How to use this Page

September is National Attendance Awareness Month, a time when schools and programs across the country emphasize the connection between satisfactory school attendance and academic achievement.

Researchers and social scientists are always trying to figure out the secret to academic success for students. Public schools or charter schools? Is standardized testing effective? What role should technology play in schools? For every answer, more questions emerge.

One thing the leading minds in education do know is that attendance works. If a teacher is looking for a way to help improve their students’ academic outcomes, attendance works.

Our friends at Attendance Works, a national and state initiative that promotes better policy and practice around school attendance, have developed FREE resources in English and Spanish that help reinforce the importance of attendance for caregivers of young children.

Why Attendance Matters:

• Early attendance helps children read and succeed later in school
• Children from low-income families are more likely to be affected by lost school time
• Chronic absenteeism starts early, so encourage good attendance habits now

These resources are a great way for teachers to engage with their students’ caregivers and highlight the importance of good school attendance. Teachers can use the strategies and tactics found in these downloadable materials to help caregivers ensure attendance is a priority for their young students now and in the future.

Because after all, attendance works.

If you serve kids in need, please visit the Attendance Works section of the First Book Marketplace to download FREE resources that can be used to engage caregivers and convey the importance of satisfactory school attendance.

The post Attend Today, Achieve Tomorrow appeared first on First Book Blog.

Add a Comment

Dive Into Reading! is LEE & LOW’s new line of early chapter books that focuses on supporting readers in each stage of their reading development. 

The Confetti Kids series follows a group of five children from diverse backgrounds living in a friendly city neighborhood, and each book follows a different character as they learn about friendship and how to navigate common childhood experiences.

Lily’s New Home

Synopsis: Lily moves from a quiet suburb to an apartment on a busy street in the city. Lily worries that she’ll never fit in. As she and her parents explore their new, multicultural neighborhood, Lily discovers that sometimes change can be a good thing!

 

 

Want to Play?

Synopsis: It’s a warm, sunny day, and the gang heads to the neighborhood playground to play. What should they play? Pablo comes up with a great idea: to play pretend. It’s a game that everyone can do easily. They can pretend to be archaeologists, astronauts, and explorers. There’s no limit to what they imagine they can be!

 

 

 

Explore these books and more with the FREE Confetti Kids Activity Guide and Lesson Plans available NOW on our website. 

• Activity Guide
• Lily’s New Home Lesson Plan
• Want to Play? Lesson Plan

 Emergent Content Themes and Strategies Covered:

• community/communities
• families
• problem solving
• reading and following dialogue
• sequencing events
• connecting personal experiences
• summarizing and main idea
• high-frequency words
• characterization
• compare and contrast

Here’s a preview of the types of engaging projects and activities you can find in the Confetti Kids Activity Guide:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can purchase a copy of Lily’s New Home or Want to Play on our website here.

Veronica has a degree from Mount Saint Mary College and joined LEE & LOW in the fall of 2014. She has a background in education and holds a New York State childhood education (1-6) and students with disabilities (1-6) certification. When she’s not wandering around New York City, you can find her hiking with her dog Milo in her hometown in the Hudson Valley, NY.

Add a Comment

Where can you find free educational resources?

On the First Book Marketplace, of course!

You’ll find tips to encourage family engagement, resources for early childhood education, free subscriptions to online tools and programs and much more. For access, you’ll first need to sign up and log in.

Watch the video below to learn how to access, download and use these great free resources:

 

The post Find Free Educational Resources on the First Book Marketplace appeared first on First Book Blog.

Add a Comment

Looking for a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day? Read a book together and try these activities.

The books below are just some of the books identified by Search Institute that model behaviors that make families stronger: collaborating, encouraging and exploring.

Read these books together and use the activities listed after each book to grow together as a family.

Brothers At Bat: The True Story of An Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team by Audrey Vernick; illustrated by Steven Salerno

The kindness and generosity of the Acerra family helped their twelve sons become the longest-playing all-brother baseball team in history.

This book shows collaborating: learning, growing and solving problems with your child.

Try this after reading:

Your family is like a team. Each person plays a different role and has different talents. To help your family recognize these, sit down as a group and have each person write or draw pictures of a strength they think each member of the family brings to your team. Talk as a family about the work you do to support one another, as well as skills you can teach one another.

Abuela by Arthur Dorros; illustrated by Elisa Kleven

Take flight with Rosalba and her grandmother as they soar in Rosalba’s imagination all over New York City, visiting family and seeing places with special meaning to Abuela.

This book shows exploring: exposing your child to new ideas, experiences and places.

Try this after reading:

Maps offer fun opportunities to talk about and discover places of importance to you.
Talk with your child about familiar locations, like the places where friends and family live and work, then draw a map together that includes those spots. Or, ask your child to invent a world they’d like to travel to, then draw a map of it and pretend you’re visiting that place together. What do you see, smell or hear? Talk with your child about this new world and the things that make it different from your own.

