Golden Archer Award 2015 - The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

What a fabulous last book for the Golden Archer Awards! 

Our last title and activity was for Drew Daywalt's The Day the Crayons Quit. 

A major thing that helped me with the success of reading this book, as I was finding it was going over the heads of my first few classes, was to discuss what it means to quit before reading the book. Then as we read, I paused every few crayons and asked why did that crayon want to quit? As students summarized why that color wanted to quit, students were really connecting to the crayons and wanting Duncan to fix the problems. I highly suggest this method for reading this book! 

When we finished reading, students were asked to write a letter back to one crayon "explaining" why they did not want that crayon to quit. I used this freebie from Peace, Love, & Learning.

This student first drew this...

Then he had extra time left so I asked him to add more detail. Look how awesome his picture looks now! 

And yes, we did have the classic mis-spelling happen. I had to take this pic! 

We vote next week! I have a feeling I know which book my kids will like best but I can't wait to see for sure! 

Golden Archer Awards 2015 - That is Not a Good Idea by Mo Willems

Week four of the Golden Archer Awards! This week was SO much fun! Although, perhaps the shortest book I have ever used as a read aloud, the look on students' faces at the end of the book was priceless! 

We read Mo Willem's That is Not a Good Idea. 

After reading the book, we talked about all of the surprise elements and about the chicks who continue to scream, "That is not a good idea!" Students then got to do their own activity of making their own unique chick! 

The activity for That is Not a Good Idea was really a great way to let kids' creativity flow!

Golden Archer Awards 2015 - Pete the Cat and his Magic Sunglasses by James Dean

It's week three of the Golden Archer Awards! 

We read the much anticipated book Pete the Cat and his Magic Sunglasses by Kimberly and James Dean this week. Students are very familiar with Pete the Cat so they couldn't wait to hear this story. My perception was that they were not as impressed as they thought they would be but they did still like the story. 

After reading this one, we made our own magic sunglasses! I used this fabulous template from Picklebums.

Check out these cool cats! 

On to book four! 

Golden Archer Awards 2015 - The Dark by Lemony Snicket

Reading the Golden Archer Awards books to my students is so much fun! 

This week we read The Dark by Lemony Snicket. As a first soiree into picture books, he did a fabulous job. I mean, how could you go wrong with Jon Klassen as your illustrator?! 

After reading the book, students were asked to draw something they were afraid of. We then added the dark to it by putting a black piece of construction paper over the drawing. Then we got brave like Laszlo and took out our flashlights, i.e. cut a triangle shaped hold into our dark. Things are never as scary when you can see them! 

This student was afraid of Bigfoot. I love the perspective he drew his picture from! 

Add your light and it's not nearly as scary as it was in the dark!

 I had to include this amazing shark picture for you to see as well! 

The kids really liked sharing their fears and making them not so scary! 

Golden Archer Awards 2015 - Oh No! by Candace Fleming

Hello! It is time for the 2015 Golden Archer Awards! 

Kindergarten through second grade students are taking part in this statewide program that awards one exemplary picture book this award. The award is specific to Wisconsin and the book that wins it is selected by students around the state. We will read the five nominated titles during the coming weeks. Each student will cast a vote for their favorite book and those votes will be sent on to the committee. The Golden Archer Award is sponsored by the Wisconsin Educational Media and Technology Association. The Award winner will be announced at the annual WEMTA conference in late March. 

The primary level nominees are: 

This first week, I read Oh, No! by Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann to my classes. (Side note: Did you know they are married? My kids loved hearing that. :) ) 

We read the story first. I had students participate by saying the animal sounds and the "Oh, no!"s. Then we re-enacted the story using animal masks. The kids had a ton of fun with this! They can't wait until next week for story number 2! 

WI Golden Archer Awards - Week Five - Happy Pig Day!

I saved the book Happy Pig Day! by Mo Willems for the last book in our Golden Archer program.  I did this because I knew the kids were excited to hear it and I wanted to keep that excitement going until the very end.  Dangling the carrot perhaps?

This is another Elephant and Piggie book in which Gerald, the elephant, feels as though he has done something wrong.  He receives a big surprise though and all is well in the end.  This book is written through dialogue and the students really enjoyed it. 

For our activity, I took two pages from the Happy Pig Day! Event Kit published by Pigeon Presents for Children.  Students were able to help Gerald get dressed for the big event or create a Pig mask of their own to wear.  The pig mask was more popular by far but Gerald had a few fans as well. 

