Tag Archives: books

Top 5 – Valentine’s Day Literacy

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Graphic featuring children's books, Valentine's Day Literacy
Valentine’s Day is almost upon us, and we’ve put together a list of our Top 5 books that can be read in conjunction with the holiday. While none are specifically about Valentine’s Day, they each explore a relevant theme. We’ve also included ideas on how to extend the book reading into an activity at home or a visit in the community. Happy reading!

Cover of book by Michael Hall entitled, My Heart is Like a Zoo.
  1. My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall – With its bright colors and whimsical artwork, this book is sure to appeal to young animal lovers. Plus, all the animals are made from heart shapes. Can you count the hearts you see?

    Extend it:     Explore the shape of a heart! Cut hearts out of felt and allow your child to play with them on a fleece blanket. See what kind of patterns or combinations you can make together. Can you make any of the hearts into an animal shape?
    Series of 3 photos showing children reading and playing with hearts.
    Cover of boo, Dear Juno, by Soyung Pak
  2. Dear Juno by Soyung Pak – Valentine’s Day is all about expressing affection to those you love, but what if a loved one lives far away? This is a story of a boy who sends letters back and forth to his grandmother who lives in faraway Korea. With the ubiquitous nature of email, many young children are not as familiar with physical mail. Dear Juno illustrates how a physical letter or drawing can capture a feeling of love and closeness that will be sure to leave your child wanting to send some snail mail.Extend it: Visit the National Postal Museum or the local post office to learn more about the mail system. Then create a valentine for a family member or friend and mail it to them. Let your child help stick on the stamp and deliver the mail to the closest mail box! Children lined up a National Postal Museum.
    Cover of book, Loving, by Ken Heyman.
  3. Loving by Ann Morris – This book may be almost 30 years old, but it still resonates today. The photographs and text illustrate the ways in which people express their love for each other, from giving a child a bath to giving a hug. The photographs depict a variety of people and environments around the world, which sends a message that we might have differences, but there are similarities that all people have in common, one being love.

    Extend it:     Discuss with your young one something that you do that shows them you love them. Tell them what they do that makes you feel loved. Ask a grandparent or older family friend to tell you about what their parents did to make them feel loved and see if it’s similar to what you do.Several photos of children showing affection towards each other.Photo of the book, The Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn
  4. The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn – Sometimes things scare us, but with support and encouragement from loved ones, we can face our fears. This story illustrates this notion, as Chester the raccoon, who is apprehensive about starting school, feels love from his mother all day long through the kiss she plants on his hand. With all the changes that young children experience, this is a great story to illustrate that the love of their family is with them, wherever they go and whatever they do.Extend it: Visit to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to see “Untitled” (for Jeff) by Felix Gomez-Torres. Read the book in front of the large scale artwork. Compare Chester’s raccoon hand to your own hands and the hand in the artwork. What is similar? What’s different? Then think about what loving message you want to leave on each others’ hand. Bring a couple sheets of paper and pencils. Trace each others’ hands and then take some time writing or drawing loving messages on each others’ hand outlines.
    Photo of book, See a Heart, Share a Heart by Eric Telchin.
  5. See a Heart Share a Heart by Eric Telchin – Eric Telchin, author and photographer of this book, finds hearts in some unexpected places! From the beach to a piece of wood to an onion – he’s captured all the hearts he’s seen over the years. You can even go to his website to see more hearts he’s spotted.Extend it: You tend to see lots of hearts around Valentine’s Day, but what if you searched for them in unusual places? Take a walk outside and hunt for heart shapes. Can you create heart shapes from leaves or sticks you find on the ground?

For more ideas of how to make Valentine’s Day a meaningful, engaging and educational experience with your young children, see our Top 5: Valentine’s Day, 7 Valentine’s Day Ideas for  your Classroom, and our Valentine’s Day Pinterest board.