My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits; illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska

Yoon feels unhappy after her family moves from Korea to the United States, until she gets encouragement at home and at school and learns to write her name in English.

This book shows encouraging: praising your child’s efforts and achievements.

Talk and ask questions as you read:

• Tell your child about a time you felt like you didn’t belong. ASK: Has that happened to you? What did you do? Did someone help you feel included?
• Yoon’s parents are proud of her when she sings to them in English. Remind your child about a time you were proud of him or her. ASK: What are you proud of?

Educators and program leaders serving children in need can find more books with tips and activities in the Build Strong Families with Stories section of the First Book Marketplace. Developed in partnership with  Search Institute, through generous funding from Disney, each book comes with a FREE downloadable tipsheet with tips and discussion questions like the ones above.

 

 

The post Celebrate Mother’s Day: Read a Book Together! appeared first on First Book Blog.

Add a Comment

Stories can help children to develop into responsible, caring and contributing citizens.

Use the activities for each book below to teach good character traits like kindness, self-control and perseverance to your students.

To view all the books chosen and to see all the tips and activities suggested for each book, visit the Reading Into Character Section on the First Book Marketplace.

Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes

This story models self-control: being able to deny your short-term impulses in order to stay focused and pursue what is really important

Lilly loved school, until her teacher took away her fabulous movie star sunglasses, her three shiny quarters and her brand new purple plastic purse.

Ask these questions after reading the story:

• Lilly wants to show off her new things, even though she knows it’s not the right time. Why do you think is it so hard to wait when you’re excited?
• Even though Lilly loves Mr. Slinger, she is furious with him for taking away her things. Why is she so angry? Should she be angry?

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman written by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by David Diaz

This story models resilience and perseverance: honoring your word and your intentions by working hard toward an important goal, despite setbacks and challenges

A small and sickly child, Wilma Rudolph wore a heavy brace on her leg when she was a little girl, but she grew up to win three Olympic gold medals for running.

Try this activity to learn more about resilient athletes:

Who are today’s women’s sports stars? Ask your students to choose their favorite female champions in track, basketball, tennis, soccer, and more. Research their lives. Create a Women’s Sports Hall of Fame for your classroom.

Those Shoes written by Maribeth Boelts, illustrated by Noah Z. Jones

This story models kindness and compassion: valuing others so much that you show them respect and offer help to them as a way of honoring their value

Like all the other boys in school, Jeremy wants black high tops with two white stripes. But when he finally gets a pair, he realizes that he needs to give them away.

Try this activity to practice kindness and compassion:

Investigate local charities that welcome donations of good-as-new clothing, toys, books, or other useful items. Be sure to play close attention to their donation guidelines. If feasible, organize a class- or school-wide donation drive.

Developed as a joint project with Character.org and with generous support from Disney, each hand-picked book in the Reading Into Character section is paired with a FREE downloadable tip sheet.

The post Teaching Good Character with Books appeared first on First Book Blog.

Add a Comment

Have you ever wanted to take a trip to the cloud forest? Explore the Andes of Ecuador? Discover a new species? Well, you’re in luck.

With ¡Olinguito, de la A a la Z! / Olinguito from A to Z! travel to the unique world of the cloud forest and discover the bounty of plants, animals, and other organisms that live there as you help a zoologist look for the elusive olinguito, the first new mammal species identified in the Americas since 1978.

But the adventure doesn’t stop there. Anyone can learn to be an explorer in their own backyard with the FREE Olinguito Activity Kit and Teacher’s Guide. Learn more about the cloud forest and other ecosystems, including all of the important animals and the adaptations that help them survive in their environment with the many interdisciplinary ideas, projects, and engaging activities.

Content themes and subjects covered:

• ecosystems and habitats
• biodiversity
• animal classification and adaptation
• vertebrates and invertebrates
• competition and predation
• world geography

Here’s a preview of the types of engaging projects and activities you can find in the Olinguito Activity Kit and Teacher’s Guide:

Observe an Ecosystem!

You will need:

• a notebook
• a pen or pencil
• a camera
• a thick, old paperback book

1. Make note of the time of day you are making your observations. Is it morning, afternoon, or night?
2. Record all the plants and organisms you see, including trees, shrubs, bushes, grasses, ferns, mosses, and lichens.
3. Record all the animals you see in the area, including insects, arachnids, mollusks, reptiles, birds and mammals.
4. Gather fresh leaves of different shapes from trees and shrubs and put each separately between two pages of the paperback book. You may also gather small, colorful flowers or flower petals and put them between pages of the book.
5. Take photos of any animals you see.
6. Once you are back inside, place the paperback book under a pile of heavy books for a week or two to let you pressed leaves and flowers dry.

