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When the Spanish viceroy comes for an unscheduled visit to the monastery, the cook goes into a frenzy. What will they feed this important ambassador to the king? Carlos, the orphan boy who works in the kitchen, tries to stay out of the way as lunch is hastily prepared, but his curiosity gets the best of him. His eagerness results in a moment of crisis, followed by what Brother Roberto can only assume is a miracle. This story, inspired by the Mexican folk tradition, explains the origins of mole, the popular national dish that combines chocolate with turkey, spices, and nuts. Caroline McAlister is considered as a single author. I liked her book Holy Mole because it is multicultural and the students can learn about Mexicos myth and folktales.
http://www.jacketflap.com/profile.asp?member=cmcalist

Another multicultural book i recommend is Tar Beach. The author, Faith Ringgold, recounts the dream adventure of eight-year-old Cassie Louise Lightfoot, who flies above her apartment-building rooftop. The tale sparkles with symbolic and historical references central to African-American culture. The spectacular artwork resonates with color and texture. Children will delight in the universal dream of mastering one's world by flying over it.
http://www.faithringgold.com/ringgold/book01.htm

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As soon as they say good night to Mama, the five little monkeys start to jump on their bed. But trouble lies ahead as, one by one, they fall off and hurt themselves. Eileen Christelow created many great picture books and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed was one of my favorites. I would love to recite the rhyme in the book. It is perfect for the age group kindergarten to 2nd grade.
http://www.christelow.com/

One book I dont recommend for young readers to read is The Magic School Bus. It may be very educational, but it has too many words all over the pictures; sidebar text and conversations, along with the primary narrative text. I think the reader is better off watching the show than reading about it.
http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/books/authors/

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Little Red Riding Hood is a traditional Grimm story. Little Red learns her lessons to keep her promises, to stay on the path, to mind her manners, and to avoid talking to big, bad wolves; lessons parents still try to teach their children many generations after the Brothers Grimm first recorded this story. They wrote so many fairy tale stories that were orally told from generation to generation, but never recorded on book. So the Grimm brothers decided to write them down and put them together to create an anthology.

http://www.grimmfairytales.com/en/main




Tom, Billy, Allen and Joe are best friends, but that friendship is put to the test when Alan challenges Billy to eat 15 worms in 15 days. If he does it, Allen will give Billy $50. If he doesn't, well, Allen gets to call Billy a chicken for the rest of his life. The rules are simple: Billy can prepare the worm any way he wants, and he can glop as much ketchup and mustard on the worm as he likes, but if he misses a day, he loses the bet. How To Eat Fried Worms is a wriggly little work of youth fiction full of lively characters, hilarious situations and punchy, quirky dialogue. I reead this book when i was in the 3rd grade and liked it.
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-9780440445456-0

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I would like to recognize this certain book because it is an interesting story of a missing teacher; top-notch tale of teacher from the dark side. It is called Miss Nelson is Missing. It became a series by the author Harry Allard. He also wrote The Stupids. It may sound a bit harsh for a title but it describes well the family in the book for the things they do. Its just a little sense of humour for the readers to enjoy.

http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/birthbios/brthpage/01jan/1-27allard.html



In the third grade, I remember my teacher reading to us everyday the book Sideway Stories Wayside School. It is about this school that was built 30 floors high and in this school unusual things were happening. Louis Sachar came up with a crazy mixed up school. But my class enjoyed it. My teacher even put in our names as the student charcters in the book which made it funny for us. The same author wrote another book in '99 that got him the National Book Award, the Newberry Medal, and "Best Book of the Year" awards from Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, and School Library Journal.
http://www.louissachar.com/Wayside.htm

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R.L. Stine is a writer for teens and I got to read most of his books in middle school. He's well known for being the author of the book series Goosebumps. He was very popular in the 90's and even had the Goosebump show series on FOX TV. His books were all on scary and suspense. I remember my best friend was even in the R.L. Stine book club. He had all the collection. I was hooked up on them too.
http://www.biblio.com/author_biographies/2116434/R_L_Stine.html