5 Books on Families

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We thought it might be helpful for us to share some books that we read in our classes that focus on families. These books highlight the ideas that everyone’s family is unique and different (and that is a good thing) while making sure to draw that connection that families are defined by love. Here is our top five list of books on families:

The Family Book by Todd Parr

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The Family Book by Todd Parr provides a lovely overview of families. Its clear and simple prose along with its vibrant colors makes it appealing to even the youngest children. The phrases that are written in the book can almost become mantras for children. After reading it several times, you may hear children saying, “Some families are big” or “Some families are small”. It also touches upon more complex ideas surrounding families including death, adoption, and single parents. The Family Book ends with a message that helps children embrace their unique family.

Loving by Ann Morris

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This book shows images of families from around the world who are taking care of each other. The  photographs highlight families from around the globe that are highly relatable to young children. For example, it depicts children shopping in San Francisco’s Chinatown, eating dinner at a table in Harlem, and a mother nursing a baby in Kenya. The photos not only speak to family, but other universals like adults caring for children and food. The love between the adults and children is clear on each page and the index  provides additional context for each photograph.

A Tale of Two Mommies by Vanita Oelschlager

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This books features three children playing on a beach. Two of the children ask the other child questions about having two mommies. Both the questions and the answers to the questions appeal to young children and have a wide variety. As the child answers, it becomes clear that both mommies take care of and love the child. This books helps children to discover answers to questions about different families that they might be pondering without ostracizing others.

Stella Brings the Family by Miriam B. Schiffer

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Stella Brings the Family is about a child whose class is celebrating Mother’s Day. Stella, however, is worried because she has two dads and doesn’t know who she should bring to the Mother’s Day celebration. She discovers that she has a family that includes Daddy and Papa and also includes Nonna, Aunt Gloria, Uncle Bruno, and Cousin Lucy. She decides to invite them all to the celebration since they all help to take care of her.

Kids Need to Be Safe: A Book for Children in Foster Care by Julie Nelson

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This book addresses a more complicated topic –  that not all children have a traditional family to take care of them. The text is simple and repeats the idea that, “Kids are important. Kids need to be safe.” Children can see this theme supported by illustrations of children being cared for by foster parents and other adults. These illustrations can allow for deeper conversations and potentially provide children who have experienced foster care the opportunity to share their experiences.

These are examples of books on families that we have read to children. Do you have any books that you would like to add to this list? Please let us know!

Top 8 Books for Kindergarten Read-Alouds

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This week’s blog is written by Silvana Oderisi. This is Silvana’s seventh year teaching kindergarten and her third year with the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center where she is the reading teacher. Prior to joining SEEC, she spent two years as a Corps Member of Teach for America in Tulsa, Oklahoma as well as teaching in the District of Columbia. She is passionate about reading, learning languages, and being active.

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As I mentioned in my last blog, Top 5- Elements of a Great Read-Aloud, I thoroughly enjoy getting the chance to read to my group of kindergarten students during our daily read-aloud lessons! As a class, we love engaging with exciting and fun stories that push us to think critically about what we see and hear therein.

Here are some of the books we love the most and how we’ve used them in our classroom.

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  1. Nanette’s Baguette by Mo Willems

This is one of my students’ all time favorite authors. So, suffice it to say that any book of his is bound to be a crowd pleaser for a read-aloud in a kindergarten classroom and beyond! This particular book of his combines silly rhyming words with a very relatable problem. On a trip to the bakery for her mom, Nanette eats all of the warm, delicious baguette before she even gets home! With a twist ending that shows adults can be as silly as kids, the book will have your children roaring with laughter!

