Howard B. Wigglebottom Listens To His Heart

In this week's installment of the Howard B. Wigglebottom, we learned that having heart is more than just the muscle that goes THUMP THUMP in our chest, it means doing things that make us happy.

Dictionaries and Reading

Third grades heard the book The Yellow Star: the Legend of King Christian X of Denmark. Although no documentation has been found, the legend says the King and his subjects wore yellow stars to mask the Jews who were forced to wear the yellow stars during World War II.

Third graders listened to the book and wrote down words they didn't know or understand (i.e., stout, Danes, gentile, defiance, resistance) and then used the dictionary to read the definitions and check spelling.

Another Dav Pilkey Adventure

We read Dragon Gets By this week in first grade. First graders enjoyed the morning mix-up of sleepy Dragon and the adventures in cleaning and of grocery shopping.

Kindergarten Reads Howard B. Wigglebottom

Howard Binkow wrote a delightful book for kindergarteners called Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen. Howard is a young rabbit who doesn't listen to his teachers or friends as they try to warn him of hazards ahead. However, Howard B. Wigglebottom thinks about his actions during a time-out and tries to listen better.

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

Book 4 in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series Percy Jackson isn’t expecting freshman orientation to be any fun. But when a mysterious mortal acquaintance appears on campus, followed by demon cheerleaders, things quickly move from bad to worse. In this latest installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos’s army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop the invasion, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth–a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn. Full of humor and heart-pounding action. ~from the MS Library Lady

Check out A LONG WAY GONE by Ishmael Beah from the READ FOR A LIFETIME list

Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered Sierra Leone, Africa rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, forced to be a soldier and found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At 15 he is brought to a rehabilitation center sponsored by UNICEF and is on his way back to civilian life only to be caught up in the war again. ~from the HS library lady

First Grade is Reading Dav Pilkey

Although the most successful of Dav Pilkey's books are the Captain Underpants series, the first grade have heard me read Dog Breath and A Friend for Dragon. The students learned a new word, halitosis, so they could enjoy the illustrations and the story better. In A Friend for Dragon they were introduced to the series of Dragon's Tales. While reading and discussing, we learned four important secrets of friendship:

• A good friend is a good listener.
• Good friends have things in common.
• Good friends share.
• good friends care about each other.