Jan Brett and Poultry Show

     On Saturday, October 29th my husband, son, and I left the house at 6:00 AM for Indianapolis.  We went to the state fair grounds to see author Jan Brett and poultry.  We made great time and had 45 minutes to look at the chickens and ducks before Jan's presentation.  Jan shared that she had chickens as a child and has them again.  She brought a few to show at the poultry show.  She brought one of her chickens to the presentation with her.  It was a White Crested Polish.  Jan shared her new book Home For Christmas.  It is about a troll that runs away because he does not want to do his chores.  She shared that she and her husband traveled to Sweden to research her book.  It was there that she decided that Rollo should meet a family of moose instead of reindeer.  It is a wonderful story with beautiful illustrations.  She is currently working on a book about a turtle named Mossy.  Her next book will be a Cinderella story with chickens posing as the main characters.  This book will be set in Russia.  She will travel there for her research. 
     Jan then went on talk to the children there about the importance of using their imaginations.  She suggested that they spend an hour just drawing and being creative.  She then showed us how to draw a White Crested Polish.  It was amazing. 
     We then waited just a short time to get the books we bought autographed.  I, of course, was the most excited.  I was very thankful to Brian for taking Luke's and my picture with Jan Brett. 

     Then we went back to check out the poultry.  Next year will be Luke's first year of regular 4-H.  So we went to check out the different breeds of chickens and ducks.  We were amazed at how many birds were there.  We saw a sign thanking the exhibitors for bringing 10,262 birds (chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese)!  We did not look at all of the birds.  Luke did decide that he wants to take call ducks.  They are cute little ducks that come in several colors.  He was pretty impressed with the all white ones and the ones that looked like mallards.  He did not really make any decisions on a breed of chicken.  But knows that he wants to show bantams.  

     We had an excellent day!

If You Give a Dog a Donut

Our school is having their book fair this week and next.  I was down browsing and ran across a new book I did not know was out.  It is, If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff.  This is a great addition to the If You Give... series. 

I have visited Laua Numeroff's website before and found a few useful ideas.  She gives a postal address and email address for children to write to her.

http://www.lauranumeroff.com

I just found this site.  I have not had much time to explore the whole thing.  What I have seen looks good.  It gives biography information about the author as well as the illustrator.  There is a twelve page Teaching Guide you can download for the If You Give series.  There are over 40 activities. 

http://www.mousecookiebooks.com/mouseCookieBooks.html

Bella and Rosie

My Reading Recovery students love Bella and Rosie books.  Bella and Rosie are the pets of Michele Dufresne, author of the Bella and Rosie series.  Two years ago we added Bella and Rosie book sets to our Literacy Library.  The students love these stories!  They make a real connection with these dogs.  The website I am including has three free printable Bella and Rosie books.  They are levels F/9, G/11 and I/16.  You will also find free Valentine cards and calendars. 
http://www.pioneervalleybooks.com/bella-rosie
My Reading Recovery students also enjoy the Gilbert the Pig and Jasper the Cat books.  These books and many others can be found at the Pioneer Valley Books website.

I also enjoy using the Bookbuilder software.  It allows me to personalize stories for my students.  They love to read their names and the names of their family and friends in the books.  I frequently use these books at the beginning of my students' lesson series.  The students do not have many known words.  The low level stories have simple patterned texts that are perfect for beginning readers.  After the students have read the books to me a couple times I let them take the books home to keep so they can start to build or add to their own library.  I also print extra books for the students to read over long breaks.  http://www.pioneervalleybooks.com/software-bookbuilder.html