The Story of the Statue of Liberty

I love learning new information through picture books and so do kids!  When I was teaching, the non-fiction section of my classroom library was always the most used section.  One of my favorites is The Story of the Statue of Liberty by Betsy and Giulio Maestro.  The Statue of Liberty has always fascinated me and this book does a great job of telling the story behind The Statue of Liberty!

The Story of the Statue of Liberty will build your child's schema (background knowledge).  It will probably add to your schema too!  You and your chid will learn new information about The Statue of Liberty.  However, it is too hard to remember everything.  You will have the opportunity to practice the comprehension strategy of determining importance.  Determining importance is often a challenging skill for kids.  Before children can determine what information they need to remember, they need to know their purpose for reading.  When reading The Story of the Statue of Liberty your purpose is more than likely going to be to find new information and/or answer questions you have about the Statue of Liberty.


As you read the story with your child point out your new learning and encourage your child to share when they learn something new.  Some question stems to guide your conversation when reading the story are:

• This is new learning for me.  I learned...
• I want to remember...
• It's interesting that...
• One thing we should notice is...

If you read this book, I HIGHLY encourage you to do an extension activity.  Children have a hard time understanding how big That Statue of Liberty really is.  They read the dimensions, but they cannot conceptualize 151 feet (the height of the figure)!  The best way to help them understand is to compare the length to something they know!  


Statue of Liberty Dimensions

• Her forefinger is 8 feet long.  Cut a piece of yarn 8 feet long.  Explain to your child this is the length of The Statue of Liberty's finger.  Cut a piece of yarn the length of your child's finger.  Using the cut string, have your child measure how many of their fingers it takes to make one of The Statue of Liberty's finger.  
• Her eye is 2 feet, 6 inches across.  Cut a piece of yarn 2 feet, 6 inches long. Explain to your child this is the width of The Statue of Liberty's eye.  Cut a piece of yarn the width of your child's eye.  Using the cut string, have your child measure how many of their eyes it takes to make one of The Statue of Liberty's eye.  
• Her mouth is 3 feet wide.  Cut a piece of yarn 3 feet long. Explain to your child this is the width of The Statue of Liberty's mouth.  Cut a piece of yarn the width of your child's mouth.  Using the cut string, have your child measure how many of their mouths it takes to make one of The Statue of Liberty's mouth.  
• The actual figure of The Statue of Liberty is 151 feet tall!  Cut a piece of yarn 151 feet long. Explain to your child this is the height of The Statue of Liberty.  Cut a piece of yarn the length of your child.  Using the cut string, have your child measure how many of them it takes to equal the height of The Statue of Liberty.

Your child will be impressed at the massiveness of Lady Liberty!

If You Hopped Like a Frog

Did you know a frog can jump twenty times its body length?  If you could jump 20 times your body length how far could you jump?  Well, if you are 4 1/2 feet tall you could jump from home plate to first base!  That would be super cool.  


The book If You Hopped Like a Frog by David Schwartz shares what you could do if you possessed the abilities of animals!  This book is one of my all time favorites.  It really gets kids (and adults) thinking.  Not only does it get you thinking, it gets you thinking about MATH!  This is such a great book to share with your child during summer vacation because it will help keep their math skills fresh!

As you read the book with your child, take time to just marvel in the fun facts.  It is such a fun book with great illustrations!  After reading the story, be sure to read the explanation pages.  The explanation pages hold all the interesting information.  The author does a great job of asking probing questions to get your child thinking! 

You and your child will naturally use your schema (background knowledge) when reading this story.  In fact, the author counts on you using schema to enhance your understanding.   

A great extension activity to this book is to figure out each scenario with your child's statistics and with your statistics!  Compare your results and talk about why the results are different.  This is such a fun way to practice math!   Taking it one step further, you can even write your own version of the book! 

Get ready to have fun with ratios and proportions!  

Me...Jane

Does your child love chimpanzees? Is that the first exhibit they want to see at the zoo?  If so, they need to become familiar with the life of Jane Goodall. She loves chimpanzees too! There are many great books about Jane Goodall's life; however, not many of them talk about her childhood.

Me... Jane by Patrick McDonnell is a biography all about Jane as a young girl.  What I love about this story is that it does not try and share everything there is to know about Jane Goodall.  Instead, it only shares one small part of her life with the reader.  In my opinion, it shares one of the most important parts of her life: childhood.  This simple story shares with children the power of dreaming big!  Jane explored our magical world as a little girl and made her dreams come true.  This story shares such a good message with young children - anything is possible.

When you share this story with your child, make sure you take some time to make text-to-self connections. Jane takes her stuffed toy chimpanzee everywhere.  Does your child have a stuffed animal (or a blanket) that means the world to them?  Did you have one as a child?  Jane has a dream to go to Africa.  What does your child dream of doing?  What were some of your dreams as a child?

I highly encourage you to take a few minutes and read the About Jane Goodall section of the book. You and your child will learn a lot about Jane.  If this book sparks your curiosity about Jane Goodall visit her website!

Spring Is Here

I have been wanting to share the book Spring Is Here by Will Hillenbrand, but the weather has just been too dreary!  It is FINALLY starting to feel like spring, so this is a great time to share such a cute book.

Mole wakes up from a deep sleep to find spring has arrived.  He tries everything he can think of to wake up Bear, but nothing works.  Mole finally figures out how he can wake Bear up, but in the process he tuckers himself out.

This is a great book for pre-school aged children. It introduces the concept of hibernation without ever using the word.  It is also a great book to practice making text-to-self connections and inferences with young children!  

