Mr. Potter's Pet

Mr. Potters Pet by Dick King Smith was a crowd pleaser, at least for my first graders. I read this book aloud and they loved it, although I had to dumb down some words such as 'stupid' because they call that the 's' word:) Very cute... all in all it was a wonderful book, with a very humorous, loving pet bird Amazon who is a mynah bird who speaks his mind. The kids laughed and begged everyday for me to read another chapter. Wonderful author and would be recommended for a read aloud :)

Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch

This was a wonderful Valentines story about a lonely man who accidently gets a nameless box of chocolates and a card in the mail for Valentines day.   Not knowing who the sender could be Mr. Hatch dresses up nice and now walks around town with a smile and good attitude trying to find his mystery Valentine.  The Valentine in the end was brought to him mistakenly, and he is sad for a few days, until his new friends are worried about him and cheer him up.  This is a great story about caring, helping out friends, having a positive outlook on life, and being the friend you want others to be to you.  I read it every Valentines Day and my classes always love it.  

Tikki Tikki Tembo

Tikki Tikki Tembo was a very fun folktale that we read this week. I remember reading this book as a child, it is ingrained in my memory, so I thought it would be fun to read to the children, tying it into our China unit.  The children really enjoyed it, and were soon chanting the tune tikki tikki tembo no sa rembo chari bari ruchi pi peri pembo all over school:) The story brought up the meaning of names in the Chinese culture which carried over into the classroom, children had fun looking up or telling the meaning of their name.  

We did our first attempt at answering comprehension questions with phrases, it went rather well:) 

All in all this was a wonderful book that the kids wanted to read over and over:) 

A Friend for Dragon

I have decided to blog about some of the books we are reading in class... and other events that may take place.  There are so many great books and ideas out there and as a teacher it is nice to see what other people are doing in their classroom.  

This past week we read A Friend for Dragon by Dav Pilkey  

 it was a wonderful and funny story about friendship.  Teaching the children what attributes good friends have.  My children enjoyed the book and laughed at the way the dragon makes friends with an apple.  Because there is a lot of dialogue in the book, I took the chance to talk about quotation marks and expressive reading.  

Another addition, our poem of the week was I Have a Secret Dragon by Jack Prelutsky, which we put up on the smart board and the children came up underlining the rhyming words, vocabulary words, antonyms and synonyms.  The children then wrote their own version of I have a secret _____________?  They had fun and overall it was a good week.

The dragon tied into our Chinese New Year celebrations, which we also had this past week.