Another great fiction author would be C. S. Lewis. He writes great novels. The most popular one is "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". I like this kind of story because it creates a world of great fantasy. C.S. Lewis also writes a great deal of poetry.
http://cslewis.drzeus.net/books/fiction.html

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When I hear the word poetry for children's literature, the first thing that pops to mind is Dr. Seuss. Who hasn't heard of Dr. Seuss? I believe the main book he is known for is The Cat in the Hat. But my favorite book would have to be Green Eggs and Ham. The Dr. Seuss series is like the closest thing to poetry I would read. It is fun and funny to read. I've read that it has been translated into 15 languages! He has done a remarkable job in writing all these rhymes for children to read and enjoy.
http://www.world-class-poetry.com/Dr_Seuss.html

Laura Numeroff has to be one of the most creative writers I've known. Her books she's written just captures the attention of young readers and has them curious. Her number one book is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Its a funny book because it starts by liking a mouse and wanting to give him a cookie, but little do you know he begins do be demanding. From feeding a mouse to pleasing the mouse, you end up running around all day until you need a nap. This story is a good book to read for ages 5-7. Not only did Laura write about a mouse but also If You Give a Pig Pancake and If You Give a Moose a Muffin.
http://aolsvc.kidsreads.aol.com/series/series-mouse-author.asp

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Here is one book that i just heard about like 2 years ago at Palo Alto College. My fundamentals math teacher shared it with the class and I absolutely loved it. "Math Curse" is the name of the book. It is perfect to share it when teaching math in school. Turns out that it is the same author who wrote "The True Story of the Three Pigs". His name is Jon Scieszka and he is very clever and a humorous guy. I loved "Math Curse" because it creates a world where everything is a problem and everyday we have to solve a problem related to math. It was funny. In this website, you will find all the books he wrote and a biography about the author.
http://www.jsworldwide.com/index.html

I think that the book Charlotte's Web is a great story for all ages. I remember reading this in elementary. It has to be one of my greatest children's book literature. It has great morals and lessons about friendship and loyalty. E.B. White did a phenomenal job on this book. The book earned him some awards. He got his ideas from his very own farm. He also wrote the book Stuart Little.
http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/HarperChildrens/kids/gamesandcontests/features/charlottesweb/default.aspx

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When I was in elementary, I fell in love with Amelia Bedelia. The author, Peggy Parish, did a great job of creating a character that is so funny because Amelia did everything literally what she is told to do. For example, if you told her to dust the table, she would throw dust on the table. I know that the young students will enjoy this series of Amelia Bedelia because everyone loves a funny person. Here are some great works from the author, Peggy Parish, that i know you will enjoy: http://aolsvc.kidsreads.aol.com/series/series-amelia-titles.asp

Genre presentation day 3 and 4

Last Tuesday's presentation was very good! I had never heard about The Giving Tree and I absolutely loved it! I liked how the group used creative props for their presentation. I was really into the story they showed as a little animated movie.
Last Thursday's presentation was done on multicultural and i really liked that they showed good examples of some good books of different cultures. They read a good story called Magda's Tortillas and even brought the class homemade tortillas with butter! That was a big plus! Ha Ha! I really liked how they were prepared and showed some examples of the cultures' foods.

Genre presentation day2

For the next group, i forgot what genre they did, but the message they sent across was about grace. They gave us a summary on three stories they chose and the moral for all three were related with grace. I thought it was very deep and the end of the presentation, they had one of their members sing a special song. It was lovely and sang very well! I was impressed! For the next group that same day, they did theirs on fantasy. I never realized the many types of fantasies. It was very informative. The pictures were good. The props they did on one of their books about the chair was great! I enjoyed the story.

Genre presentation Day1

The first group that presented on Thursday did a great presentation on multicultural literature. I was very entertained with the story they chose and the set up was fantastic! They did stick puppets and the background stage was creative! The movie maker they did on the story was great also. I saw how this group was super prepared and provided sufficient information. I really enjoyed it!

