PS 62 discussion

What new books can you share for Kindergarten and Grade 1 teachers?

Her are three good reads for back-to-schoolers:

1. My School in the Rain Forest: How Children Attend School Around the World By Margriet Ruurs
Boyds Mills Press, $17.95 Ages 7-9

2. Punctuation Celebration By Elsa Knight Bruno Illustrated by Jenny Whitehead & Henry Holt

According to USA Today,
It's written in a poetice way to learn punctuation-- 14 rhyming poems, with illustratted examples of hyphens, colons and other acrobatic punctuation at work. it's playfully instructive: A question mark is apropos/When there are things you want to know./You put it after words that ask./To answer is another's task." The author, a former kindergarten teacher, knows how to keep things simple: "Parentheses" two hands are gentle, /Engclosing words that aren't essential." She deals with the much abused apostrophe but doesn't explain the difference between it's(the contraction of it is)and its (the possessive), which remains a lesson for another day.

3.Sunday Chutney Written and Illustrated by Aaron Blabey

Sunday is a young girl with a great (if unexplained) name, ahuge grin and a dad whose job takes the family all over the world. "Trouble is," she says, "I'm always starting at new shools. So I'm always the new kid. And everyone thinks the new kid is a bit weird." But globe-trotting Sunday knows how to overcome loneliness and make friends with girls. Boys, she confides, "smell, have germs and probably love me." Kids with a quirky sense of humor should appreciate this gentle reminder about what it's like to be the new kid in school.