Where is Tippy Toes?

Where is Tippy Toes?

Author/Illustrator: Betsy Lewin

Publisher: Atheneum, 2010

Children's Fiction Picture Book (32 pages)

Readability Lexile: 4-8

Summary: This children's book is about a small orange cat who goes on an adventure and our curiosity with what our pets at home do while we are away.  This is a great book for ages 4-8 or Pre-K and K.

Evaluation:  This is a fiction book for early childhood education.  It is considered high quality literature because it contains prepositions which will help to reinforce language skills in preschool.  It also has an interesting plot that is not simple but not entirely complex.  It is somewhere in the middle.  It is also a picture book that would allow for children to talk about what they did yesterday and open discussion about pets and family and to engage them in a conversation about what they believe their pets do all day.  It has great illustrations and would be a wonderful starting point for using descriptive language.

Literary Elements:
Rhyming- "Where does Tippy Toes go?  In the soft grass so low."
Foreshadowing- the illustrations allow for predictions and some foreshadowing such as in the middle of the book when there are scaffolded pages where you can only see a tip of Tippy Toes tail.
Personification- Tippy Toes is doing places people would go around the house and outside and also has the facial expressions of a person in the illustrations.


Illustrations:  The words on the pages directly relate to the pictures in the book and showcase the main character of Tippy Toes (or a small piece of the cat) in every page and highlight her main action in the text.

Lesson: As mentioned before this would be very early elementary or even pre-primary.  I would use this to help teach rhyming words by making a word bank of the words that rhyme in the book and putting them up on the board or giving them to students to help hold up or pair together to reinforce the idea of rhyming.

Tuesday

Tuesday

Author/Illustrator: David Weisner

Publisher: Sandpiper, 1997

Children's Picture Book (32 pages)

Readability Lexile: Ages 4-8

Summary: This book takes place on a "Tuesday," and some very interesting events take place from the time of Tuesday Evening (around eight) to the following morning.  The pictures are fanatastic and depict a story of frogs flying around on lilly pads.  It then gives a hint on the last page of pigs taking a similar adventure the following Tuesday night at 7:58pm.  I believe the younger elementary and pre-school ages would love this book and it would be a great tool in teaching predicting and storytelling.

Evaluation: In my opinion this is a great story.  It is not something that would happen in real every day life but it plays on students already amazing imaginations and would help, as mentioned above, in teaching how to tell a story with a clear beginning, middle and end.  It even previews to the next possible story.  The groups of frogs were displayed mainly as a group and even as one strayed to get chased by a dog the group of frogs came and on the next page it showed the opposite; all the frogs chasing the dog.  Although it is not a factual book this is an amazing fiction book with beautiful illustrations.

Literary Elements:
Personification- the frogs appeared human in their facial expressions and reactions to certain events
Foreshadowing- there was some foreshadowing such as the frog who was getting chased by the dog and then the group of frogs came to chase the dog but it also had an element of surprise
"Watercolors (of the illustrations) allow the artist to create illustrations that appear to vary from transparent to heavy" (Through the Eyes of a Child, Chapter 4: Understanding Artists and Their Illustrations, pg 139)

*This story was mainly intended to have the reader tell a story and not so much to teach about appropriate text or morale values.

Lesson: I would use this story if trying to teach early elementary students how to make appopriate sentences for pictures or the other way around.  I would have them write one sentence for one page out of the book that they most enjoyed that they believed would be appropriate for the illustrations.  I would also have them create an illustration of what they believe would be a good last page for the book or a good first page for the next book in this series.

Math Curse

Math Curse

Author: John Scieszka                 

Illustrator: Lane Smith

Publisher: Penguin, 1995

Readability Lexile: 4-8 (Amazon's opinion- I would use it up to 5th Grade)

Children's Picture Book

Summary:  This enticing tale takes you on an adventure of math in everyday life.  A student is told by their teacher that math is everywhere and by the time they get home there are equations all around.  From simple algebra to probability this enlightening book goes through the day of a student consumed by the thought of math.  They look at the simple task of getting ready as a math problem in algebra of how to calculate the appropriate time spent doing all the tasks they need to get done before going to the bus in relation to when the bus will arrive.  By the end of the book even in the students sleep they are dreaming in numbers and finally receive some reprieve by "putting everything into a fraction."  This hilarious story then ends with another large statement by the teacher of, "Everything can be seen as a science experiment."  In my opinion students up to 5th Grade would enjoy this book.