Chapter 5/Chap.14

To many people, poetry has always been like a lovely harmony of rhythm. As I got older, I understood it more than I did as a child. I was hardly interested in poetry in elementary. It was confusing for me. The only poetry I would recite were Mother Goose rhymes. I think every child enjoyed the bouncy, happy rhymes that Mother Goose provided for its' readers. I think it is very significant for our young readers to become more than readers, but to become writers. Children of all ages are fascinated through many endless stories and countless journeys of literature. As they get deeper into a book they enjoy reading, they can express and create ideas as they write their own kind of literature stories. In our text book, on page 318, it talks about the writing process. Authors taught us that writing is often hard work and with lots of drafts and much revision, we can become great writers in literature and persuade readers through our stories. Developing a comprehensive and effective writing program is an important part of any living literature classroom. When the students keep on working and re-writing, they will reach a point when the story starts coming to life .

Genre Presentation

On Thursday's genre presentation, we had the privilege to watch a story recorded by the group. Their presentation was over multicultural literature. This topic was very interesting and we learned that there are all sorts of good literature around the world. Some stories even have a good moral to them. By reading multicultural literature, we get familiarized with the type of cultural the story is based on and with the customs. I think the group did an excellent job on re-telling their story with the paper figures they created and even with background music.

Chapter 8 Fiction

What can I say about fiction stories? It is our window to escape out of reality and go into a world where anything can happen. When I hear the word "fiction", I think about magic, monsters, and heroes. There are different type of genres of fiction, but out of all of them, i have to say that fantasy is what draws me in. One of the popular fictional stories that is selling like crazy right now is the Twilight series. All the young people are into this love story between a mortal human and a vampire. My favorite fiction stories are scary stories. Fiction explores possibilities limited only by the imagination. I like how our text book quotes that stretching the imagination through literature has wonderful psychological rewards, extending the boundaries of what we perceive as reality (Living Literature 179). Every child loves to daydream and imagine a different world of human beings and of creatures that talk. Reading fiction stories to our classrooms will keep our students interested in reading because we are showing them that there can exist a whole new world where anything is possible and can happen.

Nonfiction

Believe it or not, when we hear the word nonfiction, we tend to push it away. It doesn't fascinate much people as the fiction stories do. But I stop and realize that in the literacy world there needs to be a balance; a balance between the real world and the fantasy world. Nonfiction can be about biographies and facts of all sorts of things. I think that it is important to feed true facts to our children so that they may gain knowledge. Visual information is the main ingredient in nonfiction books. Without illustrations, the books would be pointless to our young readers. Illustrations and other visual material are an increasingly vital feature of nonfiction books. Today's books are filled with extraordinary photographs and illustrations. It clarifies and expands the understanding of the readers. It is also always interesting in reading about other people's lives and the experiences they went through.

Shared Reading

The article was very insightful. I think it is very important to conduct shared readings in our classrooms. I learned that it it gives young children an enjoyable experience so that they grow to love stories and become independent readers and writers. Reading aloud is bringing literature alive to the children. I love reading to children and i read the stories dramatically to the whole group. The children become so fascinated and more engaged to the story as i get into it. Any child can pick up a book and read but they can never compare the experience with the shared reading with the whole class. It becomes memorable for them because of all the connection they had with the book and the rest of the class. As they reread the stories, they pick up new information that they probably have missed in the first time. It turns out that reading aloud needs to happen for every student at all grade levels. It is very effective in developing and supporting many aspects of literacy like: interest in reading, language development, building vocabulary, developing listening comprehension, understanding different kinds of sentence structures, and so much more.

Traditional Literature "LiL Red"

Well, what can i say about traditional literature? Never thought that it could be dirty. Some folktale were unclean and unappropriate for little children. One of them was Little Red Riding Hood. When i first read the original story of little red, i was astonished on what i was reading! It turns out that some folktale literature were made for adults; more like a rated "R" story. The big bad wolf chopping up the grandma and putting her in a jar and having little red eating and drinking the blood of her own grandmother was really something! So the story of little red riding hood came a long way and was cleaned up for the children. I can imagine for the children if they were to find out about the original version, how freaked out they would be. It was mostly written or told for adult entertainment. Good thing most of the stories have changed and are appropriate for children to enjoy. I think that they should come up with childrens literature of their own and not use a dirty adult story to clean it up and re-tell the story in a clean version. How gross is that? Why pick up trash?

