Lit Block Book Blog

This popular children's book emphasizes the learning of the alphabet in a fun way. By using fun rhymes and a funny story about the letters climbing up a coconut tree, this simple  plot is something the young audience can easily understand. I would say the intended audience for this book is preschool/kindergarteners who are learning their upper and lowercase letters. An activity I would do with my class from this book is to do a readers' theatre skit where each student would be a letter. Depending on the reading of the book, the student would do whatever the book said that letter did. When the letters fall, the students would fall. This could be a fun way to engage students and get them moving while learning a fundamental lesson.

I Am Jazz is a book that follows the story of a transgender girl (an individual born genetically as a male). This book is kid-friendly, stressing the importance of acceptance of all individuals no matter their back story. Because this book follows Jazz through her issues at school and also troubles with herself, this book is great for a classroom that might experience a child who is transgender. I would say this book would be great for any elementary school child, but more specifically 2nd to 3rd grade. Children are very curious and just want to understand unusual circumstances. An activity that could be done with this classroom would be to have a whole group lesson on diversity with this book but show students that really they have a lot more in common than they may think. The students would draw a venn-diagram, the two circles representing the two individuals. The students would complete the diagram based on what they have in common and what are their differences. Overall, this book would be great to introduce a heavy subject in a light, understandable and kid-friendly way.  

This popular children's picture book taps into one of the first words we learn as young kids- NO! While this book is mostly based upon true, but humorous, scenarios many kids go through (drawing on the wall, playing during time out, overflowing the bubble bath, etc.) This book would be perfect for kindergarteners or 1st graders because the illustrations relate to that audience and the children can relate text to self by reflecting on times they were told no. An activity I could do with this book would be at the beginning of school to read this book, then go through do and don'ts on kindergarten/1st grade (what makes a good student vs. what makes a bad student). Overall, this book is so much fun to share with young students while also catching their attention and getting them engaged in the classroom discussion.

Charlotte's Web is a classic piece of children's literature. From a little girl saving a runt pig, to that pig later stealing everyone's heart this book is sure to captivate the mind's of its readers. This novel is great for young readers, I would say a target of 4th grade, because it not only gives insight to the ways of life on a farm, but it also provides instructional time for new words, and interesting facts about spiders which mostly comes from Charlotte. An activity that I would love to do in my classroom after reading this novel would be to have each student draw a name, like a secret pal type thing, and have them make their own spider web out of paper plate with holes around the edges and white yarn. The students would then write a nice word that explains their secret pal, just like Charlotte did for Wilbur.