Design a Cloud Forest Travel Brochure!

Have students research cloud forests in the Andes and create an informative and persuasive travel brochure. Include headings, subheadings, pictures, maps, and informative captions.

• Where are the cloud forests located?
• What plants and animals live there?
• Why are cloud forests valued or important?
• What is the climate like?
• What will people see there?
• What environmental and human threats do they face?
• Why should someone make the cloud forest his or her next vacation destination?

Create a Cloud Forest Alphabet or Glossary Book:

• card stock
• hole puncher
• string or twine
• art decorating supplies (crayons, colored pencils, markers. etc.)

Alphabet Book: include the featured letter, a picture or drawing of the featured plant or animal, and the name of the plant or animal.

Plant/Animal Glossary Book: include the name of the plant or animal, a picture or drawing of the featured plant or animal, and an informative description of the plant or animal: where does it live? what does it eat? how is it classified (plant or animal, vertebrate or invertebrate, etc.)?

For more fun and exciting activity ideas, including I-Spy Fun and learning to create you own pressed leaf print, check out and download the FREE Olinguito Activity Kit and Teacher’s Guide.

You can purchase a copy of ¡Olinguito, de la A a la Z! / Olinguito, from A to Z! : Descubriendo el bosque nublado / Unveiling the Cloud Forest on our website here.

Veronica has a degree from Mount Saint Mary College and joined LEE & LOW in the fall of 2014. She has a background in education and holds a New York State childhood education (1-6) and students with disabilities (1-6) certification. When she’s not wandering around New York City, you can find her hiking or hanging out with her dog Milo in her hometown in the Hudson Valley, NY.

Add a Comment

I love using mentor texts in the classroom, and students find them incredibly useful as exemplars for their own writing. But how many times have I asked, "Do you remember when we saw examples of this technique in one of our mentor texts?" only to be met with blank stares. Or worse, a student will say, "I remember in one of our picture books the author did this thing where she said something in a way that was cool and can you help me find that book?"

So this year, in an effort to maximize our investment in mentor texts, I began to create Mentor Text Display Cards. For each exemplar text we study, whether it be a picture book, poem, article, or excerpt from a novel, I've posted a simple letter-size display card listing the book title, author, illustrator, genre, theme, notable text features, and a text excerpt (see example below). On a bookshelf adjacent to this display, I've shelved all of the mentor texts we've already read, as well as those I intend to use.

With just seven cards posted, already I've seen several benefits:

• During free reading time, students will return to these texts since they're familiar and meaningful.
• Students struggling to recall text features or literary devices will look to these cards for help.
• Students now make discoveries of their own in their independent texts, and some have even suggested picture books and excerpts for future sharing. This, in itself, is remarkably revealing, because some students are pointing out features and literary devices that haven't been formally introduced through our other texts.
• The collection of cards serves as clear evidence of our classroom goal to create a common culture of literacy. 

Add a Comment

I founded this humble blog for the purpose of sharing picture book teaching ideas with my fellow teachers. I frankly wasn't able to find anything like it on the Internet.

Since that time, many teachers have emailed me to say how much they appreciate the recommendations and resources found here. Many, however, are hungry for more, and invariably ask, "Where can I find other sites like yours?"

To advance the cause of teaching with picture books, I reached out to some of the extremely knowledgeable and talented educators who, like me, not only review children's books, but also provide their readers with teaching ideas and additional resources. I absolutely encourage you to visit their sites, become followers, and share their resources with your colleagues.

In addition, if you know of a fantastic site that I missed (especially if it's yours!) please let me know and I'll be sure to include you here.


The Book Chook
Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers, Anyone Who Loves to Read, Write or Create and Wants to Share that with Kids.

Teachers and parents from all over the world visit The Book Chook to find tips on encouraging kids to read, write and communicate, reviews, letters asking for The Book Chook's advice, articles about using technology to motivate kids' learning, and links to games, activities and online fun.

Some recommended posts to explore:

• Introducing Kids to Fairy Tales Online
• Sharing Stories Using Online Editors
• Using Toys as a Springboard for Writing

Katie's Literature Lounge
Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers, Librarians

18 Comments on Great Minds Thinking Alike: Sites for Teaching Using Picture Books, last added: 1/31/2011

Display Comments

The Book Chook said, on 1/28/2011 8:27:00 PM

I'm thrilled to find these great resources, Keith, most of which are new to me. Thanks for including me in such a stellar line-up!

Keith Schoch said, on 1/28/2011 10:03:00 PM

I'm pleased to spread the word! So many teachers, homeschoolers, and tutors aren't aware (yet!) that these resources exist.

