February and March 2014 Storytime Briefly

Battle of the Books craziness kept me busy in February and March as students at our elementary school read and engaged in friendly (and sometimes, fierce) competition.  And somehow, I let February get away from me without a post for storytime, so today it'll be a double.

We spent another week reading Beehive Book Award nominees.  We read

• Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems
• It's a Tiger by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Jeremy Tankard
• The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Poly Bernatene

I love that the students are excited about this award--someone asks each week when the winner will be announced.

We celebrated Valentine's Day by talking about love and friendship.  We read

• Snowy Valentine by David Petersen
• Brimsby's Hats by Andrew Prahin
• Paul Meets Bernadette by Rosy Lamb

The kids laughed at Bernadette's way of looking at things, and they spent a lot of time after we had read it saying, "Go back to the page where . . ."

We talked about monster with these stories:

• Bedtime Monsters by Josh Schneider
• The Girl Who Loves Danger (a storybox by Steve Light)

I've said it before, but I can't say it enough: Children love Steve Light's storyboxes.  The Girl Who Loves Danger is my favorite.

We talked about the different medium choices artists make.  We spent time looking at pictures and read

• The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes
• A Home for Bird by Philip C. Stead
• RRRalph by Lois Ehlert

We talked about Lois Ehlert.  We read

• RRRalph by Lois Ehlert
• The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life by Lois Ehlert
• Mice by Rose Fyleman, illustrated by Lois Ehlert

Since it was our second reading in as many weeks, I let the students read the dog's part in RRRalph which they really enjoyed.  We went through The Scraps Book at a leisurely pace, stopping to talk about our favorite books along the way.

We talked about pets.  We read two books and a poem:

• The Birthday Fish by Dan Yaccarino
• "Mother Doesn't Want a Dog" by Judith Viorst
• Sparky! by Jenny Offill, illustrated by Chris Appelhans

"Mother Doesn't Want a Dog" has long been a favorite poem at our house (ever since my now adult son convinced me he couldn't be a "real boy" without a dog).

We read about dragons:

• The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water by Gemma Merino
• The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Michael Martchenko
• Dragon Loves Tacos by Adam Rubin, illustrated by Daniel Salmieri

The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water wins points in my book for the not-what-I-expected resolution.  The students liked the detail on the end papers.