Blue Ridge Babies 1, 2, 3: A (Non-babyish) Counting Book

My son and I were perusing the library shelves after story time and we came across a book titled Blue Ridge Babies 1, 2, 3. It had a cute cover and we have been working on addition, subtracting, and counting as well as reading number words, so I decided to look it over. Seeing the cute pictures and words were written in word form meant it went into our large check out pile. When I got it home, it was so much more than a book to read with my preschooler! 

Buy the Book  or watch the  Video

For those of you homeschooling, or teaching PreK-3, this book has so much to offer, including a song! I made a printable activity that I did with my son, and here is what we covered.

Click the images above or here to download.

If I was using this with my fourth grade class, we would locate the Blue Ridge on Google Earth. I'd ask, "Where else might a biome like this be found in America? Where might it be found in the rest of the world?" Then we would make our own books for other biomes.

Snag a free book template by clicking the image below or here. It's editable, so you can share a copy on Google Classroom, via email, or even adapt and print a copy for students to write and draw on.

Learn more about the writing, illustrating, and publishing process this book went through here:

 https://kathytemean.wordpress.com/2021/04/22/book-giveaway-blue-ridge-babies-1-2-3-a-counting-book-by-laura-sperry-gardner/

Firefighters to the Rescue and other Fire Safety Month resources

 October is Fire Safety Month! I make sure my students are well educated on the topic because I am married to a firefighter. My son thinks first responders are the most amazing super heroes! We've recently added a few more books to our rotation as we learn more about the technical aspects of the job and a push to include more women and minorities in the profession.

 

The Amazon book listing for Send a Girl: The True Story of How Women Joined the FDNY says, "Brenda Berkman was often told that she couldn't do certain things because she was a girl. When she grew up, she longed for a job that was challenging, different every day, and required physical and mental strength. In 1977 when the New York City Fire Department finally complied with the Civil Rights Act (from 1964) by allowing women to take the FDNY exam, Brenda jumped at the chance. But the FDNY changed the rules of the exam so women wouldn't be able to pass it. Even a lot of men couldn't pass this new exam. So Brenda Berkman took the FDNY to court. In 1982, they finally made a fair test, and Brenda and 40 other women passed. She then founded the United Women Firefighters, an organization that helps train and prepare women to be firefighters. Brenda went on to serve in the FDNY for 25 years, reaching the positions of Lieutenant and Captain, and was a first responder during the attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11. Send a Girl! is Brenda Berkman's inspiring story."

Want to use this book for a lesson, or need something a bit more mature for middle and high schoolers? Check out this Sutori timeline I made. It's great for Fire Safety Month, Women's History Month, or learning about the Civil Rights Act.

We also read another non-fiction story to learn more about the career as well as get ideas for building with LEGOs. The Amazon listing says,

"Join the LEGO minifigures on an exciting adventure as firefighters race to the rescue around LEGO City in Firefighters to the Rescue. Learn amazing facts about their rescue vehicles, daily tasks, and heroic rescues. Bursting with stunning photographs, fun facts, mini comics, building ideas, and stickers, Firefighters to the Rescue is the perfect book for any young reader."

I made this fun printable pack when we learned about the letter F. It includes a do-a-dot page, a maze, a vocabulary page for memory match, and word search,

We know part of the job is reading signs, so we revisited an old post of mine about environmental print. In our neighborhood and home, we look at and read signs for fire hydrants and extinguishers, and standpipes. 

We also practice making emergency calls to get help from first responders. Here is what we determined my son (and your children / students) should know.

Read more about fire safety and Fire Safety Month!

13 Days of Halloween and Other Halloween Books

 My son loves Halloween and all things fall! We have spent a lot of time decorating and reading library books on the topic. I've chosen some of our favorites to share with you. These stories are great for reading at home or in the classroom.

The 13 Days of Halloween by Carol Greene

I chose this book for my husband to read to our son at bedtime, and I know it would be a favorite if I read it to my class. If you know the 12 Days of Christmas song and story, this one follows the same pattern. There's one caveat, though - there are 13 days and the last one is a cliffhanger. It's the perfect way to get children involved in writing the ending!

Six Creepy Sheep by Judith Ross Enderle

This is a short book that is good for subtraction and reading of number words. It's a nice easy read for younger kids and a fast read aloud. Check out a video of it here. 

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

This one is a favorite of my fourth graders every year, and obviously others love it too, because it was turned into a film in 2012. The rhyming and repetition make it easy to follow along, and it always has them rolling on the floor laughing. This is also why it's great for younger kids, who will want to read it again and again. Here it is in play version. Check out the DVD trailer, too!

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda D. Williams

The possibilities for participation in this read aloud are endless. Kids love the repetition and acting out clomp, wiggle, shake, clap, and nod as well as running, jumping, hiding, peeking, and laughing! It's fun to point out the onomatopeia and collect the verbs. View a read aloud here.