  1. The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

Get ready for another fun book to read with your children. This popular book is one that will have kids re-evaluating the way they treat the crayons in their own crayon boxes. The poignant, hilarious letters from the crayons in Duncan’s crayon box, give kids a glimpse into the point of view of what they had formerly thought of as inanimate objects. In our classroom, we like to use this book to help us practice identifying problems in a story. We define a problem as something the character wants to change, fix, or figure out. And boy, do those crayons come to Duncan with some problems! From arguing over which color is the true color of the sun, to being overused and overworked, or not used enough, each letter provides my class with practice identifying problems and then using critical thinking skills to wonder how we would solve the problem if we were Duncan!

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  1. Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast by Josh Funk

If you couldn’t tell by now, I am a big fan of comedic children’s books. I love to make my students laugh and see them smile as we think about the stories we read together. I want nothing more than for my students to absolutely LOVE reading, so I try to incorporate as many of these happy moments as I can into my read-alouds. This book, in particular, combines silly characters and a relatable competition to get the last drop of maple syrup making for one hilarious story. In our classroom, we used this story to help us be able to identify a character as the person, animal, or thing (we really had to include that last one in this story) that does the ACTIONS! This helped us look more closely at a character’s actions, which comes in very handy when analyzing character traits, discussing problems and solutions, and more critical thinking questions.

  1. Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty

While I do appreciate the imaginative and abstract characters in a lot of the books on this list, I strongly believe that it is also important for my students to see and read books that are a positive reflection of their own identities. I try to incorporate books, such as this one, so that the young girls in my class (and especially the girls of color) see their own potential in the STEM field. Reading books like this helps open the doors for young girls to explore their own curiosities about the world and ask questions about how the world works, without feeling like they’re stepping into a “boy’s world.”

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  1. Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe

Not only do I believe that my students should see their own identities reflected in the stories they read, but I also like to make sure that my students are able to make positive personal connections to other cultures through our read-alouds. This book is based on an African tale, and tells the story of a king looking for the “most worthy and beautiful” woman to be his queen. Mufaro believes that his two daughters, Manyara and Nyasha, are worthy and beautiful enough for the king and they decide to journey to the palace. Although both characters are outwardly very beautiful, their choices and actions throughout the story demonstrate two entirely different concepts of beauty, giving your readers plenty of opportunities to analyze personality traits along the way. This story truly begs the question of whether or not beauty can be found on the inside or the outside and can lead to very powerful discussions with your children about the concept of beauty.

  1. The Napping House by Audrey Wood

A classic Kindergarten favorite, this book is helpful to readers practicing sequencing events of a story, an important kindergarten comprehension skill. My students love the hilarious events that happen in the Napping House and re-tell the events with ease thanks to the silly rhymes and repetition throughout the book. The repetitive phrases help not only with remembering the sequence of events from beginning to end, but also help this age group develop fluency skills as they read, re-read, and read again the same words throughout the text.

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  1. Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems

I just could not go through this Top 8 list without adding another book by Mo Willems. As one of my personal favorite children’s authors, I really enjoy using any of his books in my classroom for a multitude of learning objectives. In particular, this book is helpful for making inferences about a character’s physical and personality traits. This is a great opportunity to practice identifying personality traits by analyzing the character’s actions, words, thoughts, and feelings. Wilbur is a naked mole rat who likes to wear clothes – fancy outfits, fun costumes, you name it! However, Wilbur is the only naked mole rat in his colony who does so, leaving his peers to be outraged by his scandalous behavior. Nonetheless, Wilbur shows determination and bravery to stay true to himself and even dresses up for a royal proclamation wearing…socks!

  1. Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson

This book is one of my favorites because no matter the age group, every class I’ve read this book with has been on the edge of their seats to see what happens to the Magic Tree. This book incorporates movements like rubbing, tapping, counting, patting, and blowing that encourage children to participate in the changing of the seasons. The beauty of this book is that the realistic looking illustrations and bodily kinesthetic movement make it fun for many different age groups to read. If you’re interested in learning more about how to make your favorite picture books age appropriate for both toddlers and kindergartners, make sure to check back in for the blog I will be co-writing with toddler expert, Meredith Osborne!