Kevin Hodgson said, on 1/29/2011 2:47:00 AM

Great resources here.
Thanks
Kevin

Madigan McGillicuddy said, on 1/29/2011 4:35:00 AM

What a fantastic round-up of resources!

I reviewed a couple of picture books this week - I tend to switch back and forth between picture books and YA, dizzying, I know!

Silvana said, on 1/29/2011 6:17:00 AM

Check out Creative Literacy:
http://creativeliteracy.blogspot.com/
Katie does not only talk about using picture books to teach, but her posts on that topic are thorough and very powerful. I've truly learned a lot from her!

Keith Schoch said, on 1/29/2011 6:37:00 AM

Silvana: I agree that Creative Literacy is a terrific site. It was definitely in the running! I finally decided to choose sites that were more focused on the picture book topic, all the time; I found quite a few that had a picture book focus one day of the week, for example. Thanks for mentioning this site!

Margo Dill said, on 1/29/2011 9:42:00 AM

Keith,
Thanks for mentioning my site. :) It is so refreshing to know all these people that are out here blogging about books and how to use them. Keep up the good work.

Thanks,
Margo
http://margodill.com/blog/

Jeff Barger said, on 1/29/2011 12:38:00 PM

Keith,

Thank you so much for including me! This post looks great. Second the thought for keeping up the good work.

Jeff Barger
http://ncteacherstuff.blogspot.com

Suzanne Lieurance said, on 1/29/2011 5:27:00 PM

Hi, Keith,

I'm so glad I found your site. I'm a children's book author and also the director of the National Writing for Children Center, a showcase for children's book authors and illustrators.

Every month we show parents and educators how to use picture books (and other children's books) as part of their teaching tools. Our site features articles on using picture books to teach prediction, cause and effect, main idea, and all sorts of other basic concepts.

I noticed that some of the books you mention on your site have been featured at our site as well!

Check us out some time at http://www.writingforchildrencenter.com

Thanks so much and happy reading!

Suzanne Lieurance
National Writing for Children Center

Keith Schoch said, on 1/29/2011 5:51:00 PM

Hi, Suzanne.

Thanks for sharing your site with us. I actually recall coming across it some time ago, and you've got some excellent resources there.

I'm sure there will be a follow-up to this post, and I'll definitely point folks your way.

Anonymous said, on 1/29/2011 8:20:00 PM

Another great resource for elementary school teachers and parents:

Delightful Children's Books
www.delightfulchildrensbooks.com

At Delightful Children's Books, you can search for booklists by child's age and by subject matter (e.g. art, backyard wildlife, dance, snow, other countries, friendship).

Shirley said, on 1/31/2011 5:05:00 AM

Thank you for including my SimplyScience blog here. This is a great roundup of helpful blogs and I enjoyed seeing ones I didn't yet know.

Keith Schoch said, on 1/31/2011 5:34:00 AM

My pleasure, Shirley! Wish every content area had a picture book proponent like you!

Terry Doherty said, on 1/31/2011 6:06:00 AM

Susan is only pretending to be a chicken? Drat, my bubble is burst.

Seriously, Keith ... this is a GREAT lineup. I would also add Franki Sibberson/Mary Lee Hahn's blog A Year of Reading.

Anonymous said, on 1/31/2011 7:05:00 AM

Try out aneducationinbooks.wordpress.com for must-read books for kids. About two-thirds of the posts are about picture books and there are ideas and brief teaching points on most.

Keith Schoch said, on 1/31/2011 7:34:00 AM

Thanks for sharing that link!

I checked it out and it's a pretty straightforward yes useful site with some nice picture book selections.

Keith Schoch said, on 1/31/2011 8:09:00 AM

Terry: Thanks for reminding me about A Year of Reading (readingyear.blogspot.com; I saw it a few months ago and enjoyed reading through the posts. It does give some nice reviews as well as teaching tips for selected books.

Thanks for the heads-up!

Scholastic said, on 1/31/2011 12:31:00 PM

Great post! Thank you for including us.

Add a Comment

Salariya is the UK publisher of the immensely popular Scholastic "You Wouldn't Want..." series which I discussed in a previous blog. They've put four of their more popular titles online for direct viewing, with a little bit of interactivity and related links to boot. Check out the online versions of You Wouldn't Want to be a Roman Gladiator, You Wouldn't Want to be an Egyptian Mummy, You Wouldn't Want to be a Polar Explorer, and You Wouldn't Want to Sail on a 19th Century Whaling Ship. Some of the links which appear at the end of each book are equally worth exploring.

I don't know how I mentioned Candlewick in my previous post without noting their very cool Ology World site. While this is topic of a post on this site, I'll leave it to you if you wish to sneak a peek. Your boys especially will like the interactive approach to nonfiction.