Summary: This fun to follow tale follows a family's excitement as they wade through the grass, splash through the river, and squelch through the mud all in hopes of finding a bear. What will happen when they finally encounter a bear. Read this book to find out...
Pre-Reading Activity: Show the children the cover of the book. Ask them to make predictions as to what this story is about. Also ask them why they think someone would want to go on a bear hunt.
Post-Reading Activity: I found this activity while looking online and I just fell in love with it. We're going on a monster hunt. Or you could easily turn it into a scavenger hunt. Have the children read and search for clues throughout the classroom and/or school.
Reflection: I love, love, love this book. We would always use this book and the song to go along with it as an activity to explore the classroom. We would do a dance with it and had hand motions for every page. The children love the repetition and love to follow and read along :) You can see the motions on this video:
Author Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen, an English poet, scriptwriter, broadcaster, and performer, has been writing for children since 1970. He lives in London with his wife and five children. (amazon.com)
Genre: Fiction, Board Book, Picture Book Published Year: 1967
Grade Level: Preschool to 2nd grade
Theme: Colors, Animals, Prediction, Repetition
Summary: This beloved book involves colored animals that see other colored animals. It's unique repetition makes it easy for children to follow along and read along. All of the illustrations are made out of colored tissue paper.
Pre-Reading Activity: Talk about animals and the different colors they are.
Post-Reading Activity: Have the animals of the book precut and use it as a memory game to see if the children can put the animals in the order they were in in the book. Then have them recite the book using only the cutouts as props. Or you can have the children sit in a circle and go around the circle saying the words of the book. An example, just substitute the colored words:
Devon, Devon, what do you see?
I see Veronica, looking at me.
Veronica, Veronica, what do you see?
I see Carlos looking at me.
For older children have them write their own story about things they see at home.
Reflection: I love this story and have read this book to my son since he was a newborn. It was so great that he can now read it to me. I often used this story in my PreKindergarten classroom as a read-aloud and would have the children read along with me. I also used the song version for a nap-time song.
About the Author
Bill Martin Jr.
Bill Martin Jr truly was "America's favorite children's author." He wrote for almost 60 years (Yes, his first book, The Little Squeegy Bug--The Story of the Firefly, was published in 1945). He was the author of the classic text Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do you See?, which was illustrated by his dear friend Eric Carle, as well as more than 300 other books for children. Through the years he gave children some of their favorite books, including Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear? (also illustrated by Eric Carle) The Ghost-Eye Tree, Barn Dance, Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom and many more. His classic work, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, now in board book form, is at the top of the Publisher's Weekly Bestseller list. His basketball thriller, SWISH, co-authored with Michael Sampson, is an exciting basketball tale, written in classic Martin Rhyme\Rhythm style, that features girls' basketball. Six new Martin/Sampson book are now available: (Rock It, Sock It, Number Line; The Little Squeegy Bug, Trick or Treat?, Caddie the Golf Dog, I Pledge Allegiance, Chicka, Chicka 1,2.4! and Little Granny Quarterback. Read them today! A new vesion of Chicken Chuck came out in 2005, and I Love our Earth was published in 2006. Other Martin books that he completed before his death will continue to be released in the years to come. (www.billmartinjr.com)
About the Illustrator
Eric Carle
Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books for very young children. His best-known work, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has eaten its way into the hearts of literally millions of children all over the world and has been translated into more than 50 languages and sold over 33 million copies. Since the Caterpillar was published in 1969, Eric Carle has illustrated more than seventy books, many best sellers, most of which he also wrote, and more than 110 million copies of his books have sold around the world.
Interesting Things I Found:
This is the video version of the song that I would use for my PreK children at nap time.
Just to point out it does say mother instead of teacher at the end because of copyright issues
Summary: In this rhyming tale a llama makes his way through the forest searching for his “mama.” He encounters many animals along the way and asks them, “is your mama a llama?” At the end, he finds his mama whom is a llama and she tells him “YES,” and let’s him know how silly he is.
Themes: Rhyming, family, friendship
About the Author:
Deborah Guarino, author of the best-selling children's classic, "Is Your Mama a Llama?" (Scholastic, Inc.) is now celebrating her book's 21st year in print. With more than a million copies sold, her playful book's popularity now spans two generations. It's available in five different editions, including a Spanish translation, and has been animated on DVD. It's also been selected by Oprah's Book Club for Kids, included in an episode of the prime-time series "Medium" and endorsed by actress Jennifer Garner, who recently became a literacy advocate on behalf of the Save the Children organization,in PEOPLE Magazine (amazon.com)
Pre-Reading Activity: Have the children draw a picture of their mother or another special loved one. Provide the children with crayons, markers, and/or paint. After the children are done have a couple share their picture while asking them... “What is similar between you and your loved one? What is different about you and your loved one?”
