Three Great Read-aloud Picture Books with Unique Activities

Remember this guy from my Frogs, Food & Fun post? Well, he's helping me celebrate the one-year anniversary of my introduction to the world of teacher blogs and TpT. Yippee!

A tasty "frog" for students to sample after reading the book "Gilbert de la Frogponde"

I can't believe that this blog is already over a year old! In honor of the occasion, I'm highlighting three of my favorite springtime read-alouds and their corresponding TpT units with fun extension activities that I blogged about when Swersty's Swap Shop was just a baby. Drumroll please: 

1. "Gilbert de la Frogponde" by Jennifer Rae

Click here to go to my "Chef de la YOU!" TpT book study unit. It's FREE!

What's for snack? 

2. "Charlie the Caterpillar" by Dom De Luise

 Click here to go to my "Caterpillars, Datapillars & Butterflies" TpT unit. It's on sale until Wednesday!

Making datapillars is a fun way for your students to record and display facts!

3. "Surfer Chick" by Kristy Dempsey

Click here to go to my "Surfer Chick and Her Rad Dad!" TpT book study unit. It's on sale until Wednesday!

Make your own Word Pool center, complete with real water, dude!

Happy springtime reading, everyone! 

~Swersty

Me...Crazy about Biographies!

I recently posted about Biography Bowling, something my classes will be doing this week in the library. Before we bowl, however, I wanted to introduce biographies to my students, so we read "Me...Jane" by Patrick McDonnell last week. If you haven't heard of this book, you are missing out! It's a beautifully worded, simple biography about Jane Goodall that reads like a picture book.

After reading the book, we watched some wonderful videos about chimpanzees from the Jane Goodall Institute website. The kids loved seeing the chimps and hearing about Jane Goodall's passion for animals and nature! (Our favorite video by far is one made for Valentine's Day called "Sending You Love from Tchimpounga"--check it out for 61 seconds of melt-your-heart moments starring chimpanzees!) Once the videos were over it was time for a quick trip to the biography section that prompted a discussion on how biographies are arranged on the shelves. 
During checkout time, a few well-behaved kids got some help finding books with one of the library's chimps, Jubilee (named after Jane Goodall's stuffed animal from childhood):

Behavior management is so much easier with stuffed animals around!

Now we're ready to bowl in the library this week! Before I sign off, I have to include a short Biography Bowling video of my buddy Reagan and her class from a couple of years ago. Will she get a strike? Watch and see!

That's what it'll be like in the library this whole week, and I can't wait!

~Swersty