Favorite Children's Author: David Shannon

This may be my favorite post EVER. I had such a hard time choosing a favorite author. I LOVE so many authors. I went back and forth over who I wanted to write about. Then, I thought about my kids. Year after year after year. Who do we end up loving together?

DAVID SHANNON. Hands down. His books are hilarious. His illustrations are just drool worthy. There hasn't been a David Shannon book that I haven't liked... take that back.

Bugs in my Hair makes me feel all itchy.

Some of my favorites is A Bad Case of Stripes, Too Many Toys and How I Became a Pirate (he's the illustrator for this one).

I've dressed up like Camilla Cream twice for book character day. Here's one of my favorite pictures from last year.

I love how his characters get you invested in the actual character. With Camilla, I want to know more about her. I like her. I feel sorry for her. I want to help her. When I read the story, I try to make my students feels some type of emotion for her. It's so easy to like her. However, I can see why some kids may not like her.

I love when books get used SO much that it's time to purchase a new one. We LOVE No, David! It's a class favorite ever single year. It's so worn and I get to tell my kids why it's so worn. Everyone loves reading it, laughing at the pictures, and revisiting it throughout the year.

Here's a few freebies for you if you have any of these books in your classroom! If not, borrow one from the library and fall in love with David Shannon's great stories and amazing illustrations!

In celebration of having our collab blog for SIX MONTHS, we're giving away TWO personalized pencil signs from the wonderful Tallahassee Sunday!

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Favorite Children's Author {Laura Numeroff from The Sunny Side of Second Grade}

Hey y'all. Welcome back to our lovely blog for another post in our series of our favorite authors! This is Amber from The Sunny Side of Second Grade, and today I want to tell you all about my favorite author, Laura Numeroff.

Everyone has heard of her. She is most famous for her series of books "If you give a _____ a _____". I must admit that I own them all and I dedicate at least a week each year to study her books. My main focus with Laura Numeroff has been cause and effect, especially when I am teaching expository writing.

We begin by making comic strips using sentence strips. This small project really helps students visualize how one thing truly can lead to another. {Sorry for the poor picture} This is our opening activity for our expository writing on cause and effect. From here, we read a Laura Numeroff book each day and compare and contrast the story. You really do get an awesome bang for your buck with her stories.

When completing the read-aloud with my students, I always make sure we touch on problem and solution. I usually display a graphic organizer like this on the SMART board for us to complete whole group. You could also reinforce this concept in small groups. Orrrrr....if you were around for my last post, screen shot this baby and put it into GoFormative for the students to complete online.

{Click on the picture to be taken to this Pinterest find!}

Your possibilities really are endless with Laura Numeroff books. A quick scour of Pinterest will show you a plethora of lessons and activities to accompany her adorable books.

Favorite Children's Author: Doreen Cronin

Hey hey all! It's Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd! I'm excited to be blogging today about one of my most FAVORITE authors that has a few of my most FAVORITE read alouds -Doreen Cronin !! 

Don't you all just LOVE Click, Clack, Moo?!?  I LOVE it.    I love that read aloud (and her others) SO so very much and LOVE to use to teach about the parts of a friendly letter!!

I engage the kiddos at the very beginning of the lesson by reading the read aloud, Click Clack Moo, AND by telling them that by the end of today's lesson that they will have a mission.  They will be able to tell me what part(s) of the friendly letter the cows were missing!

They LOVE being on a MISSION throughout the lesson! I come back around at the end of the lesson to have them correct the cows' letter! They LOVE being able to tell me what they need to fix!

Throughout this lesson using my Doreen Cronin read alouds, I model and practice with other friendly letters! I also have the kiddos label a friendly letter as guided practice before completing their MISSION prior to the end of the lesson!

We used the labels above to label a similar letter (not shown) that didn't already have the 5 parts labeled! **I printed the friendly letters using the POSTER size on my printer which made it PERFECT for teaching!  See how big it is?! LOVE.  Hello anchor chart!

Check out those friendly letter labels a little closer below!

ANY time I'm able to tie in a read aloud - especially a Doreen Cronin one - my lessons just seems to CLICK so much better than days that I don't use literature to connect to my objective!   And in this lesson, my kiddos were able to NAIL their mission! They even found the missing commas in the greeting and closing!! WOOT WOOT!   

Would you like to try a few pieces and parts of this lesson out above?!?!?

