Valentine's Day Picture Book Linky Party (& a class book freebie)

Happy Valentine's Day (in advance)!

Looking at my books Friday afternoon made me think it was time for this linky party. Please join up! I enjoy the books I have, but I know you have some fabulous ones too and it's always fun to buy new books!!

Just copy this image to your blog, share some of your favorite books, and link up below.

Perhaps my personal Valentine favorite is this book

 It's such a sweet story about caring for other people. Here is the Amazon.com description:

"One wintry day, a postman delivers a mysterious package with a big pink bow to a lonely man named Mr. Hatch.
"Somebody loves you," the note says.
"Somebody loves me!" Mr. Hatch sings as he dusts his living room. "Somebody loves me!" Mr. Hatch whistles as he does his errands in town. "But who," Mr. Hatch wonders, "could that somebody be?"
After some time, Mr. Hatch discovers just who his secret admirer is and, in doing so, enjoys the biggest surprise of his life!"

 And I can't resist Diane DeGroat's books. My students get excited when they see Gilbert!
 Here's the Amazon.com description:
"When Gilbert writes two not-so-nice valentines to his classmates, his prank quickly turns into pandemonium. But there's always time for a change of heart on Valentine's Day." I love the rhymes. It would be fun to have older students write rhymes for their valentine's.

This book is nice, short read about giving valentines. I use it to introduce Valentine's Day and the idea of passing out valentines. Years ago another teacher gave me the idea to have my little firsties address their valentines by just wrtiting who the card is from, not who it is for. That way the kids can easily walk around and drop their valentines into whatever containers we've made.

Of course there's always Splat!

 

And I just bought a craftivity from Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher that I can't wait to use!

I thought I'd share a class book idea with you too. It's fun and simple but makes a cute bulletin board until I take it down and bind it into a book.The book is called "First It Was a Heart, Then It Was a _____." You can grab this freebie by clicking on the picture.

cute background papers are from Barbara @ rubyslippersblogdesigns.blogspot.com

Here are some of the pages my students created today. 

The cover and two different pages you can use are here as a freebie. Just click on the pic and leave me a sweet comment and it's all yours! I created each page version with the heart upside down and right side up so your students could use them either way.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I look forward to reading about your favorite Valentine's Day books!

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Christmas Picture Book Faves Linky Party and Freebie too!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! It's time for the Christmas Picture Book Linky Party too! I'm so excited to share some of my favorites and find some new favorites when other people link-up. Here's how to participate: write a post about some of your favorite Christmas Picture Books, add any activities you want to share that go with those books, add the button you'll find at the end of this post and link up below. Merry Christmas!

These are some of my favorite Christmas books:

I love Eric Carle books!
Here's the summary from Amazon.com: It's December 24th, and the old farmer settles down for a winter's nap, wondering how Christmas can come when there is no snow! It is in his dream that he imagines a snowstorm coming and covering him and his animals—named One, Two, Three, Four and Five—in a snowy blanket.
But when the farmer awakens, he finds that it has really snowed outside, and now he remembers something! Putting on his red suit, he goes outside, puts some gifts under the tree for his animals, and presses a button near a Christmas tree, creating a most surprising musical treat for children everywhere.
Here's the link to Eric Carle's website: http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

David Shannon's (author of the No, David! books) illustrations have always been among my favorites.  This is a story about two men who get into a competition decorating their homes. When one of the men gets so carried away that he starts to ignore his family and the lights in the neighborhood all go out because he's using so much electricity, the neighbors destroy his display. However, the neighbors regret what they've done, and the father remembers that his family are what are really important.
Here's a freebie to go with it:

 No one in my class had ever heard of Harold and the Purple Crayon yesterday when I read this book. I remember just loving that story when I was a kid, so it's so much fun for me to read this one at Christmas time. It always makes me wish I had a magic purple crayon of my own. What would I draw??? I might just re-read this to my class and have them draw a picture with their purple crayon. Wonder what they'd come up with?

