How to use this Page

photo by weglet www.flickr.com

*Nonfiction picture book for preschoolers through second graders (historical)
*Sisters who wrote the song “Happy Birthday to You!”
*Rating: Happy Birthday to You! is a great nonfiction picture book to share with kids about a subject near and dear to their hearts AND with wonderful illustrations!

Short, short summary:

So, what do I do with this book?

1. Either as a shared writing activity or a small group activity, ask your students to compose a new birthday song (or any other holiday song). Have fun with this. You can even use another tune that’s familiar to students and change the words. This will help students go through a similar process to what the Hill sisters did.

2. Young students love to talk, write, and draw about their birthdays. Ask students to draw or write (depending on their age) a journal entry to go with this book about their own birthday.

3. Talk with your young students about the time period when this book was written. Ask them to notice things that are similar or different to their lives. How are the people in the illustrations dressed? What are they doing? What do their homes look like? How does kindergarten look the same or different than their classroom? You can make a Venn diagram with students comparing and contrasting the past and the present.

I love the picture book, Make Way for Ducklings, written in 1941 by Robert McCloskey because he “noticed the traffic problem of the ducks” in Boston when he returned there to work. He had heard stories about them, and so he wrote and illustrated this timeless picture book.

Why should you still use this book with preschoolers, kindergarteners, and first graders? Because they will love it. First, the illustrations are priceless. My favorite is when the ducks want to cross the street, and they are all quacking at the cars. Which one is your favorite? What about your students? What do they think of Robert McCloskey’s style? What about the brown and white pictures in Make Way for Ducklings?

If you teach or live in Boston, you have to share this book with your students or your children. Do they recognize the places drawn or mentioned in the book? You can even talk about rhyming words and make up silly names with this book. Just look at the names of the ducklings–they all end in -ack. That’s pretty appropriate, don’t you think?

Have fun with Make Way for Ducklings! Show your students this Caldecott Winner, and then a Caldecott Winner from recent years. Ask them to compare and contrast the books.

The thing I love about Timeless Thursdays is that I get to revisit all these old books and realize why I still remember them.