Next week is voting!  I can't wait to find out how my kids vote, as this year all of the books are very good in my eyes!  Are you participating?  Please share in the comments what you are doing that works well for you! 

WI Golden Archer Awards - Week Four - A Ball for Daisy

Week four of the WI Golden Archer Awards program brings my groups to A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka.  This book was the 2012 Caldecott Medal winner.  I chose to do this book next so that we could practice our new skill of reading wordless books.  Students remembered right away to not cheat by looking ahead at the pictures to come on the page.  This is especially important for the climax of this story. 

As a follow up activity for A Ball for Daisy, I chose to have students divide their paper into four parts and draw a wordless story of their own.  In most classes, the telling of the story took 20 minutes so they weren't left with a lot of time to draw but many of them had good beginnings.  Here are some of my hard workers:

This story features a cat named Rosie.  In the second frame, her owner is taking her for a walk.  I am having a bad memory right now but this student had an entire story already going with just these two frames.  She was very excited to take her paper with her so she could finish the story at her next opportunity.  Perhaps she will bring it back to share next week? 

This story is of a man who goes on the hunt for a shark.  It takes him a long time but eventually he finds one. Again, the amount of detail the student was telling me while explaining the photo was amazing.  Students are amazing! 

I found that my second grade classes were the best at telling this story because they were really able to put themselves in the place of Daisy and think about her feelings throughout the story.  All of the levels understood the story but second grade showed the most empathy for Daisy. 

Stay tuned - two more books to go! 

WI Golden Archer Awards - Week Three - Polo and the Dragon

It is week three of our Golden Archer Awards program and we are reading Polo and the Dragon by Regis Faller.  This is a wordless book in which a little dog has some trouble with his boat and enters a jungle only to meet a fearsome dragon!  Nah, the dragon turns out the be nice and helps the dog with his boat trouble.  

Many of my classes had not read a wordless book before so to introduce the process, I showed one page from another nominee and 2012 Caldecott winner, A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka.  Students learned how to navigate a wordless page by starting to read from the upper left corner, just like if there were text there.  We examined an entire two page set before moving on to read Polo and the Dragon.

When reading the story, students were awesome at coming up with text to accompany the pictures.  In almost every class it took the entire 30 minute period to tell the story.  Students were engaged with bright eyes and sharp minds.  They especially loved when I screamed because there was a dragon behind Polo in the book!  (Again, maybe you had to be there...)

This book won over several students who I thought it wouldn't.  Yes, it's that good.  I really am starting to wonder who is going to get the most votes here at my schools for the Golden Archer Award.  Only two more books to go and then we will find out! 

WI Golden Archer Awards - Week Two - I Want My Hat Back

We are in the second week of our Golden Archer program which means it's time for our second read aloud! This week I chose to go with I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen.  Jon Klassen just won the 2013 Caldecott Medal for his follow-up book to this, This is Not My Hat.  Congratulations! 

This book is so sweet!  (But caution, it involves the eating of a very cute animal!) 

As a follow up to reading the book, students created miniature hats just like Bear's.  I found the hat template here on Scribd.  

A few action shots of students being creative:

They love their mini hats! 

This book was loved by many.  The simple illustrations made it easy to see what was happening in the story.  The dialogue-only text made it fun to read to students and they enjoyed hearing all of the different voices I could project.  They especially loved my squirrel voice! (Had to be there...) 

Stay tuned for week three of our Golden Archer reads! 

The Golden Archer Awards are sponsored by WEMTA, the WI state library association.  The award is completely student chosen, from nomination to final award.  The 2013 nominees are: 
1.   A Ball for Daisy by Raschka, Christopher (2011)
2.   Blackout by Rocco, John (2011)
3.   Happy Pig Day by Willems, Mo (2011)
4.   I Want My Hat Back by Klassen, Jon (2011)
5.   Polo and the Dragon by Faller, Regis (2009)

WI Golden Archer Awards - Week One - Blackout

The time of year has arrived for the WI Golden Archer Awards program to begin in my libraries!  This is a student-chosen award given out to one book in each of three levels: primary, intermediate, and middle/junior high school.  The award is run by and sponsored by the state library association, WEMTA. In my schools, I do this with all of the kindergarten and first grade classrooms.  I also have one school in which the second grade is also participating. 

The five nominated titles for 2013 in the primary category are: 
1.   A Ball for Daisy by Raschka, Christopher (2011)

2.   Blackout by Rocco, John (2011)
3.   Happy Pig Day by Willems, Mo (2011)
4.   I Want My Hat Back by Klassen, Jon (2011)
5.   Polo and the Dragon by Faller, Regis (2009)


This week was our first week of the program and we started by reading Blackout by John Rocco.  This book is a Caldecott honor book.  I wonder if it will be a Golden Archer Award winner as well? 

