After a long, cold winter with oh-so-much snow, it’s time to celebrate spring. Here are some refreshing read alouds to share with your kids:
The Curious Garden by Peter Brown
This enchanting book tells the story of one boy’s transformation of one garden from an overlooked corner of the city to a colorful, life-giving place. A great way to promote working towards a greener world!
My Garden by Kevin Henkes
How does your garden grow? Does it grow tomatoes as big as beach balls? Or chocolate bunnies? Now that spring is here, we can dream big! For more fun, follow this link to Kevin Henkes’ website for a search and find activity: Kevin Henkes' seek and Find activity
City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J. Muth
This story begins in the spring when City Dog first came to the country, ran without a leash and met Country Frog and so began a poignant tale.
Poppleton in Spring by Cynthia Rylant
Poppleton rides a bike, once again charms readers with his whimsy and lets us in on another quirky adventure.
Listen as City Dog, Country Frog by Kevin Henkes is read to you. Enjoy this sweet yet sad read aloud.
Spring is here! Everyone is so happy, even the cows are dancing! Yup, this video features happy cows on Wyke Farm.
This is a terrific app for leveling books. Use the camera to scan the bar code on the back of the book and voila the app displays the reading levels for the book. It doesn't seem to have information for every book but it does seem to work on most of the books I tried. According to what I heard, it is free to download for today only! Hope you like it!
Sorry! I'm a little late posting these resources but hopefully some of you will still find them helpful!
Apps:
Paid
Many of the Dr. Seuss apps are on sale today!!!
Dr. Seuss Bookshelf
While there are many great Dr. Seuss apps, I really like how this one organizes them all in one place. So great for helping students find the app that they are looking for more independently. This app is technically free but almost everything inside costs so I put it under the paid category.
Happy Birthday to You! - Dr. Seuss - $3.99
A lot of Dr. Seuss's books are available in app form but I think that this one is particularly appropriate for today.
Dr. Seuss Band - $0.99
I chose to include this one because it is just so different than the other apps. In this app, the player gets to create and play wonderful Seussical melodies.
Free
Dr. Seuss Fun Machine Game
While the app is free, this app is meant to go with Dr. Seuss Fun Machine tile game which can be purchased at ToysRUs and other toy stores. This fun app promotes matching, memory, observation, and deduction through the use of the tiles and the interactive app.
The Lorax Tuffula Shuffula
This is a fun game where you try to shuffle the pieces around to get three or more of a kind in a row.
Books:
This time for books there are definitely way too many to list so I'll just list a few of my favorites!
Happy Birthday to You! by Dr. Seuss
This book just seems so appropriate to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday!
Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss
This has always been a favorite of mine and a very popular graduation gift. I think I own several copies lol. It has a wonderful message about where life will take you, inspiring you through the good times and the bad.
Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss
This is always a student favorite, however it is a pretty long read. I love making Oobleck along with reading this book with my students.
Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! by Dr. Seuss, Jack Prelutsky, and Lane Smith
This unique book was started by Dr. Seuss and finished by Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith. It includes a wonderful explanation about how the book was created.
Your Favorite Seuss by Dr. Seuss
I discovered this book the other day when one of my students brought it in to share with the class. It is a terrific collection of 13 Dr. Seuss books.
Who Was Dr. Seuss? by Janet Pascal
A fabulous biography for kids of Ted Geisel, the famous Dr. Seuss!
This very cute packet includes everything you need to have a terrific Dr. Seuss day, week, or month with activities to go along with at least seven of Dr. Seuss's most popular books! Perfect for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st Grade. Price: $5.75
This huge, 101 page, packet includes a plethera of activities for your students to do in honor of and celebrating Dr. Seuss including writing prompts, graphing pages, and beginning sound matching. Price: $10.00
Phrasal verbs can
tangle English learners or literal thinkers up! They just don’t mean exactly
what they say. Just like taking a “one a day” multivitamin, teaching and
playing around with one phrasal verb a day can untangle the confusion. Check
out these resources to help:
·Usingenglish.com
has a quickly referenced dictionary of phrasal verbs as well as verb quizzes
students can complete online. Quizzes on 161 common verbs are ready to go!
· Go on! Give it a go! Print a wordless comic
strip and work together as a group, adding sticky notes with phrasal verbs.
Working together takes pressure off hesitant students, gives lots of modeling
and practice and is fun! Check out “Owly” comics on: andyrunton.com/owly.
·Tic-tac-toe: Have students work in pairs, fill in their
own tic-tac-toe grid with nine uses of a verbal phrase (go on, go with, go over...)
Then they play tic-tac-toe with the addition
of acting out or using the verbal phrase in a sentence before they can X or O
that square.
·5minuteenglish.com/apr29.htm
gives students eight verbal phrases they are likely to hear everyday and a
short quiz with drop down answers to give them a chance to sort out the
meanings.
·To really cover
phrasal verbs check out “Really learn 100 phrasal verbs” by Oxford University Press at
issuu.com/thegreenchalkboard/docs/reallylearn100phrasalverbs
