Showing posts with label Snow Days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Snow Days. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Snow Day!


In the midst of another round of unseasonably high temperatures, I'm dreaming of a snow day.



Before Morning, by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beth Krommes needs to be your next picture book read aloud, whether to your whole class, or to the child on your lap.

Study the details on the cover carefully for foreshadowing.

Read the story in the pictures along with the story in the words.

Make your wish...and see what happens!





Best in Snow, by April Pulley Sayre is a great companion to Before Morning. With rhyming text and gorgeous photos, Sayre teaches about the formation of snow and the way it changes with temperature shifts. There are more facts in the back of the book.




A Poem for Peter by Andrea Davis Pinkney, and illustrated by Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson, is the perfect third book in this snowy trio. It, too, is a poem. As Pinkney describes, it is a " 'collage verse,' 'bio-poem,' or 'tapestry narrative' in which factual components are layered with a mix of elements." Readers learn the story of the man who created one of the THE most iconic snowy day book AND transformed children's book publishing at the same time by including a "brown-sugar" "cocoa sprite" character.



Friday, January 21, 2011

Poetry Friday -- SNOW DAY!!




















Too Much Snow
by Louis Jenkins


Unlike the Eskimos we only have one word for snow but we have a
lot of
modifiers for that word. There is too much snow, which, unlike rain,
does not
immediately run off. It falls and stays for months. Someone wished for
this
snow. Someone got a deal, five cents on the dollar, and spent the
entire family
fortune. It's the simple solution, it covers everything. We are never
satisfied
with the arrangement of the snow so we spend hours moving the snow from
one
place to another. Too much snow. I box it up and send it to family and
friends.

(read the rest of the poem at The Writer's Almanac)


There's no such thing as too much snow if you're a teacher buried in an avalanche of grading, planning, and data to be analyzed so you can better plan and design assessments to be graded and analyzed and used to inform further instruction. 

And, yes, someone wished for this snow. A whole lot of someones, in fact, both shorter and taller. It's nice when, every now and then, wishes do come true!

Happy Snow Day! Check out the Poetry Friday roundup at A Teaching Life, hosted by Tara.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Jeremy Fink Fan Club

Is there room for one more member?

I haven't read a book this good...this SATISFYING for I don't know how long! Thank you, Wendy Mass for Jeremy and Lizzy and for reminding me of all those things I already knew (especially the story about the two wolves), and thank you, Franki, for being so rabid about this book. It wouldn't have made it to the top of my to-read pile so fast if it weren't for your enthusiasm. What WERE the Newbery Committee members THINKing when they passed THIS one BY?!?!

One more thank you -- to the universe, for this snow day in which I have done nothing but lay about in my pj's and read. Quite a contrast to the person I was yesterday, all full of my important lesson plans and all the work we need to accomplish before the end of the trimester. Just goes to show...well, I'm not sure what it goes to show, but in case any of my students (or more likely, their parents) are reading this, I promise that I'll do some school work after we take dog and XC skis and snowshoes over to the OSU golf course Griggs Reservoir for a snowy romp. (A POX on OSU for closing the golf course to sledders and skiers! How unsporting of them! Afraid we'd mess up the precious greens? Grrrrr...) And in the extremely unlikely event that my back surgeon is reading this, no, I am not going to ski before I've even been cleared for PT. I'm going to WALK. You didn't tell me I couldn't walk with snowshoes on my feet.