday:

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We added 15 this week and are up to 115 books so far! Many of them are the same as last year (as kids have asked me), but so many of them are brand new ones I’ve never heard of before now.  I love how we are finding new authors and then reading ALL of their books, as well as reuniting with old author friends from before. 🙂

Here are the highlights from this week:

You probably already know (if you read last week’s post) why there are so many Todd Parr books on this list!  We have been HUGE fans of Todd Parr and are set to read all of his books.  Perhaps the most fun part of this week was when Ms. Turken (and my kiddos) and I got to MEET HIM!! He was at our local bookstore to share and sign his newest book Love the World and we were there.  🙂  Super excited for this pic with our new friend. 🙂

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I think I mentioned before, but it is worth repeating that I love how easy it is to share big messages with little kids by reading Todd Parr’s books.  Everyone of them is accessible by all levels of readers and are about BIG IDEAS.  We have had SO many deep conversations as we read and I’m so thankful for those lessons.

This week also added several stories that are related to things we’re learning:

Night of the Veggie Monster is a mentor text for our Small Moments unit in Writing, we’re using Ollie the Stomper as we’re learning about building good reading habits in Reader’s Workshop and the other two accompany our study on Light and Sound in Science. LOVE that literature is involved in these subjects.

The last ones were just for fun.  Hug Machine has a fabulous Emily Arrow song (see below), the Sam book was a new one from our pal Mo Willems that we hadn’t read, Betty Goes Bananas is from the same author as the Mr. Panda books we’ve read (Steve Antony), and we’ve read several of the other “if you want to….DON’T” books along the way this year, too.  Oh, and I wish I had a video of this, too, but I feel that I should mention that a puppet named Mr. Giggles read that Betty book to us and it was super fun.

Whew!  What a great reading week.  I’m excited for this week to come, as well, because we start the Global Read Aloud!! Stay tuned to see lots of Mem Fox added to the list!!