How to Catch a Monster by Adam Wallace

We love this series! We own many books from it, catching monsters and leprechauns and tooth fairies. My son's interest wasn't kept the entire time and I think part of it was that he's still afraid of the idea of monsters. Associating ninjas with monsters wasn't really making sense to him, but he seems less scared of monsters now. Watch the read aloud here.

Night of the Pumpkinheads by Michael J. Rosen

At first glance, this book's pictures are pretty cool. If you have anything like The Great Jack-o'lantern Blaze near you, your kids will love this! And if not, it's a nice substitute. The tone can be a bit negative in terms of how the pumpkins talk (it included the dreaded "s" word, stupid) and spoiler alert - the kids aren't afraid of scary pumpkins. Still, the book has some redeeming qualities. It includes some figurative language including similes and has some science related vocabulary related to animals and vegetables. Children are introduced to foods they may not have ever had before, such as radishes, rutabagas, parsnips, and leeks. The message at the end is that kids are afraid of them, but I would have like to have seen the kids try to eat them!

Looking for other Halloween posts? Click here for printables, songs, and videos.

Spying Shapes

 One thing I've noticed as a teacher is that geometry is an area of weakness for elementary students, and part of that is we don't often move beyond the knowledge and comprehension levels to application and creation. Students learn the basic shapes in preschool and kindergarten and then suddenly they're expected to differentiate between types of triangles and quadrilaterals when many still don't know what pentagons and hexagons are. Adding in types of angles often leads to kids being overwhelmed with a lot of information at once.

As an upper elementary school teacher, I've decided on a plan of teaching my son the standards earlier than expected as well as pointing them out in real life and thinking about their use in engineering and design. We created this Spying Shapes Google Slides presentation that we call our shape book.

We have had a lot of fun taking pictures of shapes we see at home and in public. This is a great project for homework, home school, and collaboration at school. You can assign this project for individuals or groups, or even across grade levels. Students can add audio clips of them explaining what the objects are and why they think the shapes were chosen. 

If you want to differentiate, remove some slides or add others, such as the different types of triangles or  hexagons (regular / irregular), etc. Download it here.

If you plan on using this resource with younger kids, here are two books that can help introduce the concept of shapes around us. 

Round is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Greenfield Thong

This book is great for teaching a small amount of Spanish words, too! Some kids may notice 3D shapes, like a sphere, but call them round, however.

City Shapes by Diana Murray

Beautiful pictures in this book and descriptive prose don't help point out the actual shapes themselves in print, but lead to a discussion of what is seen in each scene.

Interested in more math posts? Click here! 

Want to incorporate more technology into your lessons?

As always, I'd love your feedback! Please leave a comment below and share how you used this resource on Facebook or Twitter.

Virtual Google Classrooms

 

Have you struggled to keep your child or students on track when they're watching an educational program or playing a learning game, and then suddenly they've gone into an abyss of material you'd rather them not access?

Welcome to our virtual PreK classroom! 

This one has been tailored to my son's interests, but all are educational. 

Clicking on the books, stuffed animals, toys, and objects will take you to read aloud stories, songs, videos, and even virtual models to do things like:

• listen to read aloud stories 
• watch videos
• listen to songs
• play games
• learn to write numbers and letters
• learn to draw
• watch some science experiments
• build virtual models

Interested in something a bit more mature for older children and students? This is my fourth grade modern virtual Google classroom, which can easily be used for middle or high schoolers. It will keep students' attention as they explore and view gifs, such as moving plasma, bubbles, and a welcoming skeleton in the STEAM room.

Students can:

• explore geography
• chill out in the relaxation room
• read books in the library
• use virtual math manipulatives
• learn about geology
• examine bones and animal skeletons
• conduct chemistry experiments
• study plants
• access textbooks in their locker

Clicking on the water feature, breathe hand, and sunrise will take you to other sites with resources for a peaceful classroom. Let's see if you can find two other links embedded elsewhere in this room!

Head over to the cozy reading room, where you can listen to books on video and read books, magazines, articles, and newspapers!

The math classroom has all sorts of virtual manipulatives and opportunities for practice. 

My son's favorite part of my virtual "big kid" classroom is the S.T.E.A.M. lab. Can you find the 6 hidden interactive links?

Our school's mascot makes an appearance in the locker room hallway area. Fun fact: our real school doesn't have lockers! It's a fun place to store books and find links to them online, though! You can replace these images with ones that apply to your students.

These are customizable. All you need to do is click an image (such as the clock to add your daily schedule), insert a link, and share with students!

Click the images above or this link to view our classroom.

Interested in something similar for your child or class? Leave a comment below and I'll see what I can do!