This week Kindergarten headed to BRAZIL in South America!
How Night Came from the Sea is a classic Brazilian folktale, retold by Mary-Joan Gerson and Carla Golembe (the same pair who brought us the Nigerian tale, Why the Sky is Far Away!). It’s a fantastic way to imagine how night came to exist.
This week we are all taking a break from our world travels to celebrate and share the winners of the 2012 Caldecott Medal – the highest honor given to picture books in the United States.
The 2012 Caldecott Medal winner is…
A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka.
The 2012 Caldecott Honor Medal winners are:
Blackout by John Rocco
Me… Jane by Patrick McDonnell
and Grandpa Green by Lane Smith.
Congratulations to the talented people who continue to make beautiful picture books for people of all ages to enjoy!
We’ve made moves to a new continent: South America!
Our first stop? PERU!
This week Kindergarten read a fun folktale from Peru: Moon Rope by Lois Ehlert.
We had a great laugh as this story tried to explain why moles live underground. Quite an imaginative story!
Next stop on our journey: the Caribbean!
Rata-Pata-Scata-Fata: A Caribbean Story is a cute tale by Phillis Gershator about a young day-dreaming boy who thinks a nonsensical phrase can magically finish all his chores!
After the long holiday break, Kindergarten and 1st Grade students were back in the U.S.A. to chat about Brooklyn’s own Ezra Jack Keats – famed children’s book author and illustrator.
We loved chatting about his books as everyone in Little Dalton prepared to visit The Jewish Museum exhibit dedicated to his amazing work.
This week Kindergarten had a “Learning Celebration” in honor of earning enough stickers to become Library Superstars! (How do you earn a sticker? By following all the library rules, of course!) As a treat for the celebration, we took a video detour and watched clips from the PBS show Postcards From Buster when Buster visits Iqaluit in Northern Canada.
Students loved seeing real-life connections to the Arctic lifestyle we talked about when reading books about Canada.
This week in Kindergarten we traveled to Mexico!
Cuckoo by Lois Ehlert is a wonderful tale about a vain cuckoo bird who learns the beauty of helping others. Through unique paper collage illustratations and bilingual text, Ms. Ehlert illuminates the age-old moral: you can’t judge a bird by its feathers.
The first stop on our journey around the world is to our neighbors to the north: CANADA!
First we took a look at a non-fiction book – Frozen Land by Jan Reynolds- to see photographs of a real Inuit family living up by Hudson Bay. It was fascinating to see the clothes they wear and how they survive in such a cold climate.
Then we took a few minutes to share a super silly story by hilarious author, Robert Munsch. Thomas’ Snowsuit is actually dedicated to Mr. Munsch’s friends who live in Halifax, Canada and inspired his funny tale about a boy who refuses to put on his new snowsuit.
It’s the exciting time of year when Kindergarten and 1st Grade students begin our Stories Around the World! From now on when we are together in library classes, we will be reading stories from different countries across the globe. By the time summer arrives, we will have “visited” every continent!
Stay tuned to see where we wind up as the year progresses.
It has been an exciting start to the 2011-2012 school year! Each week, students in all the grades have been hearing stories that help us understand all the rules of the library and how to use it. And now we’re getting ready to welcome two fabulous visitors: Brian and Andrea Pinkney.
They’ll be visiting on Monday, October 31st so we’ve been trying to read a few of their stories to get to know their work. We can’t wait to meet them and hear all about the process of making a picture book!
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