Wellllll I have a FREEBIE for you!! Click the image below to snag the friendly letters, the lesson intro, and the friendly letter labels that I've shown in this post! Your kiddos will LOVE it!

ANNNND.... Did you know?!? EE is celebrating our SIX MONTH BLOGIVERSARY?!? We would LOVE to celebrate with you by having you enter our giveaway below to win a TALLAHASSEE SUNDAY PENCIL!!

We are giving away a pencil  to TWO lucky winners!!

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Favorite Children's Author - Sharon Creech

Hey y'all! It's Kim here from For a Love of Teaching, and I'm excited to share with you one of my favorite children's book authors - Sharon Creech. It's so hard for me to pick just one, because I have so many! However, Sharon Creech is definitely at the top of my list. She has written so many great books! Bloomability, Ruby Holler, and Walk Two Moons are a few of my favorites, and I always recommend these to my 4th graders. 

I chose Sharon Creech as my favorite children's book author for two reasons.

#1.  Each year I read two of her novels with my 4th graders, and we also complete an author's study. It's one of my favorite units I teach!

#2. April is National Poetry Month, and the two books I'm going to share with you are two of her poetry books! 

I don't "love" poetry - never really have. However, I love how Sharon Creech writes poetry and introduces students to poetry in these two books. My all time favorite books by Sharon Creech are Love That Dog and Hate That Cat. These books are written in free verse poetry told from the point of view of Jack, a boy who learns to love poetry with a little help from his teacher, a famous writer (Walter Dean Myers), a pencil, some yellow paper, and of course a dog and a cat.

In North Carolina, we follow the Common Core State Standards, so "digging deeper" into texts is something we've become accustomed to. While teaching this unit I spend a lot of time on figurative language, vocabulary, and reader's response questions that require students to read and reread to find the answers. These books can be read in one sitting, but we end up spending almost a month on both books! 

One thing I've noticed over the years is that these books are unlike any book most students have read. When I first read Love That Dog with my 4th graders, I was surprised at how many didn't "get" the book. It really doesn't take long to read either of these books, so re-reading the sections or certain pages didn't take up a lot of extra class time. I found that the more my students read these books, the better they understood them, and it became easier for them to relate to the main character - Jack.

One thing is for sure, students end up loving these books! Sharon Creech has a special way of drawing her readers in. Love That Dog is the first book in a two part series, so they couldn't wait to read Hate That Cat! 

Because I love teaching these two books so much, I created reader's response journals for both. You can grab them by clicking the images below. 

It's our 6 month anniversary here at The Elementary Entourage! ~ Whoop! Whoop! ~ We're celebrating by giving away one amazing prize - a Tallahassee Sunday pencil! All you have to do to enter the giveaway is follow us, because we don't want you to miss a thing! We look forward to the next 6 months here at The Elementary Entourage!!! 

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Favorite Children's Author: Tomie dePaola

I absolutely love Author Studies!  I love seeing how excited my students get when they find an author that they love.  One of my all time favorite authors and my kids' favorite too is Tomie dePaola.  Actually, when I was in school my favorite book was Little Grunt and the Big Egg!  I loved reading it to my second graders earlier this year!

Right now, I'm reading aloud 26 Fairmount Avenue to my students.  I absolutely LOVE it because it's a great mentor text for personal narratives.  The kids love it because they recognize the characters from Tomie dePaola's books.  Their favorite was reading about Nana Upstairs and the chocolate candy that they eat from the medicine cabinet.  I'll let you read to find out about that part....let's just say it causes a big mess!!

There is actually a whole series of 26 Fairmount Avenue books.  I have only read the first one, the one above, but it's on my summer to do list to read more.  I know my second graders will be excited to read them as well!

While we are reading a chapter book, I usually write Exit Tickets on sticky notes and stick them through out the book.  Here is the Exit Ticket that we used today.  Don't get me wrong....I do love cute Exit Ticket slips from time to time but nothing beats a quick Exit Ticket prompt where the students write a response in their reading journal.  Quick and prep free!  Who doesn't love that?!?!

Earlier this year, our first author study was over Tomie dePaola.  My students FLIPPED over these flap journals and I'm super excited because I was finally able to finish them and add them to my store.  They are great to have your students use to respond after a read aloud.  Click on the picture below to check them out.

