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)
Purple, Green, and Yellow
Author: Robert Munch Illustrator: Hèléne Despueaux
Reading Level: Ages 3 and up
Genre: Fiction Themes: Humor, Repitition
Summary: In this super funny story, Bridgid really loves to draw and she would love for her mother to but her some colouring markers. The only problem is that her mother doesn't trust her with them. Bridgid says she is going to prove that she can so her mom buys her washable markers. Bridgid does a great job with those, which leads her to having her mom get her smelling markers, which leads her to getting super-indelible-never-come-off-till-your-dead-or-maybe-even-later-colouring-markers. This is when Bridgid gets into some trouble. You have to read this book to find out just how much trouble she gets into.
Pre-Reading Activity: Show the children the cover of the book. Have them talk with their elbow partner what they think this story could be about. Then pose the question, "What kind of trouble could you get into with markers?" Have them discuss that with their elbow partners and have some students share their responses.
Post-Reading Activity: This would be a good book to use with the issue of trust. I would have my students write about a time when someone trusted them and they lost their trust. This would be a very deep issue and might be hard for some students.
Reflection: I really like this book and read it often to my preschool children. The only hard issue is that it has the word dead in it so that might be a tough issue. I would use this with older children to teach about trust. I love Robert Munch books, although they sometimes have words you have to exchange when reading to younger children, I love the craziness of them. So out of the box
Author Robert Munch
Robert Munsch, born 11th June 1945, is an American born Canadian author of children’s books. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Fordham University with a degree in Bachelors of Art, he pursued his post graduate studies in Boston University gaining a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology in 1971. Munsch education did not stop there. He also gained a Master of Education in Child Studies from Tufts University.
A Picture of Robert Munch with a bunch of characters from his books
Amazing website of author Robert Munch that you have to check out: http://robertmunsch.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.
Theme: Counting and Numbers, Early Learning, Animals
Summary: The popular "Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" rhyme is remained here with sharks misbehaving. The sharks bump into manatees, get stuck on the ocean floor, bang their tails, get lost playing hide-and-seek, and eat too much fish--all resulting in mother shark calling the doctor, time and time again. In the end, the sharks all return to health and swim happily in the sea.
Pre-Reading Activity: Sing the popular song, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, and ask the class if they think there can be any other stories that can be written using this idea. Talk about if monkeys really do jump on beds. Also ask, can monkey's really use telephones? Hold up the book Five Little Sharks Swimming in the Sea and ask predictions as to what trouble the sharks can get into in the sea.
Post-Reading Activity: Discuss if any of the children's predictions were illustrated in the story. Make a chart of what happened to all of the sharks or make a chart of all of the rhyming words. Pick seven children and have them come to the front of the room. Choose 5 to be sharks, one to be the mother, and one to be the doctor and act out the story in front of the class. You could even goes as far as bringing in an art project making doctor hats and shark fins.
Reflection: I really enjoy this book and really enjoyed sharing it with younger children. I have had children act it out and we would have to do it over and over so all children would get a turn. It is a real easy read and has great repetition so that even beginner readers can read this book. The one criticism that I have of this book is that although there is rhyming in it, the end sentence of the page does not rhyme so it is hard to get rhythm in the story when doing a read aloud. Below is an example...
Two little sharks playing hide-and-seek.
One got lost and was missing for a week.
The mother called the doctor and the doctor said,
"No more sharks playing hide-and-seek!"
As you can see in the above excerpt from the book, the red words seek and week rhyme, while the blue words said and seek do not.
Steve Metzger is the bestselling author of more than sixty children's books, including "Detective Blue" (starred review from School Library Journal), "The Mixed-Up Alphabet," and "Skeleton Meets the Mummy." He is a former teacher of young children and currently enjoys reading his stories during school visits. Steve had a typical 1950s childhood growing up in Queens, NY. He currently lives in Manhattan (not far from Central Park) with his wife, teenage daughter, and Biscuit, a talkative cat.
Found on pinterest.com 
Found on pinterest.com Brown Bear I Spy
