Let's Talk About Books and a few Freebies!

I love books. I love all KINDS of books so that's why I am so excited about Deanna Jump's weekly linky party because every week I get to share different books with you.

This week I wanted to share my favorite books for the beginning of the year. I like to do an author study on Kevin Henkes. Every year my students fall in love with the characters and stories from this amazing author. 

His books have a lot of characteristics that children adore. They have a clear author's message, cute characters, and repetition. I feel like these books are ideal for grades K-2. 

I always start out with his older books and the very first book I read is Wemberly Worried. I read this text over and over all week, but we focus on a different skill every day. 

Students learn there's nothing to worry about at school and they will meet and make new friends. 

There are tons of activities to do with these books (they're all over TPT and the internet), but I like that for the beginning of the year a successful task for students is for them to share how they feel on the first day (or week) of school. They can practice writing text to self connections. This also gives me a chance to see their early writing skills. I like to combine this activity with a craft. I take photos of my students with worried faces and they write about why they were worried. Then I snap photos of them with relieved faces and they write about what how they became relieved. It makes a really cute display for the first weeks of school and open house. 

I don't have very many things in my TPT store just yet. . .but I do have a Story Maps and and Text Connection freebies that y'all are more than welcome to download. More is coming soon so leave kind feedback and follow me! Hopefully, this gives you ideas on how to build your mini-lessons and how to find good mentor texts. If you haven't read any of Kevin Henkes books you are missing out! 

Let's Talk about Books!

I'm linking up with you lovely Deanna Jump 

to share a book I found this past 13-14 school year. 

I purchased this book earlier this year because the cover art 

caught my eye in the bookstore. 

As a first grade teacher teaching "How to" {procedural} writing is a must. 

Finding good mentor texts for read-alouds is necessary. 

When I read the story I fell in L-O-V-E! 

Rocket is lured into learning to read and this sweet little bird becomes his teacher. Rocket learns to read after a few steps. My first graders loved all the connections we made to this story. They recalled when they were learning letters and sounds. They remembered that they had to practice to get better at it. They noticed the seasons passed in this story and connected it to our school year. They realized as the seasons pass they become smarter in all that they practice at school. They fell in love with Rocket and were so happy that he learned how to read. 

I loved this text because it has substance. It's not just a cute book. I used it to teach both reading and writing. My students responses were amazing! They could write a story map, sequence, inference, summarize, and the list goes on! When we set out to write our own "how to's" they could go back to the story and recall details to help them put their ideas in a sequential order. I really loved this book and hope you will check it out.