My, Oh My- a Butterfly! By: Dr. Seuss

Book Title: My, Oh My- a Butterfly!

Author: Dr. Seuss

Illustrator: Dr. Seuss

Genre: Nonfiction

Summary: This colorful rhyme filled book goes through the life cycle of butterflies

ELA Content Standard 1: Grade 2, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas #6- Explain how specific images (e.g., a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text.

How it Connects:Clear diagrams and illustrations show what happens to a butterfly when it goes through the various stages of life

ELA Content Standard 2: Grade 2, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas #8- Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic.

How it Connects:Students can compare and contrast butterflies from moths or even as simple as comparing and contrasting caterpillars from butterflies

3 Tiers of  Vocab: 1)bug 2)butterfly 3)chrysalis

How Children Use Book: Small Groups

Meets Needs: Gifted students can use this for additional research for later projects

The Art Box By: Gail Gibbons

Book Title: The Art Box

Author: Gail Gibbons

Illustrator: Gail Gibbons

Genre:Nonfiction

Summary: This book lists and labels many different kinds of art tools and what they are used for.

ELA Content Standard 1:Kindergarten, Craft and Structure #5- Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

How it Connects:Students can explore this book as a physical book before going deeper into the content to understand the basic necessities of navigating the pages and who created this book they are about to read

ELA Content Standard 2: Kindergarten, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas #7- With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts).

How it Connects:Students can read the labels next to the drawings of each new word and object

3 Tiers of  Vocab: 1)box 2) drawing 3) protractor

How Children Use Book: Dyslexic students can use this book to clearly see the word and the picture of the word side by side

Meets Needs: SPED can use this for artistic styles of learning/comprehension and expression of understanding through creativity

The Tiny Seed By: Eric Carle

Book Title: The Tiny Seed

Author: Eric Carle

Illustrator: Eric Carle

Genre: Nonfiction

Summary: A story of the cycle

ELA Content Standard 1: Grade 2, Text and Types of Purpose #2- Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section.

How it Connects:Students can use this book as a guide when writing their own stories based on their research

ELA Content Standard 2: Grade 1, Text Types of Purpose #2- Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

How it Connects: Students can use this book to focus on blending facts and story components together into their writing based on information and research

3 Tiers of  Vocab: 1) seed, flower 2) Autumn 3) seed-pod 

How Children Use Book: Individually and Small Groups

Meets Needs: Gifted students can use this book to talk about how the plants grow (photosynthesis) 

The Magic School Bus and the Shark Adventure By: Elizabeth Smith

Book Title: The Magic School Bus and the Shark Adventure

Author: Elizabeth Smith

Illustrator: Carolyn Bracken

Genre: Nonfiction

Summary: A group of students and their wacky teacher go on a field trip to the ocean as their magic school bus turns into a fish. They explore and learn all the many neat things that live in the ocean. 

ELA Content Standard 1: Grade 2, Text and types of Purpose #2- Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section.

How it Connects:Students can take the information form the book and use it to help in deeper research.

ELA Content Standard 2: Grade 3, Comprehension and Collaboration #3- Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.

How it Connects: Students can listen to presenters on various topics centered around their book (like this on on oceans and sharks) and develop note-taking and research skills among information

3 Tiers of  Vocab: 1) school bus 2) ocean, waves 3) predator

How Children Use Book: Individually

Meets Needs: Gifted students can use this book for research in addition to other nonfiction books as a base before going more in depth

No Two Alike By: Keith Baker

Book Title: No Two Alike

Author: Keith Baker

Illustrator: Keith Baker

Genre: Nonfiction

Summary: This story explains how many things we might think are the same, are actually just similar. Everything is different and unique in their own ways.

ELA Content Standard 1: Kindergarten, Craft and Structure #5- Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

How it Connects:Students can see the physical components of the book with guidance from me and talk about books that have the same author and illustrator or who have series of continuing books with the same characters or themes.

ELA Content Standard 2: Kindergarten, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas #9- With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).

How it Connects:Students can compare and contrast what makes something similar and what make it different.

3 Tiers of  Vocab: 1) no, 2) house 3) bridge

How Children Use Book: Individually

Meets Needs: ELL can use this for simplistic vocab and matching pictures

Henry's Freedom Box

Book Title: Henry's Freedom Box

Author: Ellen Levine

Illustrator: Kadir Nelson

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary: Henry, a young boy, is a slave. He grows up a slave and is moved to a new master after his first master falls ill. He is taken aways from his family to work and grows up to become a man. He finds love and marries and had three children. But one day while he is at work, he gets news that his family has been taken away and he will never see them again. It is then that Henry decides he needs to get to freedom. He had a plan to travel in a little wooden box to Philadelphia with the help of some good friends.  

ELA Content Standard 1: Grade 1, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas #7- Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

How it Connects:Students can use the pictures to make predictions about what Henry is going to do with the box and why he is going to Philadelphia. They can also see how uncomfortable he must have been being smashed in that box upside-down. 

ELA Content Standard 2: Grade 1, Key Ideas and Details #3- Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas or pieces of information in a text.

How it Connects: Students can discuss the relationship between Henry and his family and the can also discuss deeper meanings behind slavery and the relationship between slaves and slave owners

3 Tiers of  Vocab: 1) box 2) factory 3) Philadelphia

How Children Use Book: Individually

Meets Needs: Gifted Students can use this book to look up other events and famous people during slave times to gain more insight into that time period

All the Way to America By: Dan Yaccarino

Book Title: All the Way to America

Author: Dan Yaccarino

Illustrator: Dan Yaccarino

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary: The story of an Italian immigrant and his journey to make a living for himself and his family after ariving in American. This story goes through the generations and how a little shovel, a tomato sauce recipe, hard work, and family are the important things that were carried down.

ELA Content Standard 1: Grade 1, Key Ideas and Details #3- Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

How it Connects:Students can see how the shovel was passed through the generations and how the life of the family was changed because of immigration.

ELA Content Standard 2: Grade 2, Craft and Structure #5- Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.

How it Connects: The beginning of the story sets up the rest of the book by describing the journey of the family's first immigrant to American and how he needed to find work and continue to work hard and always remember his family and to pass his knowledge down through the generations to be successful himself and for his family to be successful. 

3 Tiers of  Vocab: 1) boat 2) family 3) zucchini 

How Children Use Book: Individually and Small Group

Meets Needs: ELL students can use this to relate differences and similarities to the cultural vocab and theme of this book to their own lives (mirrors vs windows)