 I love, love, love David McPhail stories! Or it's his illustrations I love. Or both! I don't know. I just know you've got to read this book if you haven't already! It's about a little boy who discovers that Santa left his book (with the names of all the children and the gifts they should receive) behind. He runs outside but just misses Santa. He's a little boy who can't read so he makes a big B in the snow hoping Santa will see it and return. Santa does, and he takes the boy with him to help him deliver presents. On their way over the ocean a large waves rocks the sleigh and Santa's glasses fall into the ocean. He needs the little boy's help to read the book now. In the end, the little boy learns to read.
There are tears in my eyes just writing about this. It always makes me cry! This is one of my very favorite stories!
Here's a freebie you can grab if you want to. Your kiddos can draw a picture of what they'd like for Christmas on the bag. I'm actually going to copy a class set and just keep it on my desk for the next time one of the kids starts talking about what they want for Christmas. Someone started that conversation the other day but we had somewhere to go and I could hardly get the class to stop talking about it. So next time, I'll just whip this out and we'll spend a few minutes on the subject.

 

clip art from KPM Doodles. Cute, huh?

I'm not going to write much about this. Splat probably speaks for himself. If you want a great activity to do with this book, please pop over and visit my sweet friend Barbara at GradeONEderful. We'll talk about characters and setting, beginning, middle, and end and use her recording sheet when do.

I hope you'll link up some of your favorite Christmas books! Please copy the button below and link back this post. Thanks!

 

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Announcing.. the Thanksgiving Picture Book Linky Party

There has been such great response to the Holiday Picture Book Linky Parties! Thanks for participating. Today I'm starting one for Thanksgiving books. I wondered about it being early, but figured that it would allow time for purchasing books when you come across a "must have." These are my thoughts for other picture book link-ups: Christmas books, Patriotic Holidays(in January.), one for Valentines' Day (mid Jan.-Feb 14), Easter/Spring, and End of the Year. How does that sound to you? Too many? Should I add one for any other holiday? Let me know what you think. This has been so much fun!

Meanwhile, here are some books I use to teach about Thanksgiving:

This one is a simple, short board book. I like the simplicity of it especially for my EL students.

I like this for the beautiful photos instead of illustrations.

I read this one as a precursor to writing about what we're thankful for.

Some years my students have really identified with seeing the Little Bill cartoon on tv. All the things Little Bill is thankful for help to give my students some ideas.

These are some I enjoy reading "just for fun."

In this story Mr. Moose tries to find a turkey for Thanksgiving. The turkey he finds thinks they want to eat him for dinner, but he is actually the guest of honor.

Perhaps my favorite Thanksgiving story is

I used to check this out from my school library. I just love this sweet story about Maggie and her grandmother whose recipe for cranberry bread is famous. Maggie invites the rough-around-the-edges Mr. Whiskers to dinner. Grandma's guest attempts to steal her recipe. Grandma's recipe is in the back of the book. Sometimes after I read this story we do a cranberry taste test. I make cranberry bread, bring cranberry sauce, and raw cranberries. I have the kids taste the raw cranberry first (and I have to say that the faces they make crack me up! Some of them do like the sour taste, though.) then explain that most cranberry products have sugar added.

There's another Splat the Cat book I didn't know about. Yippee!!

If you're looking for an activity to go with this Splat book, my friend Barb at GradeONEderful has some cute papers she made for practicing story elements with the Splat stories. You can find them HERE.

I'd love it if you'd link up with some of your Thanksgiving faves! Please snag this button too.

Please link it back to this post. I'm trying to get the button with a grab box set up. I did it once but can't seem to make it work again. I've tried 2 tutorials and it's not working for me. Leave me a comment if you've found and are willing to share it with me. Thanks!

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Halloween Picture Book Linky Party! (freebies too)

It's time for the 2nd Holiday Picture Book Linky Party! This time it's Halloween. I can't believe October is almost here, can you? Very soon I'll be getting out the witch and pumpkin decorations and my husband will be decorating the yard. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite Halloween books I just love to read to my students.

I got this one when I taught second grade a few years ago and the first Houghton Mifflin story was by Dav Pilkey. The dogs in costume are so cute, and the children always laugh at the end. It also has a nice message about not teasing.

This is a definite crowd pleaser! It could be a bit too scary for some kids, but for my students it's great. It's a story of the young boy's visit to the spooky house next door. It's written by Carl Reiner (the actor, writer, director). As the story progresses, it asks "Shall we turn the page, or is it too scary?" The kids seem to take that as a challenge and always want to keep going. It also comes with a CD of Carl Reiner reading the story with just the right spooky sound effects.