As an activity for this book, I choose to adapt an idea from It's All Good Books.  The students were given a piece of night (black paper).  They were to light up the night by choosing pre-cut die cut shapes and writing one sentence on each.  They completed these three sentences: 

The dark is _____. 
I feel ______. 
I wish ________. 

Here are a few student workers: 

I wasn't sure how kids would feel about this book but it turns out they absolutely loved it!  This one might be hard to beat! 

Stay tuned for the next four weeks! 

The Sissy Duckling

Do you know the story of the ugly duckling?  Most of us do.  How about the sissy duckling?  No?  I had never heard of it either! 

In this book by Harvey Fierstein, Elmer is a duck who is a little bit different.  He doesn't like to do all the same things as the other boy ducks.  He doesn't want to play football, he would rather draw.  He doesn't want to box, he would rather build sand castles.  Some of the ducks start calling him a sissy.  They are bullying Elmer but he doesn't understand why.  His mama tells him he is a wonderful boy and someday he will "amaze them all".  Even Elmer's dad calls him names and thinks he isn't a very good son.

When Elmer hears his dad say that he is not a good son, Elmer runs away.  When all of the other ducks fly south for the winter, his dad is shot by hunters.  Elmer is going to try to save him but no duck has ever survived a winter before.  Will Elmer be able to help?  Can a different duck make a difference? 

Emma Dilemma

The sweetest book has just arrived in the library!  It's called Emma Dilemma and it's by Kristine O'Connell George. 

If any of you have a little sister, you will really like this book.  Emma is Jess's little sister.  She is always following Jess around, playing with her things, and just being a big pain.  Jess is sick of it.  This book explains Jess's feelings with short poems.  All of the poems together form a story about what it is like to be a big sister.  Jess thinks Emma is just a big bother, but what will happen when Emma falls and gets hurt?

This book is so awesome that I called up the book store and ordered my own copy for home!

Frankly Frannie

Frankly Frannie by AJ Stern is a book that will make you smile.  Frannie is an elementary school kid who just wants to help.  She also wants to be a grown up.  This means she tries to act like a grown up all the time.  (Most times it doesn't work out.) 

In this adventure, Frannie's class is about to go visit a radio station.  Frannie is seriously in love with offices and anything professional looking.  She is more excited than anyone else in her class.  Things are going well until Frannie has to go to the bathroom. Everything goes downhill from there.  She's just trying to help but will her help be wanted? 

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: the mysterious howling

This chapter book is wonderful for mischievous kids and the ones who always follow the rules.  How can a book be for both types of kids?  In The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: the mysterious howling, we meet Penelope Lumley who has just graduated from the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females.  She is 15 years old and is going to an interview to be a nanny for 3 children.  She doesn't find out anything about the children until after she accepts the job.  The three children were raised by wolves!  Miss Lumley has to go out to the barn to meet them, where Lady Constance and Lord Fredrick have been keeping them.

As we keep reading the book, we get to know Miss Lumley and the three children.  She works very hard at getting them to behave like normal little kids, all leading up to the big Christmas party Lady Constance is throwing.  It seems like someone in the house wants these three children gone though.  Who could it be?  Who is trying to get rid of them? 

This must be the beginning of a series of books too, because the ending isn't totally clear.  What will happen to the children?  Where was Lord Fredrick during the party?  And is there someone living behind the wall in the attic?  We'll have to keep reading the next book to find out!

A Penguin Story

Do you know anyone that is color blind?  Edna isn't color blind but all she sees is black, white and blue.  That's it!  Three colors all around her, nothing else.  The snow is white, the night is black, and the sea is blue.  Even she is black and white!  Are there any other colors in the world?  Edna sets out to find out!  

She's a smart little penguin and this story has such sweet pictures!  Follow Edna on her journey by coming to the library and checking out A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis. 

Do you need a haircut?

When was the last time you got a haircut?  Have you ever given a haircut?  Have you ever given a monster a haircut?  The little boy in this story has!  His dad owns a barber shop and every month on the full moon, the little boy sneaks out of the house and goes down to his dad's shop.  All through the night monsters come in to get their hair cut.  On the night in the story, someone knocks at the barber shop door.  No one ever knocks.  Who could it be? Is the little boy about to get in trouble?  Eek! 

Even Monsters Need Haircuts by Matthew McElligott is now in all the elementary libraries.  Go check it out!