Booktalks – Page 24 – Booktalking #kidlit

Welcome to America, Champ!

Welcome to America, Champ!
by Catherine Stier (Author) and Doris Ettlinger (Illustrator)

Booktalk: During World War II thousands of American servicemen were stationed overseas in various countries. It is in England that American GI Jack Ricker meets and marries an English widow with a nine-year-old son, Thomas. Thomas likes his new stepfather and he’s hopeful about their future. But now with the war over, Jack is back in America. Thomas and his mother make plans to leave England and join him. Thomas is apprehensive about moving. He won’t know anyone, apart from Jack. In America, they play baseball and not cricket. Will he fit in?

Snippet:
My grandparents host a farewell party. Miles and other schoolmates wish me well.
After our guests leave, Grandad hands me a gift.
“Thomas,” Grandad says. “I believe you are like this daring knight, setting off on a great adventure. You know, they don’t have knights there in America.”
Grandad has carved and painted for me a knight on a horse!

World War I for Kids: A History with 21 Activities

World War I for Kids: A History with 21 Activities
by R. Kent Rasmussen (Author)

Booktalk: It has been 100 years since the start of the “Great War.” The hands-on activities in this book can help students understand life during World War I, a war that eventually involved all of the world’s superpowers.

Snippet: Soldiers stationed at the front spent only a small part of their time in actual combat. In fact, it was not unusual for individual soldiers to spend several months on the western front without seeing an enemy soldier. This is not to say that they were necessarily safe when not fighting. They might not see an enemy when they were on the front lines, but if they climbed out of their trenches, unseen enemies were likely to spot them, with lethal consequences.

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Cranes

How do simple machines help cranes work? Help K-5 students answer this essential question (and meet the Common Core State Standards) with the Teaching STEM lesson plans for this mentor text: Cranes by Amanda Doering Tourville (GRL P / ATOS 4.0)

Unit Summary: Students will examine the essential question, “How do simple machines help cranes work?” Working in small groups, students will research the basic simple machines: inclined plane, wedge, screw, lever, pulley, wheel and axle. They will organize their research into four categories and present and post it in the room so other students can find out about the other simple machines used in cranes. They will use their graphic organizer to write and explain about the value of cranes, the kinds, and what makes them work.

The Library Activity begins on page 146. The Collaborative Teacher Activity is on page 148.

Extension Activities(sample)

1. Read another book about cranes and together compare and contrast the ideas presented in the two books.

2. Look up the bird called a crane. Find out about the different varieties of cranes and report to the group. Explain why the machine is called a crane.

3. After reading the book, have the students write a short description of the main idea of the book. Use the phrase, “I am a engineer.. I know that _________.”

You can find more Teaching STEM lesson plans on the Teaching STEM blog

Lost in Thought

Lost in Thought (Sententia)
by Cara Bertrand (Author)

Booktalk: Lainey Young has a secret: she’s going crazy. Everyone else thinks she has severe migraines from stress and exhaustion. What she really has are visions of how people died–or are going to die. Not that she tells anyone that. At age 16, she prefers keeping her crazy to herself. When doctors insist she needs a new and stable environment to recover, Lainey’s game to spend two years at a private New England boarding school. She doesn’t really think it will cure her problem, and she’s half right. There is no cure, but as she discovers, she’s not actually crazy.

Almost everyone at Northbrook Academy has a secret too. Half the students and nearly all the staff are members of the Sententia, a hidden society of the psychically gifted. A vision of another student’s impending death confirms Lainey is one of them. She’d like to return the crappy gift of divining deaths with only a touch, but enjoys spending time with Carter Penrose–recent Academy graduate and resident school crush–while learning to control it. Lainey’s finally getting comfortable with her ability, and with Carter, when they uncover her true Sententia heritage. Now she has a real secret.

Once it’s spilled, she’ll be forced to forget protecting secrets and start protecting herself.

Snippet: I saw visions of how they died. Most only lasted a few seconds, a handful were gruesome, and I swore some of them were visions of how people were going to die. They would come with no warning except dizziness, usually right after I’d touched someone or something, and were followed by a severe headache. If I was lucky, I even fainted too, in betweent the vision and the migraine.

If someone were telling me this story, I’d probably have laughed at them. In fact, I knew I would, which is why I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to tell the doctors and especially not the psychologists.

The Robot Blues

The Robot Blues
by Sally Rippin (Author)

Booktalk: Jack has made the best robot suit for a costume party. But will the other kids think a homemade costume is silly? Beginning reader

Snippet:
Jack worries that
all the kids at Jem’s
party will have cooler
costumes than his.

From There to Here

From There to Here
by Laurel Croza (Author) and Matt James (Illustrator)

Booktalk: A little girl and her family have just moved across the country by train. Their new neighborhood in the city of Toronto is very different from their home in the Saskatchewan bush, and at first everything about “there” seems better than “here.”

Snippet:
There. Dad drove home each day to eat lunch with us.
Here. Dad is’t home until supper. Mom calls it dinner now.

Animal Colors

Animal Colors
by Thea Feldman (Author)

Booktalk: Discover the wide world of animals through a kaleidoscope of colors in this Level 1 beginning reader

Snippet:
This crab is red.
So is this ant.

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Forces and Motion at Work

What makes forces and motions on Earth? Help K-5 students answer this essential question (and meet the Common Core State Standards) with the Teaching STEM lesson plans for this mentor text: Forces and Motion at Work by Shirley Duke (GRL W / ATOS 5.2)

Forces and motion at work

Unit Summary: Students will examine the essential question, “What makes forces and motions on Earth?” by researching information from a variety of sources relating to the vocabulary of forces and motion. They will summarize their information and then reduce their facts into a short statement of less than one hundred and forty characters in a style suitable for Twitter. From an assigned list of words, each group of students will use print and online information to define their word, read about it to identify and comprehend the scientific principle, and collect facts relating to that principle. The groups will narrow the information by wording it in a phrase or sentence that fits Twitter’s parameters. They will share their information in the library in a way that is accessible for the available technology there or in a class PowerPoint presentation designed to look like a tweet on Twitter.

The Library Activity begins on page 76. The Collaborative Teacher Activity is on page 78.

Extension Activities (sample)

1. Make a class Wiki and put their information on it.

2. Do a podcast about the vocabulary by writing the script in their groups and recording the information. Compare this method of communicating to other means of communicating.

3. After reading the book, have the students write a short description of the main idea of the book. Use the phrase, “I am a technology specialist.. I know that _________.”

You can find more Teaching STEM lesson plans on the Teaching STEM blog

Tippy and the Night Parade

Tippy and the Night Parade
by Lilli Carre (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: When Tippy wakes up, there’s a peacock in her bedroom, a bird in her hair, and mice dancing on the headboard. Yet all Tippy remembers is falling asleep! Toon Books Level 1 Beginning reader comic

Snippet:

Let’s Dance, Grandma!

Let’s Dance, Grandma!
by Nigel McMullen (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: More than anything, Lucy loves to dance. But her mother warns her not to try to dance when her grandma comes to visit, because grandmas simply do not dance.

Snippet: But this time Lucy couldn’t help herself. The first thing she said when Mom had gone was, “Dance, Grandma, dance?”