Little Blue Truck's Springtime - Alice S...

Little Blue Truck drives through his country neighborhood checking out the barn areas to see who is there. There are goats, pigs, cows, ducks, chickens, and sheep. He meets them and finds out what is new with them.

This is an adorable books for infants and toddlers. There is rhyming and counting as well as learning how the animals look. I liked the pull open tabs to see the babies and count them. I also liked that this is a board book and the pages are thick so as a child pulls the doors open on each page it will be hard for them to rip the pages or book. Perfect for those little ones who like trucks and animals. Teaches without being preachy.

Simple.  Easy to remember.  I think I now understand quantum physics (LOL).  Greatest ending ever.

Cute story of a witch on her broom with a lot of hitchhikers.  The rhyming poem is wonderful.  It was longer than I expected of a board book but adorable.

The Mitten by Jan Brett, is about Nicki, a young Ukrainian boy, who hopes that his grandmother will knit him some cozy white mittens. After she makes them for him, she warns that if he loses them, it will be difficult to find them in the snow. Nicki assures her that he won't lose them, but no sooner than he leaves the house, he drops one of them! As he searches for his lovely mitten, something very interesting takes place. The creatures of the forest are slowly making their home in his mitten: a mole, then a rabbit, a hedgehog, an owl, a badger, a fox, and a bear! They pack themselves in as tight as they can, but a small mouse manages to come in and his whiskers tickle the bear's nose. The bear sneezes, and all of the animals pop out of the mitten, causing it to sail in the air just as Nicki is about to give up. Grabbing the mitten triumphantly, he takes it back to his grandmother's house.

Guided Reading: Level M

Classroom Activities: 

Use The Mitten to teach sequencing, predicting, and retelling a story. The students could retell the story using different voices. 

Reading level and Leveling System:

Guided Reading: M

Lexile Measure: 600L

When Nicki drops his white mitten in the snow, he goes on without realizing that it is missing. One by one, woodland animals find it and crawl in; first, a curious mole, then a rabbit, a badger and others, each one larger than the last. Finally, a big brown bear is followed in by a tiny brown mouse. A story retell box is a way to show the students comprehension of the story. The box contains figures of  the mitten, the little boy, and the animals that crawl into the mitten. As the students retell the story to the teacher or other students they use the figures to reenact the story.