How to use this Page

*Picture book, realistic fiction for preschoolers through second graders
*Young girl as main character
*Rating: I absolutely love this sweet book In Grandma’s Arms. You can use it for so many lessons, too.

Short, short summary:

So, what do I do with this book?

1. This is a wonderful book to read to students before teaching or talking about the six plus one traits of writing, IDEAS. Where do authors get their ideas? What kind of ideas do they have? Where is the little girl getting all of these wonderful adventures she is having? Why are these potato ideas (ideas you have to dig for)? This is a perfect book to use with young writers in kindergarten and first grade when teaching a six plus one traits of writing lesson on IDEAS.

2. Children will want to share their favorite stories–books and grandparent stories. Allow children to draw pictures of their grandparents and share stories about them. Take a poll of students’ favorite fairy tales or books.

3. This is also a terrific book to talk about verbs or action words with students or your children if you homeschool. In Grandma’s Arms has several strong verbs such as: fly, float, leap, and zoom.

I would also like to draw your attention to another WONDERFUL blog that I hope you will all check out and subscribe to. It is about using picture books in the classroom; and recently, he did a huge post on Civil War picture books and using picture books in high school classrooms. You don’ t want to miss this site if you love picture books. Here’s the link: http://teachwithpicturebooks.blogspot.com/

So, this Wacky Wednesday is going to be rather short because the new-school-germs have caught ahold of me and caused one heck of a cold. So, here we go. . .

Parts of speech are a hard subject to teach and even harder for some students to understand. They can repeat back to you that a noun is a person, place or thing; and a verb is an action word. But give them a sentence such as, “The children read 100 books this summer,” and they have trouble picking out the nouns and verbs. So, it’s important to provide plenty of practice and in a fun way! Of course, this entire blog is about using real books to teach reading, writing, and language skills, so I truly believe in using books to teach parts of speech, too. You can use books like Ruth Heller’s parts of speech books to teach nouns, verbs, and adjectives. You can also use different picture books with strong language and good word choice.

A fun game you can play with students is Around the World Parts of Speech. You are probably most familiar with this game when practicing math facts. You can also play Around the World using word flash cards. Basically, it works the same way. Two students stand up, you show them a word flash card (it can just be a word or it can be a word in a sentence). The first student to say the correct part of speech wins the round and goes on to the next student. The student who did not guess first sits down. Play continues until one student makes it all the way around the classroom and back to his seat, naming the correct parts of speech.

I wanted to share the lovely interview HAMSTER HOLIDAYS received at Armchair Interviews.com.

Originally published in November, 2005 as “The Purple Cow Hula-Hooped Boisterously.”

This is a game we played in the car yesterday, all the way to town and back. I assigned each of the girls a part of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb (one girl had to take two parts in each round). From there it went something like this:

Me: Miss Noun, what is it?

Beanie: A giraffe!

Me: Miss Adjective, what kind of giraffe?

Jane: A hungry giraffe.

Me: Miss Verb, what did the hungry giraffe do?

Rose: It bounced!

Me: Miss Adverb, how did the hungry giraffe bounce?

Jane: Enthusiastically!

All together: THE HUNGRY GIRAFFE BOUNCED ENTHUSIASTICALLY!

Wonderboy: Huh?

Heidi Strawser, an E-book reviewer for the Schoolhouse Store and a Marketing Assistant for Old Schoolhouse magazine and a homeschooling mom, had this to say about DOGGIE DAY CAMP at Take Root and Write-- Reviews by, Heidi:

Doggie Day Camp: Verb and Adverb Adventures is part of a series of books that Cynthia is writing called "Pet Grammar Parade". This book not only contains a cute little story about a dog named Bubba, but it's also a very educational book. As a homeschooling mother, these are the types of books I enjoy!
At the beginning of Doggy Day Camp, Cynthia explains what verbs and adverbs are. Verbs are explained in blue and adverbs in red. Then, throughout the book, every time a verb or adverb is used, it is written in that same color, for easy recognition and identification. Kids won't even realize that they are learning, but their brain will be putting the colors together with the parts of speech, and they'll be learning in a fun way!
After the story, there is more explanation (a "study guide") on verbs and adverbs and their usage.The book also contains 6 worksheet-style activities (such as word search, fill-in-the-blank, and scrambled words). And, the best part for parents - the answer key!

To read all of the review, click here.

No! That's Wrong! by Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu.

Oh my...Kane/Miller has brought us a delightful book from China!

A pair of ruffly red underpants blows off a clothes line and lands near a little white rabbit who immediately places them on his head. "It's a hat," he says. The text at bottom corrects him, "No, that's wrong. It's not a hat." But the rabbit doesn't seem to listen and goes about placing the underpants on the heads of other animals. It takes a donkey to set him straight and let him know he's wearing underpants on his head.

But, if the donkey is right, and they really ARE underpants, where does his tail go?

Along the way, the story introduces a number of adjectives and opposites. For example, the "hat" is too small for an elephant, but too big for a fox, and it's simply amazing, magnificent, incredible...you get the drift.

I really can't think of anything that's much funnier than a bunch of animals with hilarious facial expressions wearing underpants on their heads, and children will laugh out loud at this book and its illustrations. I can just imagine them yelling, "No! That's Wrong," as they turn the pages. Even the back end papers will elicit giggles as readers see a number of animals incorrectly wearing articles of clothing and other objects on their bodies.

If you're looking for a funny book that will make your child (and you) laugh and also introduce some new vocabulary words along the way, this would make an excellent choice.

Release date: March 1, 2008 (available now!)