Welcome to our stop on the blog tour for Santa’s Story by Will Hillenbrand. Thank you Blue Slip Media for including us. All opinions are our own.
Santa’s Story is about remembering the traditions we have for our families and how forgetting them can change everything. It is the night before Christmas and Santa is trying to find his reindeer to get ready for the next day. Santa is baffled when the reindeer aren’t anywhere to be found. He begins to think what he might have missed. With some thought, Santa comes to realize he forgot all about their night before Christmas tradition. With everything back on track, the reindeer come back to Santa, engage in their tradition and are ready for Christmas.
I don’t want to spoil what Santa and the reindeer do each year to get ready to deliver presents, but let’s just say, if you are reading this blog, it will put a smile on your face.
I adored the illustrations in this book, I love reading winter stories where the pictures transport you to night or snowfall. This book was no exception!
We’d like to continue to spread the holiday cheer and are offering one lucky reader a copy of SANTA’S STORY, courtesy of Two Lions. Please follow and comment on this blog post for one entry and visit our other social media pages for other opportunities to enter. US only. Giveaway ends Tuesday 12/3/19
This wonderful new book about making the most out of your birthday will be released next Tuesday, February 12th. Penguin books was gracious enough to send us the F and G to read and share.
This book is is adorable! It takes you through the 10 rules the authors have picked to help any reader have a successful birthday. With humor spread through the text and pictures, this will surely have readers of all ages laughing and hoping their birthday isn’t too far away to celebrate.
“Rule #5- There must be signing. Traditionally the “Happy Birthday” song. Sung happily and loudly and definitely off-key. ”
I am so excited to use this as my new go-to birthday book present! Also, it can be used in the classroom to talk with your kids and students about birthday traditions.
“Rule #9- You must blow out the candles in one single breath. Unless you are a camel…..” (Page turn…)
I also envision this as a great book for reading and writing in the elementary classroom. Using the part mentioned above, I can see how it helps kids with predictions, inference, or even for writing. Kids can practice personification, but still using real facts.
If you’ve been following our blog since the very beginning you may remember that I posted around this time last year about starting a holiday tradition with my boys called #holidaybookaday and the #kindness calendar.
The premise is instead of opening a small gift every day in December to count down the holidays we open a holiday book (it could be about any of the December holidays including Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah and New Year’s Eve) and we also open a small piece of paper with an activity that promotes kindness. For example some of the kindness activities we did last year were, ‘candy cane bombing’ a parking lot, bringing teachers coffee, holding open the door for others, drawing a picture for someone, making a list of polite words to use, etc. We had such a wonderful time reading holiday books and being kind to others that I can’t wait to continue these traditions this year. With so many great new books to add to our list I know this month is going to be just as special as last years!
Here is a list of some of the books we will be reading:
CHRISTMAS
The 12 Days of Christmas by Greg Pizzoli
Pig the Elf by Aaron Blabey
Christmas Makes Me Think by Tony Medina illustrated by Chandra Cox
Fly Guy’s Ninja Christmas by Tedd Arnold
Pick a Pine Tree by Patricia Toht illustrated by Jarvis
Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas by Laura Murray illustrated by Mike Lowery
Olive the Other Reindeer by Vivian Walsh and J. Otto Siebold
A Piñata in a Pine Tree by Pat Mora illustrated by Magaly Morales
HANUKKAH
The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming by Lemony Snicket illustrated by Lisa Brown
Sammy Spider’s First Hanukkah by Sylvia Rouss illustrated by Katherine Kahn
How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague
Bright Baby Touch and Feel Hanukkah by Roger Priddy
KWANZAA
Seven Spools of Thread by Angela Shelf Medearis illustrated by Daniel Minter
K is for Kwanzaa by Juwanda G. Ford and Ken Wilson-Max
Here are a few others that I still need to wrap…
Stayed tuned for more wonderful holiday books in the month of December including some great ones to celebrate New Year’s Eve and the coming of a new year!
Last year I wrote a post about how I use Thank You Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco in my classroom for a special Thanksgiving activity. Please take the time to read that post here.
Today is also World Kindness Day and although I am currently staying home with my two boys for the year and don’t have a class to do this activity with, I decided to become my own student and show kindness to an old teacher. Last night I reread the book and then wrote a thank you letter to an old teacher in my life. I picked a woman who was my cooperating teacher for my student teaching in 2001! I have been in contact with her off and on through the years and decided I wanted her to be the recipient of a letter from me. I hope I hear back from her. Please keep your fingers crossed with me.