I'm so glad you stuck around to hear about my favorite author.  I'm also excited because we are celebrating our 6 month blog-anniversay.  I LOVE these ladies with all my heart and I've learned so much from all of them!  I hope you guys enjoy reading our posts as much as I do!!

Make sure you enter below to win!  Good luck friends!

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Favorite Children's Author: Mary Pope Osborne

This blog post is super special to me because not only are we sharing our favorite children's authors, but we are also celebrating our 6 month anniversary as a collaborative blog! Time flies when you're having fun, right?!

There are so many great children's authors out there, but the one that I love most of all is Mary Pope Osborne. She is the author of my favorite series called, Magic Tree House. I teach second grade and these chapter books engage my students while taking us on imaginary trips all across the globe! Even I get into them!

I start the year off by reading book #1 Dinosaurs Before Dark in a whole group setting. We read a little each day together so the class is introduced to the series and how Jack and Annie travel together through opening a book in the magic tree house... but I won't give too much away!

I store several copies of each book in case I would like to use them for small reading groups or students want to follow along as I am reading in whole group. My dream would be to have 24 copies of each title!

I love this series so much that I made comprehension guides for two of the stories. I am currently working on more!

These comprehension guides help my students talk about each chapter by recalling facts from the story, making predictions, and even connections to their own lives. I can't wait to sit down this summer with some more of the books to make more guides!

Thank you for stopping by to read about my favorite author! With this month being our 6 month anniversary, we are having a giveaway for a Tallahassee Sunday Pencil! All you have to do is enter the giveaway by following us so we can stay connected! I know we all look forward to seeing where the next 6 months takes us and want to share every bit of it with you! Good luck!!
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Favorite Children's Author: Todd Parr

I am super excited about our next topic here at the Elementary Entourage! We are sharing our favorite children's authors, books and a few activities with you. But wait there's more! We've officially been blogging here for 6 months strong and it's almost Teacher Appreciation Week. We sure do appreciate all of our beautiful followers so we wanted to show you some love with a little giveaway.  Stick around until the end of this post for more info :)

So now that I am home with Madelynn, my entire classroom library lives in our basement. I have a serious problem people! I can't even believe I am posting this picture, but look...EEK!

36 freaking baskets...I don't even know how many books that is, one day I want to count but I am a little afraid to know how many books I truly do have. Now that doesn't include the books that are on the shelf in Madelynn's room, playroom, diaper bag, car, my purse, the garage, I think you get the picture.  I have an obsession with buying books. I just can't help myself, I need an intervention! And one of the authors I have a serious weakness for is Todd Parr. I mean how can you resist the beautifully colorful covers and illustrations? They are just so gosh darn cheerful, they will put the grumpiest of readers in a good mood.

I do not think you want me to list my entire collection here or it may be summer break before you're done. So if you LOVE his books too, Check out his awesome website here.

These are just a few of my personal favorite books to get you started:

Reading Makes You Feel Good - Great at the beginning of the year or any time your little readers need a boost of motivation to get them devouring great books.

It's Okay to Be Different - This is another great beginning of the year book.  I love using it as a part of getting to know you activities. It has just the right amount of humor to break up what can be a serious topic for students about fitting in.

The Underwear Book - Because no matter who your students are, they always think underwear is hilarious! Seriously, sometimes I just need a good laugh with my class, and I am not afraid to use underwear to engage my kiddos. This book will have them giggling until they hopefully don't pee their pants :) (PS if you love this one, check out Animals in Underwear ABC!)

The Thankful Book - This book is great around Thanksgiving, or really anytime you want to talk about being more thankful with your students.I really love that it starts out with "Everyday I try to think about the things I am thankful for." What a great quality to have! And it includes lots of unusual things that don't immediately come to mind with the reasons why the child is thankful for them. Like "I am thankful for my ears because they let me hear words like,  I Love You."

The Earth Book - I had to include this one in case you are looking for books for next week.  It includes simple and important ways we can work together to be kind to our Earth.

And here are 2 free activities just in time for Earth Day from my Earth Day Read and Respond Pack for The Earth Book. The file will only be FREE until Earth Day (April 22nd) so grab it quick by clicking on the google drive link here!

Alright, thanks so much for sticking around for the giveaway! Here it is, we are giving away 2 of these super adorable personalized teacher pencil signs to brighten up your classroom decor :)

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