A favorite of all favorites!! This is one of those books that everyone needs to read at some point in their school years! It is a sweet story about a little girl who lives on a farm. They have piglets and she is determined to save this little big from being slaughtered. She babies this pig as much as she can. She goes to visit the barn and sit with the pig every day. As the pig gets older he makes friends with this spider in the barn. The spider makes webs with words that describe the pig. The farmers decide to take this amazing pig to the fair and put him in a contest. I think this book would be great to do character traits and character webs. There is so much personality in each character.

Lexile: 680L

Camilla loves lima beans, but won't eat them because kids will make fun of her. she comes down with a bad case of the stripes and all of the kids make fun of her. She keeps changing colors and no one can help her until and old woman comes and feeds her lima beans to cure her stripes. 

Lexile Measure: 610

I would use this with an activity from Teachers pay Teachers where the students will color Camilla's stripes in a color by number worksheet activity. I would also use it as a character lesson on being yourself.

     The main character, Wanda Petronski, is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same dress everyday. Wanda claims she has one hundred dresses at home, but no one believes her. Ultimately, Wanda is pulled out of class and the students feel terrible. Students will love this heartfelt story and it will open discussion about bullying.

     This book is targeted at more mature readers leveled at ages 6-9. A great way to use this book in your classroom is to let students describe characters from the story using character traits. Your students can also use compare and contrast with two different characters from the story.

This is a cute little story about a bear that wants to find a home. He realizes one day that he is missing a button and is on the search to find it. A little girl that has been wanting Corduroy saved up all of her money and the next day she came and bought him. She took Corduroy home and gave him a brand new button and a new home. For my classroom, I would like to have my students create a character web of words that describe Corduroy. 

Lexile: 600L

Camilla loves Lima beans but she NEVER eats them. Her classmates all hate lima beans so to try and fit in Camilla refuses to eat them despite how much she loves them them. One day Camilla turns up with a rainbow stripes all over her! Every time she worries about what others will think it gets worse and worse! None can figure out what is causing Camilla to turn different colors and swelling up. Eventually, an old lady reveals that the only way to solve a case of he stripes is to eat lima beans. This is a wonderful story for character development and to show your students that they should all like what they like no matter what their classmates like. An activity I would use with this book is having students create their "stripes" with things that they like/ their personality on their "face" (a face given tot hem that they color to look like themselves). This could spark a discussion on character traits and personality. 

Lexile Measurement: AD610L