I love this sweet little story of a tiny pumpkin still left at the pumpkin patch when all the others have been taken home. All the littlest pumpkin wants is to be taken home to be made into a jack-o-lantern. She's almost given up hope when she hears the sounds of mice getting ready for their Halloween party. At the end the littlest pumpkin is the star of Halloween after all.
I put together a few freebies to go with this (and other) stories. Just click on the pictures to grab them.

Just a few more favorites:

Books where the kids can participate in the reading are always fun, don't you think? Throughout the story the little old lady meets one pair of pants that go "wiggle, wiggle",  2 shoes that go "clomp,clomp", 2 gloves that go "clap, clap", and a few other item of clothing I can't recall off the top of my head. The kids so enjoy making all the sounds that go along with the story.

I look forward to reading this sweet story every year! There are several other "The Biggest ___ Ever" books that I want to get also. Amazon has a page about the author Steven Kroll that also lists all his book. You can check it out here.

If you have some favorite Halloween books you'd like to share, please link up. I couldn't seem to get a button working this time, so I hope you'll be okay with just using this image and linking it back to this post. Thanks. I'll keep working on it. I can't wait to get some new books ideas! 

*The next Holiday Picture Books Linky Party will be for Thanksgiving. I plan to start that one in mid-October.

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My First Linky Party! Back-to-School Books

One of my sweet bloggy friends recently said I was very honest in some comments I wrote. Well, it's time for some honesty again. I've wanted to host a linky party for a while, but I was afraid. Would anyone like my idea for the party? Could I do it (code, etc.)? So today I took the plunge and decided to give it a try.
My idea is a series of linky parties called "Holiday Picture Books." The first one will be "Back to School" books. I know this isn't really a holiday, but it seems so fit for me since it's such a significant time of year. Hopefully it makes sense to you too. After this Back-to-School party I was thinking of doing another one about Halloween books, then Thanksgiving books... you get the idea, right? There are so many books I enjoy reading to my first graders at these times of the year and I know you must have your favorites too so why don't we share?

border from KPM Doodles, clipart from Scrappindoodles.com

Here are some of my favorites:

Maybe it's because I raised rabbits, but I love these books! The bunnies are so cute! But more importantly there a fun way to kick off our beginning of the year review of colors, shapes, and letters. Students can also join in by naming the shapes in the pictures and the letters that come next. In the color book, the rabbit jumps in yellow then in red and students can try to guess what color the rabbit will be. My students always ask me to read these multiple times. And I'm happy to do it!

These are two more of my favorite alphabet books:

 Don't you just love the Tack the Penguin books? When I saw Helen Lester's name on this book, I had to have it! It's a hilarious story about a little pig named Pinkerton who, of course, HAS to be first. He's first on the slide, first to read the book everyone wants, and first on the school bus, shoving others out of the way. Pinkerton learns his lesson, and I'm able to have a nice discussion with my class about taking turns.

 Helen Lester again! How many times have we all heard "I didn't do it. I wasn't my fault?" I read this book in the first few days of school but am thinking I should probably keep it handy and read it several times throughout the year.

I found this in a local book store a few years ago. I wasn't sure my students would like it, but they really do. I read a section a day and the children usually ask for it as soon as we go to the rug. It's basically about how to be happy and have people want to be around you. I wish I could remember all the topics it covers, but I haven't read it in almost a year and it's at school. Honesty and Strength are the two I do remember. I like how it explains the difference between physically strong and morally strong. The stick figures are adorable! And it's by the author of The Story of Ferdinand which I also like.

If you've got some favorite books you'd like to share, please link up! Be sure to add this button and link up with the url of your blog post.

If you're looking for some new books to add to your library for the start of the year, please take a look through these linked up blogs.

<a href="http://firstgradefoundme.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-firsts-linky-party-back-to-school.html" target="_blank"><img src=http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m504/ChrissyH76/backtoschool.jpg></a>

I can't wait to find some new fabulous book ideas! This linky party will be open until September 31. If this goes well, keep an eye out for the 2nd in the series, "Halloween Picture Books," to start in September.
(Shhhh... can I tell you... I'm nervous to click "publish." I hope this works and someone links up.)

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