Chapter 4

In this chapter, we learn that it is important to meet the interest of the students. Now we're talking about students of all ages and each have their own preferences. The text gives us a perfect example on page 61 of how to approach the students to find out the type of literature they are interested in. Our professor also encouraged us to pass out a survey to the class to get to know our students and to make the perfect selections of literature. Growth has wide variations; children change at different rates and their development is affected by many social, cultural, and biological factors (Kasten, Kristo and McClure). Not every child read at the same level. We are given helpful tips of selecting the perfect literature on page 63. We have a wide range of books and it is possible that the child would want to read a certain nonfiction book, but it may not be in there reading level. I learned that we need to be careful to select a book that is easy for them to read to help build confidence. It's a good thing that we can give options to the children of what they would like to read. I would like a great response from my class having great interaction and feedback. Another important review was the cultural influences, to find literature based on their unique background. I remember as a child that one of my elementary teachers read this book about how people from Mexico celebrate Christmas. I could relate to the book because i would celebrate the same way when i would travel to Mexico to visit my family. I connected right away. We should connect our readers to the story.

Comprehension is the understanding of what you read. I like how Frank Smith describes what comprehending is in the text book and he quotes," It is the interaction between the visual information a reader perceives and the nonvisual information that the reader connects to". In other words, every letter, word, and other symbolswe read in a book, our ninds paint a picture of how it would be like or look like. Our imagination kicks in. Our role as a teacher id to find good literature that relate to their interests and experience. Not everything students read suit their interests and so it is important to engage our students into reading to expand their minds. One thing i learned on this chapter is about scaffolding. It is a very supportive teaching tool that enables readers to grow and to make the as independent as possible. The importance of making the child read is to enlarge the reader's vocabulary and word knowledge. When scaffolding, we are getting the feed back of the student to see what they got from the reading. By asking questions or opinions about the reading gets the students involved instead of having the whole focus on the teacher. There are different ways of assessing comprehension listed in the chapter and each are great tools to use. There is no such thing as just one way to do it, but we find different creative ways to to examine the students to see how well they are comprehending. We want to get the attention of the students and not bore them to death. Reading should be fun!

Chapter 2

I found chapter 2 to be very informative. When I hear the word "culture", it catches my attention and makes me curious of what its about. I learned that there are two kinds of culture. The first one is called surface culture which, to me, has to do with the outer appearance. When one bumps into someone who is wearing boots, a charro suit, and a sombrero right away thinks, "Oh! He's from Mexico". People judge from what the eye sees on the outside like how they dress, what they eat, and the type of house they live in. A true exploration of culture refers to deep culture. This consists of characteristics, values, and beliefs. These are not so apparent and it is important to get to know and understand our students. I will be aware of all this now and as a teacher I will let my students express themselves and let them draw their cultural background and show us how special and unique they are. School culture was an important topic we talked about in class. We have a variety of cultures that meet at a school that is only singled down to one kind of culture. Here in America, we follow a schedule for the beginning and the ending of the school day. We are divided by grade-level classes and have certain instructional practices as well as discipline. I've heard that in some other countries, children work by day and go to school at night. I bet that it can tough for foreign exchange students to get adjusted to our customs. It can make them feel out of place. This also leads to mismatched cultures causing serious issues in schools. The school is like a big pot of multi-cultures mixed in, but the school wants to keep it just one flavor. This chapter has been very helpful in breaking the ice in a classroom. There's a section that talks about cutural responsive model and it is a good tool and shows us how to make the students feel comfortable and valued.

So, here I am exploring blogger. Anyone out there? LOL I need some blogger friends!