Another reason I want bring this book up is because I want to reiterate how important picture books can be for all ages. Right now there is a movement called #classroombookaday, which has many elementary, middle and even high school classes taking the time each day to read a picture book. I feel this book is the perfect #picturebooksformiddleschool! Published in 2012, it is a heart warming story about a bright girl, who has difficulty reading, finds comfort in drawing, and in 5th grade finally meets a teacher who helps her become a reader. Every time I read it I get tears in my eyes when she reencounters her teacher at the end. This is a great time to read it aloud in your classroom and have the students give thanks to the many teachers who have helped shaped who they are.
Please leave a comment on how you’ve used this book or any other “giving thanks” favorites!
A book and a day dedicated to discussing with kids how to make their mark on the world…one of our favorite days to celebrate as educator moms! This year Dot Day is on September 15, 2017, are you celebrating? If you’re either an educator or a parent, or both, celebrating this day is important, it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s international. So if you are planning on celebrating share with us your ideas in the comments below and take a look at some of our ideas too! Parents and educators are great at “stealing ideas”, well maybe let’s say getting inspiration from others, that seems less negative and after all Dot Day is all about positivity!
To get started on Dot Day you have to find a copy of the book by the infamous Peter H. Reynolds, The Dot. Did you know that the book has been published in so many different languages, even the website about International Dot Day doesn’t quite know the number of languages! (The book is that good!)
After acquiring the book (I suggest buying because you’re going to want a copy for yourself) we have some ideas that would work in a classroom or at home or even both. As our readers we know you are very creative and could adapt any of the activities below to something that will work for you and the children you are around.
VIDEOS/OTHER MEDIA:
We like to show the following video of “The Dot” song by the famous children’s book singer, Emily Arrow and author/illustrator, Peter Reynolds. Be warned though it’s pretty catchy so you may be singing it way beyond Dot Day! 😉
And here’s another version of the song without the book images and Emily’s smiling face
Something that children are often intrigued by (and let’s be honest, adults too) is learning the story behind the creation and idea of a book. So here Peter Reynolds talks about the beginnings of The Dot. It’s about 2 minutes and 45 seconds long so short and sweet.
ACTIVITIES:
Wonderopolis
If you haven’t used Wonderopolis in your classroom or at home, it’s time to start! It’s an informative and interesting collection of wonders from science to history to How Do You Connect the Dots, which is perfect for Dot Day!
The 30 Dot Challenge
Using this sheet create a collaborative piece of dot art. First make sure children have a variety of writing utensils (pencils, crayons, markers). Give each artist 3 minutes to fill in as many dots as they can by drawing something different in each circle. Some ideas are patterns, doodles, shapes, animals, plants, words, or create something using more than one circle. This is really for the artist to challenge him/herself to draw using the dot as the guide. Anything goes, but try not to give too much direction and let the children be creative. After the three minutes is up you can have the kids share their favorite, the most challenging, the one that took the most time, whichever dot they would like. To make it collaborative you can cut all or a few circles out and glue onto one big sheet of paper so everyone’s dot is represented, everyone has put their mark on the art piece.
USING TECHNOLOGY:
Watch Your Dot Come to Life…
This activity takes a little pre-work as you need to make sure you’ve downloaded the free app Quiver3D on a device.Then you need to make sure you have enough copies of this Dot Day free download of the specific paper you will need. Then let the kiddos create their own special dot using the paper. The app will make the dot come to life and you and the kids will be enthralled and amazed at what you will see. If you’re in a classroom setting or at home you can take a screenshot of the alive dot to save it. Here’s one that I did a few years back when the app was called ColAR but it’s the same idea.
It’s our first year of #holidaybookaday! The theme: open a new December holiday book every night until the end of the year. This could include books about Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve. Over this past year my fellow blogger, Kim and I have been adding to a “Countdown to the new year” booklist we created together. I have been so excited about starting this tradition with my boys that I actually prepared and wrapped all the books prior to even Thanksgiving! J opened up his first book last night because I couldn’t wait to get started. I’m not sure if he will share in my excitement but I’ve been talking it up and I’m hoping he will enjoy this book journey as much as I know I will. What I’m most excited about is having a variety of holidays represented in our book list. I think experiencing these various holidays through stories will bring about many teachable moments. Feel free to join us on this #holidaybookaday journey over the next month by following the hashtag on Instagram!
