Book Talk 8: Count on Culebra

    Count on Culebra

      By Ann Whitford Paul

         Illustrated by Ethan Long 

This book is a really silly and entertaining tale both in Spanish and English that teaches children to count from 1 to 10 in Spanish. 

One day Iguana is ready to make some dulces (candies) but instead she is in too much pain because she just stubbed her toe. Doctor Culebra comes to the rescue and makes really crazy suggestions on how to heal the Iguana. For example he suggests tying cups, and spoons, and rolling pins on the Iguana's tail. At the end all of this silliness,  Doctor Culebra’s suggestions seemed to have worked because the Iguana is distracted with everything that is happening, that she doesn’t feel the pain. The Iguana finally makes dulces for everyone, and everyone is happy. 

I would use this book in my classroom to do a lesson on bilingual counting and also vocabulary skills. I also found this website online that has suggestions for classroom activities for this book in every subject.

http://www.annwhitfordpaul.net/TeachersGuides/teacher%20Count%20on%20Culebra.pdf

One thing that I really didn’t like about this book is that the English and Spanish words are mixed together, so I can imagine that a kid reading this book would get confused on what words to pronounce in Spanish and in English.

Book Talk 7: The Little Red Fish

The Little Red Fish

By: Tae- Eun Yoo

                                            

The Little Red Fish is the story of a little boy named Jeje who goes to the library where his grandfather works at. Jeje takes his little red fish to the library with him, and while they are waiting for his grandfather to close the library down Jeje falls asleep. When Jeje wakes up his little red fish is nowhere to be found. Jeje goes on this whimsical and mysterious search for his little red fish, until he finally catches him. 

The illustrations in this book are amazing. The pages in this book are all sepia toned which works really well for the story because it allows the red fish to stand out. Towards the end of the book their are some pages with no dialog on them. I think this is a good idea because it gives the little ones the opportunity to let their imaginations run wild and make their own story line. 

Even though this book has a very simple story line it allows the children’s imagination to go beyond what their used to. 

One of the ways I would use this book in my classroom is that I would cover all the words from the original book and have my students write their own story line by just looking at the pictures.  

Book Talk 6: The Twin's Blanket

     The Twin’s Blanket

                                Author and Illustrator: Hyewon Yum                       

As I was looking for a book to read for my book talk, I came across this book. It caught my attention because it has two little girls in the cover that look alike. It also has the word TWIN’s in the title. Being a twin myself I wanted to read it to see what it was about.

This book is about these little girls that are twins. Since the day they were born they have shared everything! They shared their toys, their room, their blanket and even their mom’s belly. But now that they are getting older they each need their own things. So the book takes us through their journey of how they each become a little more independent.

Reading this book brought back so many memories from when my sister and I use to be little. I think anybody who has siblings can relate to this book, not just if you’re a twin.

I would use this book for younger kids to talk about the relationships between siblings. I would have each kid write what kind of relationship they have with each of their siblings. Another good idea would be to read this book on National Siblings day and maybe have the students make little cards or presents that they can take to their brothers and sisters.

  Had to share a picture of my twin sister :)