"Every Second Friday" - a wonderful picture book for Father's Day

I love this picture book by Kiri Lightfoot and Ben Galbraith.  It would make an excellent addition to support children of separated or divorced parents.  

Every second Friday Margi (aged six and a half) and her brother Totty (aged four and three quarters) spend the weekend at their Dad's house and get up to all sorts of adventures. This is a light-hearted story full of imagination.

You can read a review of the book here or find teaching ideas here.  

Click on the image below or here to find out more ideas to support this picture book.

Do you know of any other terrific picture books that can be used around Father's Day?  If so, please leave a message in the comments section below.

Have a terrific week!

ANZAC Day reading comprehension bundle based on 3 picture books - on sale

For your chance to win a copy of my latest resource (59 pages) with higher order reading comprehension activities for three picture books about dogs in World War 1, please follow me on blog lovin' (button on the right) and leave a comment with your email address below, and I will chose three winners at random. 

I had a lot of fun putting this resource together and it's the largest one I have made so far.  
I have discounted it from $9 to $7.50 in honour of the 100th year of ANZAC Day.

The three picture books are:

• "The ANZAC Puppy" 
•    by Peter Miller
• 
  
• "The Red Poppy"
•     by David Hill
• 
  
• "Caesar the ANZAC Dog"     by Patricia Stroud  

          

This bundle includes:

• Synonym snap game
• Adjectives cut & paste activity
• Character traits
• Story mapping
• de Bono's thinking hats
• Philosophy for children reflection - empathy, courage & enemies
• The Four Resources Model & close reading teaching notes
• Figurative language (personification & similes)
• Song lyrics
• How to make a poppy pin
• Compare & contrast Venn diagrams (including a triple Venn)
• QR code comprehension questions
• Mapping
• Close reading - Dogs at War
• Research & information report scaffold and links.

It showcases some of my approaches in my other resources on TPT that support higher order thinking and intellectual demand in the teaching of reading, all together in the one resource.

Some of these links show the important role that dogs had during World War 1:

1910s war dogs sending messages in WWI trenches

War Dogs - WW1 Uncut: Dan Snow

Red Cross Dogs (1914) - First WorldWar | BFI National Archive

Companions In The Trenches -Animals of World War 1

SergeantStubby ~ World War I Hero Dog

I have pinned other ideas for ANZAC Day on my pinterest board here:

https://www.pinterest.com/kyjac/australia/

You can find out more about my ANZAC Day higher order thinking reading comprehension bundle in my TPT store or by clicking on the images above.  Just print and teach :)  

These truly are some of my favourite picture book titles for ANZAC Day

Don't forget to leave a comment below with your email address if you would like to win a copy of this huge bundle for studying dogs in WW1, as part of ANZAC Day studies.

Kylie

"The Turkey and the Pumpkin" free story and reading comprehension resource in time for Thanksgiving

Artie Knapp is fast becoming one of my favourite children's authors.  He has written a lovely story, "The Turkey and the Pumpkin" which can be used for both Halloween and Thanksgiving in the classroom.  You can download his story for free here or by clicking on the image below.

This is a delightful story of friendship, resilience and following your dreams.  It is really good for teaching problem/solution as well.

Artie gave me permission to create a reading comprehension resource based on his story. Because of his generosity, I have made my resource a freebie on TPT.  It includes my favourite 4H reading strategy posters, bookmarks and question sort, graphic organisers and QR code comprehension questions.  You can grab your copy here or by clicking on one of the images below.

 

If you do download this resource from my TPT store, I would really appreciate it if you could leave ratings/feedback on TPT.

Other free resources for Artie's "The Turkey and the Pumpkin" can be found here.  More information about Artie's children's stories can be found here or you can follow him on FaceBook here.

I am very excited that Artie Knapp has agreed to do an interview with me on my blog sometime soon, so please follow my blog for further updates.

Thanks so much for providing this free story for us Artie - it really is a treasure :)

I have also been pinning freebies and ideas for Thanksgiving here.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone :)

Halloween treat

A big shout out to Felicity who made my day today by sending me the most awesome email feedback about one of my new resources for Halloween based on Nick Bland's new picture book, Monster Chef.  You can read about the resource at my blog post here.

Felicity's feedback was so lovely.  She used the resource yesterday with her class and has written:

My kids LOVED reading Monster Chef and today we tried the comprehension cards with the QR codes. 

We used our tablets to scan the answers. 

They were totally engaged! Thankyou so much! 

She even included a photo :)  Thank you so much Felicity - you have made my day!

And, guess what I just found out? There is another picture book with a similar title, "Monster Chefs" also published in 2014...I can feel resource making coming on :)  

Click on the image below to find out more about this title and follow my blog (using the links on the right) for notification when the resource to accompany it is ready:

Have a terrific week everyone!

 

Looking for something fresh for Halloween? Two newly published picture books with freebie and resource links

Are you sick of the "We've read that before" line every year when there is a celebration?  

Two newly published picture books will help you to put a new spin on Halloween in the classroom this year - both published just recently in 2014.  One is "Monster Chef" by Nick Bland and the other is "Little Boo" by Stephen Wunderli.

They are both terrific for a not-so-scary Halloween theme, or for teachers who have students who do not celebrate Halloween, as they are along the same theme, but "Little Boo" especially is great for this as it is about a little pumpkin seed that is not scary, until he grows into a pumpkin and becomes a jack-o'-lantern.  The name Jack-o'-lantern comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack and Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, with the carving of pumpkins being a regular part of Halloween festivities.

Both of these newly published picture books are fabulous and very cute, with two different characters who are anxious because they are not scary.

I have blogged about Monster Chef before and you can read those blog posts here and here and pick up resource links along the way.

Little Boo is my latest find and I just love it. You could integrate it with a study of the life cycle of pumpkin in science.  What's exciting is that McMillan has provided a free downloadable activity kit for Little Boo that includes a maze and pumpkin carving templates.  Download that freebie here or view a walk-through of the book and review here.  Another review is available here.  This book is so cute! Depending on what you intend to do with it, it could be used in grades 2 to 5.

I have made resources to support both Monster Chef and Little Boo that you will find in my TPT store, but my exciting news is that although I had already discounted them for Halloween (and only made both of them in the past week, so they will be a fresh approach for you), I have discounted them even further as I have put the two together as a bundle, for serious savings :)  You can find out more here.

Bundled, the two resources consist of 57 pages!  All resources involve higher order thinking and are not "busy work" - however they are just print and go, and include graphic organisers/organizers, QR code comprehension questions, a rhyming word matching game, vocabulary work, connections and character traits. 

They also support my very favourite 4H reading strategy that I have blogged about before many times (please check the archives if you are interested in learning more about this).  The 4H reading strategy is an innovation on Question-Answer-Relationships (QAR) but so much easier for the kids to understand.  

Read more about what is in each of the individual resources (i.e. Monster Chef and Little Boo) via my TPT store here or here.

Another resource that has been hugely popular this year for a not-so-scary Halloween focus is "Creepy Carrots". You can read my blog post about that here (with a freebie) or read about my resource to support this picture book here.  

So, to avoid the "same old, same old" or "we've done this before" dread of every teacher, check out these new picture books and check out my blog posts about them (links above) where I share heaps of links to save you time in your Halloween preparation for school this year :)

Thanks for your support everyone!