Weekly Book Talk Tueday

July is the month of monsoons in India and everybody is waiting eagerly for the rain gods to bestow some rain and cool off the 113 degrees heat that we bear every year . So while we wait for the rains, I love taking out the book "Rain"by Manya Stojic to read to my sweet peas. And it goes perfectly with the five senses theme which we do during this time.

The book is based in the parched African Savanna and talks about the beauty and necessity of rain for the animals.

The animals use their five senses to see the lightning, smell the rain, feel the drops of water, hear the thunder and taste the water.

The illustrations are bright and the wordings are simple. The book is always a hit with the kids and they make an immediate connection with the story.

I often follow it up by making a rain stick.

You can get step by step instructions on how to make a rain stick from pinning with purpose.

As i said earlier, the book works perfectly with the five senses theme and you can use it to talk about animal senses. I made a freebie for five senses which you can download from here:

Five Senses Freebie

It is a great book to read. Rain or no rain !

Weekly Book Talk Tuesday

The book that I am going to talk about  this week is called "That's what Friends Are For " By Florence Parry Heide. It's a delightful book about friendship and teaches children that lending a helping hand to their friends is always a good idea.

The book has lovely illustrations and repetitive text which is great for building reading skills in little kindergartners. I personally love books with repetitive text as it allows children to anticipate words and helps beginning readers to decode difficult words. Such books also gives children an opportunity to participate in read aloud sessions and kids love that.

So if you are doing a unit on friendship, this book is a must. The book revolves around an Elephant who gets hurt and is feeling sad because he can't go and meet his cousin who lives at the other end of the forest. His friends give him all sorts of advice which he really can't use until an Opossum talks some sense into the heads of other animals and asks them to actually help the Elephant instead of just giving advice.

I made some story sequencing cards to go along with this book which you can download by clicking on the link below:

Story Sequencing Cards

The link up is with Mrs Jumps.

Weekly Book Talk

OK , so its weekly book sharing time  and i am linking up with Deanna Jump.

This week i am sharing a really wonderful book for children by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

Its called Yes Day !

This book will bring out sparks of imagination in children and will lead them into a journey of fantasies and dreams.

I can assure you that if you read this book to the kids they would jump up and down for the idea of being said yes for everything and would beg you to read the book again and again.

I picked up this book when i was introducing letter y to the kids and wanted to do something different from the usual letter craft .So i read the book and asked them to imagine what would they ask for if they ever had a yes day. I was completely fascinated by the cute and varied answers. One cutie pie said she would love to stay with me for the whole day and do fun stuff. Though i didn't really agree with her entire list of fun things ! :)

I gave them a sheet to draw and express themselves. 

You can download it for free from here:  Its Yes Day !

It would be more fun if one could actually plan a 'Yes Day' for the kids. You could draw up a list with them and see what all could be done. Kids will sure have a blast !

ENJOY !

The book is available at Amazon

Book Talk Tuesday

I am linking up again with Deanna Jump for Book Talk Tuesday.

Mrs Jumps Class

This week i would like to talk about the book "How Children Succeed" by Paul Tough.

"How children succeed" is a book I am recommending to all for the sole reason that it reiterates my belief that as educators we are not only responsible for developing children's cognitive skills but also their non cognitive skills. Character development may not be a subject which we would teach as per the prescribed syllabus but it does form an integral part of a child's success. We all believe that IQ is crucial to success but Paul Tough, the author of the book explains that it is the non cognitive skills / personality traits/ executive functions that are critical for a child's success. I was amazed to find out that even a game like chess which is correlated with intelligence requires non cognitive skills to succeed at it. 

Executive functions ( the higher order mental abilities) is the new educational catch phrase and my curiosity of how it can be implemented in our classrooms was definitely piqued after reading the book.

 I wanted to find out practical ways of how to develop them in my students. I found some great ideas but i am leaving a link to Dr Jean's website where she shares handy tips to enhance the executive function in children.

Hope you find it useful. The book is available at AMAZON

Book of the week

I am linking up with Deanna Jump to share one of my favorite books.

It is a book i fell instantly in love with and so did my kids. It had me in fits of laughter and my kids were completely enraptured by the book. It is a fun book with really no message in it. But the kids wanted to hear it over and over so i am assuming it was a hit with the little ones.

The book tells the story of a slug who is shunned by all the snails because he doesn't have a shell. He really wants to fit in, so he starts his search for a shell. And when he finds his perfect shell, his story takes a twist.

My kiddos were rolling on the floor laughing hysterically by the time we got to the end of the book.

If you want to brighten up your day or catch children's attention this is a perfect book to read. Of course you could use this book to talk about the difference between a snail and a slug.

I created this freebie to go with the book. You will witness some interesting sparks of creativity with this activity. :)

Please click on the link Norman-the-slug-with-the-silly-shell to go to my TPT store and download this document for free.

The book is available on amazon
Norman the slug with the silly shell


A big Shout out for Deanna Jump to organize this linky. If you are interested to share your favorite book, hop on to her blog.