Some questions to guide your conversation:

1. Read to "Spring is here!" and ask your child:  How does Mole know spring has arrived?  Has spring arrived where we live?

2. Read to "Snore, replied Bear" and ask your child:  Why do you think Bear is not waking up?  Can you think of a time when you did not want to wake up?

3. Read to "Then he scampered outside" and tell ask child: Do you know what it means to scamper? Show me how you scamper.

4. Read to "Wake up, Mole!" and ask your child:  Mole was so excited it was summer.  Why do you think he fell asleep?

A Walk in New York

Have you ever been to New York City?  The first time I visited NYC I was overwhelmed.  I remember coming up from the subway and seeing Times Square.  I had never seen anything like it.  Salvatore Rubbino does a great job of sharing the magic of NYC in his book A Walk In New York.  


Pickup the book and you will tour Grand Central Station,  New York Public Library, Empire State Building, and The Statue of Liberty.  The premise of the story is quiet simple: a young boy and his father take a day trip to Manhattan. The father shows his son all the wonderful sights of the city. Rubbino does a great job of highlighting some of the most interesting places in Manhattan. Rubbino shows Manhattan through a child's view, and he also includes interesting facts about each landmark.

This is a great book for building background knowledge.  Every reader brings their own experiences and knowledge when interacting with a text.  If your child has visited NYC they will have a lot of background knowledge to apply to this book.  However, if your child has never been to NYC their background knowledge might be limited.  This book (and your conversations) will help build their knowledge base!  

Before reading the book, pull out a map of the United States.  Find where you live and then find NYC on the map.  This will give your child an idea where NYC is in relation to where they live.  As you read the story be sure to make connections.  You will easily be able to make text-to-self connections and text-to-world connections.   

When you are reading with your child, be sure to model you thinking and make some connections.  You can use the following thinking stems when making connections:

• That reminds me of...
• I can relate to _____ because..

After modeling your connections, be sure to ask your child if they have a connection.

This is also a good book for determining importance. There is just too much information to remember it all!  After each place you visit in the book you can ask your child:  What do you want to remember about _______?

After reading A Walk in New York, your child will have new knowledge of NYC!

There are several extensions you and your child can do with this book!

1. Take a virtual tour of NYC.  Visit all of NYC famous landmarks and read tons of interesting information about each landmark.
2. Explore your city and create your own book.  Take pictures of your favorite parks, restaurants, libraries, theaters, stores, etc.  Find out some interesting information about each place and write your own story! 
3. The story shares an interesting fact about the Empire State Building.  It has 1,860 steps!  That is a lot!  However, most children have a hard time realizing just how many steps that is!  Have your child climb 100 stairs.  I bet they will be tuckered out.  Tell them they would have to do that 19 times to reach the top of the Empire State Building!

Mistakes that Worked

Summer break is just around the corner.  For a lot of kids that means reading will be neglected for a few months.  It is essential you keep reading and sharing books with your child during the summer months!  Did you know children can lose up to two years of reading skills over the course of summer break?


I highly encourage you to make reading a priority.  Since kids are going to be in a play mindset, you are going to have to work a little harder to keep their attention.  Over the next month I am going to share some books I think will keep your child's attention.  I will also share some follow-up activities you can do with your child to keep their mind sharp and fresh.


The first book I want to share is  Mistakes That Worked by Charlotte Foltz Jones.  Kids LOVE this book. This book shares mistakes that turned into great inventions.  Did you know the chocolate chip cookie was a mistake?  So was the slinky and the waffle cone!  Your child will love finding out how some of their favorite toys and food were invented by mistakes!

This is a book you do not have to read cover to cover.  It is a great opportunity to talk about how to use a table of contents! Read through the table of contents with your child and decide what mistake you want to learn about first! Each of the mistakes discussed in the book are only one or two pages long.  Since each story is short your child's attention will not wander.  This book is great for practicing the comprehension strategies of asking questions and determining importance.

Good readers are constantly asking questions about what they read.  They ask questions before reading, during reading and after reading.  When readers ask questions, it shows they are engaged with the story.  Kids love when one of their questions are answered in the text of a story! Sometimes questions are not answered.  However, this just keeps the reader thinking and encourages the reader to do more research to find the answers. Mistakes That Worked encourages kids to question.

Some thinking stems you can use with your child to get them asking questions are:

• I wonder...  
• Why...
• How could....
• What if...

As you read each mistake that worked, be sure to model asking questions.  This will encourage your child to ask questions. Ask genuine questions you have. For example, when I first read about the chocolate chip cookie said, "What if the chocolate chip cookie would have never been invented?  I wonder what Ruth thought the first time she tried the chocolate chip cookie." 

This book is also great for determining importance.  Each story will present a lot of neat information, but what is really important to remember? After reading each story be sure to talk with your child what one thing they want to remember about the invention.  This is also a great way to summarize!  

You can use some of the following thinking stems to help your child determine what is important.

• I want to remember...
• One thing we should notice...
• It's interesting that.

There are lots of way to extend your child's learning beyond the book. 

1. Make or purchase one of the mistakes that worked and explore it with your own hands! Who wouldn't love playing with a slinky after reading about it?  Or making their own waffle cone?  
2. Pick your favorite mistake that worked and do some research about it to learn more. 
3. Visit the United States Patent of Trademark Office Kids' Pages and learn all about past inventions and patents!  Your child can even do a search for patents!
4. Work with your child and create your own invention.  Kids often come up with some of the best ideas!
5. Visit the Invent Now Museum in Akron, Ohio.  It is FREE!  I have never been so I cannot give a review on it.  
6. Sign your child up for a Camp Invention close to your home!