Practically Paradise   

I received a few fiction titles from ABDO  for consideration and am packing them in the box for River Valley to enjoy. These are appropriate for elementary ages and have reinforced library bindings to last longer than paperback versions. 

Pirate School series of 6 titles by Brian James  Attack on the High Seas: #3 ©2010 ISBN 978-1-59961-584-4 $15.95 64 pages Published by arrangement with Grosset & Dunlap / Penguin Young Readers.

On the pirate ship the Sea Rat, Pete and his friends live, go to pirate school and deal with the nasty first mate named Ro...Read More

Enslow Publishing company has a math series that I like for elementary called Math Fun with Sebastian Pig and Friends! Written by Jill Anderson and illustrated by Amy Huntington, these titles incorporate math and literature with pictures to visually represent the math. I appreciate the use of a notebook or journal to record his learning. I think a classroom math teacher could easily expand upon this. This is an example of a series that incorporates math in a fun manner for elementary-age students. I wanted to use the title with middle school resource students, but they deemed it too young for them.

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I do like to mix up my gift boxes with fiction and information titles. Each of these titles deserves a complete blog post so please read all the way through and don't make me have to post each individually.

• The Vowel Family: A Tale of Lost Letters
• Corkscrew Counts
• About Rodents: A Guide for Children
• In the Night Garden
• Double Trouble Groundhog Day
• Buster Goes to Cowboy Camp
• No Mush Today

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Had to mention these rhyme in the title because I have many teacher colleagues in preschool-grade 1 who love to read-aloud rhyming books and books in verse. The Learn With Animals set from Weekly Reader / Gareth Stevens is surprising. In 32 pages they introduce us to ten animals of each habitat. 

Each two-page spread has an illustration of the animal appropriate for the very youngest preschooler on one page and a poem about the animal written in a child-friendly font on the other page. The poetry is very simple (don't expect Robert Louis Stevenson) but w...Read More

Today's box to give River Valley Elementary contains Weekly Reader / Gareth Stevens Publishing titles intended for kindergartners and first graders.  

Months of the Year is a WR Social Studies set. ©2010 Containing between 142-186 words each title is written at Fountas & Pinell Levels H and I. I'm loving the reinforced library binding on these books intended for the toughest kids in school - the kindergartners and first graders. S&L Price is $198.00 or $16.50 each.

Months of the Year includes twelve titles, one for each month, in a smaller 7"x7" size which immediately signals ...Read More

Julie Dos Santos is the author of the series Amazing Machines from publisher Marshall Cavendish Benchmark. © 2010. Discounted price $19.95 each.

Cranes ISBN 978-0-7614-4401-5

Diggers ISBN 978-0-7614-4402-2

Fire Engines ISBN 978-0-7614-4403-9

Aircraft ISBN 978-0-7614-4404-6

Tractors ISBN 978-0-7614-4406-0

Trucks ISBN 978-0-7614-4407-7

Trucks We've all had students who loved one form of transportation and wanted to read and re-read every book yo...Read More

Julie A. Walker, Executive Director of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has asked us to forward the information below widely. I hope you will participate on behalf of all school librarians and our students. 

Late in October, I sat in on a webinar regarding the National Educational Technology Plan. If you have not done so already, I want to urge all of you to go to the site: www.edtechfuture.org . The developers are seeking input on all four aspects of the plan: learning, assessment, teaching and productivity / infrastructure. At the time of the late October webinar, the developers expressed concern about the LOW VOLUME of comments they had received. They are particularly looking for examples o...Read More