Post-Reading Activity: Have the children pick out the rhyming words in the book and write them down on a sentence strip. Then have the children come up to the board and put the rhyming words in order. This will allow the children to look back into the book and find the exact words. This will also help with sequencing. For younger grades, you can have picture cues of the animals to help the children remember the names of the animals.
Reflection: When I was a Preschool Teacher I would read this story daily to the children. I love rhyming books and this one is one of my favorites. The children get a kick out of it when he is asking animals that are so different from him if they are his “mama.” I loved to hear their little giggles as I would read the story.
Summary: This beautifully written and illustrated story is a retelling of the tale The Gingerbread Man. In this version a boy, Matti, and his mother are home baking gingerbread cookies. Matti is impatient and opens the oven early not to see a gingerbread man, but out jumps a gingerbread baby. Gingerbread baby goes along his way singing:
"I am the Gingerbread Baby,
Fresh from the pan.
If you want me,
Catch me if you can."
The gingerbread baby outsmarts everyone including the mother, father, cat, dog, goats, pigs and others. The only one able to outsmart this gingerbread baby is Matti as he makes a gingerbread house and traps the gingerbread baby.
Pre-Reading Activity: Talk about different animals that children have or that children see outside, i.e. dog, cat, chipmunk, squirrel. Ask the children if, "if you animal got loose outside, how would you catch it?" Make a chart of all of the different answers that your students come up with.
Post-Reading Activity: If the children have read The Gingerbread Man, ask them the differences between that story and this story. Have talk to their elbow partner about a different way that they could have caught the gingerbread baby and then they can write about it. And of course, if you read this story around the holidays to your students as I do, I always like to finish with baking or decorating gingerbread babies and/or houses.
Reflection: I absolutely love this story and all Jan Brett books. She always keeps us entertained and her spin on books is neat. I love how she always puts a sneak peak of the next page on the right side of the page before. This story is truly unique and I like that the gingerbread baby does not get eaten at the end, a more kid friendly version than the gingerbread man.
About the Author Jan Brett
With over thirty seven million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."
Interesting Things I Found:
My son Bryan and I recently had the privilege of meeting Jan Brett at one of her book signings. She signed my son's book and talked to him for a bit about cooking and baking, one of my sons interests. It made his whole day. Although we had to wait in line for what seemed to be an eternity, It was great that she took the time to have a conversation with everyone that came.
Jan Brett has amazing activities on her webpage for all of her books:
Summary: The children in Room 207 have always had it easy when it comes to Miss Nelson. She is a wonderful, soft spoken teacher of good nature. The children are faced with easy assignments and never get in any trouble. But their lack of appreciation and gratitude will result in them getting the most evil substitute of all time...Miss Viola Swamp.
Pre-Reading Activity: Ask the children, "what would be your dream teacher?" "Would there be homework?" "What would be the worst teacher?" (hopefully they share your name in the dream teacher role and not the worst teacher)
Post-Reading Activity: Make a venn diagram with Miss Viola Swamp and Miss Nelson. Ask the children where they think Miss Nelson went. Ask the children why Miss Nelson didn't see Miss Viola Swamp in the hall.
Reflection: This book was one of my favorite books as a child. I have read this book to my son, who is 8 now, at night before bed many times. I never gave away that Miss Nelson was actually Miss Viola Swamp. I would secretly giggle to myself every time he would flip through the pages to try and figure it out. But I knew that time would come to an end at some point. Two years ago while reading this book, he finally had that "AHA" moment and figured it out. Then he impressed me even more when he told me that is why you should always follow the golden rule. I love this book and so does my son. He even took it to his grandparents house to read to them to see if they could "figure it out." Of course they played along and pretended they did not and he had that chuckle inside too.
About the Authors
Harry Allard was born in Evanston, Illinois on January 27th. He grew up in California, Long Island, and Chicago. He graduated from Northwestern College in 1943 and then performed active duty in Korea. He then lived in Paris for several years and became so fluent in the language that he got a master's degree and then a Ph.D. in French from Yale in 1973. He taught French at the college level for many years.
Upon his arrival in Boston, he met James Marshall, whose art and friendship inspired Allard's first book, The Stupids Step Out. This successful collaboration paved the way for the publication of other Stupids books and the Miss Nelson series. Miss Nelson is Missing was voted one of the most memorable books of the century.
Some Interesting Things I Found...
This is an example of a web chart that a classroom did for this book that I thought was exceptional.
Great idea for Halloween for two teachers Kindergarten, First, or Second Grade. One dress as Miss Nelson and one dress as Miss Viola Swamp.
Found on pinterest.com 
Found on pinterest.com Brown Bear I Spy
