Book Talk 5: El loro Tico Tango

El loro Tico Tango

Author : Anna Witte

Reading Level: Ages 3 and up

Language: Spanish

El loro Tico Tango is such a fun book for kids, and even for adults! The storyline is awesome. The book is very rhythmic and repetitive but it is entertaining at the same time. It also has a good moral to it. The illustrations are filled with colors that make them come alive.

Tico Tango is this naughty little parrot who always wants what others have. He goes around the rainforest stealing others delicious fruit, until one day he has stolen more fruit than he can carry. He learns that being greedy is not a good thing. All of his animal friends forgive him and Tico Tango ends up dancing a Tango! :)

I really like this book because it is actually written in Spanish, it is not translated. I like that because with some books that are translated in Spanish they sometimes don’t do a very good job at it and much of the story is lost.

I think that this book could definitely be used with the younger kids in teaching vocabulary words in Spanish and in English. Vocabulary words that could be thought would be the colors of the fruits, the names of the fruits and the animals that are in the story. We could also learn about the rainforest.

I think a really cool activity that we could do that involved using this book would be to ask everyone to bring their own favorite fruit. Then we could go around the class and tell everyone what it is. I bet some kids would bring fruits that other kids didn’t even know existed, which would be a cool learning experience because we could talk about those fruits. Also we could have a discussion about where all these fruits grow (trees or on the ground) and in what types of climate. At the end we can all share and eat the fruit :)

 

Book Talk 4: Sleepy- O!

Sleepy- O!

Author: Harriet Zieffert

Illustrated by Laura Rader

“What’ll we do with this baby-o, if she won’t go to sleepy-o? Rock her soft, rock her hard; Rock her into the chicken yard!”

This children’s book was made from a popular Appalachian folksong, to get babies to fall asleep while their parents would go square dancing.

In this book the baby-o will not fall asleep no matter what they do to her. They try singing, dancing, changing her diaper, rocking her, and they even try taking her to her grandparents house. But nothing will work. Until her sister finally finds the solution. She realizes that all along the baby just needed a nice quite space for her to fall asleep.

I really enjoyed this book because I can relate to it. Pretty soon I will be having a crying baby of my own :) and will be faced with the problem of what to do to when she is crying and also putting her to sleep. This book shows cute ways of doing that and I just really enjoyed reading it.

One of the ways I could use this book in the classroom would be to sing along to it. Also this book has pretty easy vocabulary and is very repetitive so the kids would learn new words fast. One of my table members also mentioned that maybe we could play this song right before the kids take a nap. It can be used in many ways.

Book 3: Have You Ever Seen A Jackalope?

Author, Illustrator: Jillian Lund

Ages: 4-8

Have You Ever Seen A Jackalope is a fantastic kids book! It’s about a kangaroo rat named Cody who one morning meets a very strange animal he had never ever seen before. The strange animal asks Cody, “Have you ever seen a Jackalope?” “Nope,” replies Cody. Then the stranger tells Cody that the Jackalope is, “smart and good-lookin, too. I guess I’d say it’s about the most wonderful beastie you could ever behold.” Cody then is very interested in learning more about it and even finding one, so Cody goes out on a mission and ask’s all of his dessert friends if they have ever seen a Jackalope. None of his friends have ever seen one either but they tell Cody what they have heard about them. Each of the friends describes the Jackoalope differently. Cody comes to the conclusion that maybe Jackalopes are made up and that he will never see one. What Cody didn’t realize was that the stranger was a Jackalope, and that they do really exist!

I think this book would be a really good book to use in teaching young children to not always believe what you hear. The dessert animals told Cody things that were not true and he believed all of it, so he never got the chance to realize that he had in reality met a Jackalope. You could also use the book to talk about the dessert and what its like. Also about the different animals, plants and flowers you would find in a dessert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R95DxZ3UXRc

This link is a youtube video just as an example of some of the videos you could show the students when learning about the dessert. (animals, plants and flowers)

Book 2: The Shark Who Was Afraid of Everything!

                      The Shark Who Was Afraid of Eveything!

   

By: Brian James                                                         Illustrated by Bruce McNally    
                                                

Interest Level Grades K - 2                                       Genre: Comedy and Humor

Subject: Fish and Marine Life, Confronting and Resolving Fears, Friends and Friendship

 

 The Shark Who Was Afraid of Everything! Is a very cute children’s book. It would be a good book to read aloud to a large group of children or even just alone right before bed time.

The Shark Who Was Afraid of Everything! Is a story about Sharkie the shark who was literally afraid of everything that surrounded him. He was afraid of whales, ships, seals, electric eels, the dark, etc. His brothers and sisters would always tease him about him being scared, “What good is a shark who’s always scared?” they would say. So Sharkie decided to run away. Lily the fish saw that Sharkie was leaving so she followed him. They played and played for hours, until they realized they were lost. Lily was really scared and Sharkie had to be the leader and comfort Lily. Sharkie finally lead them home and they were safe!!!

This book is a really good book because everyone is afraid of something and this book talks about confronting and resolving those fears. It also talks about friends and friendship which is something kids should talk about since they are developing friendships at such a young age.

In the classroom this would be a fantastic book to read when you’re talking about the ocean, sharks, helping others, overcoming your fears, and even when talking about the “Sh” letter combination because this book has a lot of that.

One activity that you can do in class after reading this book is that you can have a discussion with the kids about being afraid of things. You could ask the kids what they are afraid of and what they personally do when they are feeling afraid. You could also have an art project and have them paint with water colors things that they are afraid of, since the illustrations in the book are really nice and colorful. After they are done painting they can go around and share what their afraid of.