World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge: Week 2

The World Read Aloud Challenge for week two was to answer the following questions myself and then ask the same five questions to a student. I asked David, a 4th grader to help me out. He did a great job!
Question One:  I think everyone in the world should read…

Me: Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  I can't think of another book that does such a great job of encouraging kindness.  It is a beautiful story that everyone should read; especially children.

David: Charlotte's Web because it is a classic and E.B. White is a great author.

Question Two:  If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be…

Me:  Mo Willems.  I would love to see Mo Willems and hear him read his books.  He is my favorite author for young children.  I've heard him read aloud a little bit online and I always want to her more.

David: Bob Uecker because he has a really good announcing voice and it would sound cool for him to read aloud to me.

Question Three:  When I read aloud, my favorite character to impersonate is…

Me:  the Pigeon from Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.  The Pigeon is so fun!

David: Percy Jackson because he is brave and takes chances to save his friends.

Question Four:  The genre or author that takes up the most room on my bookshelf (or e-reader) is…

Me:  Adriana Trigiani.  She is my favorite adult author to read.  I also have a lot of children's books on my bookshelf.  I love to read them and I have two kids at home that love to read them, too.

David: Rick Riordan; he has written some of my favorite books I've ever read.

Question Five:  My favorite part about reading aloud or being read to is...

Me: the children's reactions to the stories they are hearing.  There is nothing better than a group of children loving a story they are hearing.

David: hearing the end of the book because you've been waiting to hear how it ends.

Kindergarten's Version of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

My favorite author to share with Kindergarten is Mo Willems.  We read lots of his books and explore his websites,  Pigeon Presents and Go Mo.  Besides hearing favorites like The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, Elephant and Piggie and That is Not a Good Idea, students also get to hear from Mo himself from his many video clips.  We also read Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed and learned all about those strange little animals, naked mole rats.

 We love all of Mo's books, but the favorite character is always the Pigeon.  We wanted to honor the Pigeon with our own version of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.  We also wanted the kidergartners to do some digital writing.   During their writer's workshop, students filled in this sentence: Don't let the ________ drive the _____________.







We then used one of their favorite online tools, Kerpoof, to illustrate their page.  Using FlipSnack Edu, I put all of their pages together to create an online book for each class.  Take a look and enjoy!

Mrs. Hansen's Class

Mrs. Gross' Class

World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge: Week One

World Read Aloud Day is March 5th.  Magee participated a couple of years ago and I hope we can do it again this year.  I read about the World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) Blogging Challenge from one of my favorite blogs to follow, Van Meter Library Voice.  Each week there is a blogging challenge related to reading aloud.  As a library media specialist and book lover, I accepted the challenge!

Here is week one's challenge: What is your earliest or fondest memory in which someone read aloud to you?

I have memories of my mom reading to me when I was younger. The memory that really sticks out to me is my older cousin, Sue reading to me and my sister when she was babysitting us. My sister and I had a large collection of the Berestain Bears books. I loved those books! Sue would start out by reading us one of those books and then my sister and I would bug her until she read us a couple more. Now those books were not very short, but Sue would not complain about reading them. I think she liked it as much as we did!

This year I hope to have Magee participate in WRAD. Two years ago we had all staff members (custodian, school secretary, gym, music and art teachers included) read to kids and do an art project based on ideas from the WRAD website. There are many activities and resources on that site. I plan to work with Magee's reading specialist to come up with a fun activity to celebrate reading aloud!