Vina High School Pre-K

  Dear Blog,  During our farm unit, I read Charlotte's Web  (1953) to my students.  Charlotte's Web was a Newberry Award Honor in 1953.  This fictional chapter book was written by E.B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams.   I chose to read this book to my students because it gave a light-hearted insight into what life is like on a farm.  This made it go right along with our farm unit perfectly.  At the beginning of the book, Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered when the farmer's daughter, Fern, begs and pleads with her father to give her a chance at raising the pig.  Soon, Wilbur learns while he did avoid the fate of slaughter as a mere piglet, he did not escape it entirely.  To help keep Wilbur from being slaughtered by a barn spider, Charlotte begins to write words in her web to describe Wilbur.  These words soon lead to Wilbur becoming a famous pig, which saves him from being slaughtered. This story allowed my students to see that just like with everything else t

  Dear Blog,  Last week I read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day  (1972).  This fictional picture book was written by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz.  This 1972 ALA Notable Children's Book, has also won the George G. Stone Center Recognition of Merit Award and is a Reading Rainbow book.   I chose to read this book because some students were just not having a good day.  They felt like everything they wanted or tried to do turned out wrong, just like it did for Alexander.  In the book, Alexander's day starts off horrible.  He wakes up to find gum in his hair from the night before.  Just when he thinks his day cannot get any worse, bad event after bad event keeps happening. The poor guy had everything happen from dropping his sweater in the sink, not getting the seat he wanted in the carpool, not counting incorrectly, falling in the mud, and so much more! He was having such a bad day that he mentioned moving to Australia numerous times.   At th