Evaluation:  This is a great book and provides students with the opportunity to read and discuss concepts and bringing in a story on math and math problems would be a great way to group reading and math together.  It is an easy to read book with amazing illustrations and concept questions they can tie into their math class.  It is a time book as well and goes through one full day and is a good example for students who are starting to write their own stories.

*While I understand we as educators are not supposed to "hate" any particular subject, if I had to pick one that I strongly dislike it would be math.  I loved how the confusion set in after one simple statement by an authority figure which changed the students perspective in an instant.  I believe it is important to realize that our students can run with any idea that we may not even remember saying and to speak carefully in the classroom.  I also enjoyed that this student did not have a gender.  I found I immediately labeled the student as a him but there was no specific gender to the character.  I also like that it shows off how imaginative and smart our students are and how functional this subject of math is.  The functionality and above comments made it high quality literature in my opinion.

*I found a great sight with a lesson plan for Fifth Grade math:
http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=1711

Duck on a Bike

Duck on a Bike

Author & Illustrator: David Shannon
Publisher: Blue Sky Press, 2002

Summary:  This humorous story takes place on a farm and includes all the main animal families.  The duck takes on a task of learning to ride a bike all by himself and shows off to all of his friends.  The cat thinks its unnecessary for a duck to ride a bike, the cow thinks the duck is being silly and the rest of the animal families generate their own thoughts on this goofy picture of a duck riding a bike.  After the idea of animals riding a bike has been introduced and a group of kids leave their bikes outside after whizzing by duck, all the animals are able to enjoy a ride on their own bike.

*After reading this fun story I couldn't help but picture myself in a classroom and having the students help with all of the fun animal sounds.  This story would open up such a fun discussion about if the students ride bikes, if they could ever teach one of their animal friends to ride or if they believe this is a fiction book.  I would use this in the younger grades being K-1.  It helps to teach dialogue and introduce the idea of color and fun with the beautiful illustrations.  David Shannon continues the silliness and even keeps his animals themes throughout most if his books with the duck being the troublemaker.  My favorite part was at the very end where you see duck eying a tractor on the last page!

Testing Miss Malarkey

Testing Miss Malarkey

Author: Judy Finchler                                              Illustrator: Kevin O'Malley

Publisher: Walker Publishing Company, Inc.            Date of Publication: 2000

Summary:

This story is told from a child's perspective of the craziness and havoc that come with standardized testing in schools.  The young boy is in Miss Malarkey's class and notices the "grown-ups" in his life are acting quite strange.  THE TEST is coming and not only is his classroom teacher looking a little ragged but his mom is packing protein bars in his lunch, the lunch lady is serving a ridiculous amount of fish and his principle is literally about to lose the hair off his head.  In the end, the normalcy of the students life returns while the teachers celebrate the results of THE TEST.

*I truly enjoyed this book! With all of the testing that is happening this spring you can see the tenseness come into our classrooms with all of us older folks trying to get the students prepared.  This is a fun, light way to discuss this daunting TEST in the classroom.  The most relate-able sections of this book were all of the descriptions of what THE TEST does to the adults in this students life.  His teacher isn't getting enough sleep and is trying to incorporate test materials any way she can into her class while constantly reminding the students this test isn't graded but still to do their best.  The gym teacher is trying to get the students to relax and learn some yoga techniques to "release the mind" and the lunch lady believes everyone needs a truckload of fish to do well with the testing.  This story plays on what we generally define as the main roles in the schools we grew up in: teacher, student, parent, lunch lady, janitor, principal, etc.  I also found a fun, short lesson plan that may relieve some of the craziness associated with all of these big TESTS that have little to no meaning to the students and are truly more of an assessment for the district and school.

Link to lesson plan for Testing Miss Malarkey:
http://www.spokenartsmedia.com/StudyGuides/Testing%20Miss%20Malarkey.pdf