Stephanie Bennett: Resource Share

Polka-Bats and Octopus Slacks; 14 Stories by Calef Brown
I recently found this amazing illustrator and author Calef Brown.  I have read this particular book and find it to be silly and fun for kids to read.  There are fourteen short poems filled with rhyming and a lot of nonsense.  This is definitely a book to pull out when you have time to be silly and hear laughter.  It would be great to use for inspiration of poetry and creative writing along with illustrating.

Astronomy: Out of This World! by Dan Green
I found this series of science books that include many more books including physics, the periodic table, biology etc.  These are colorful fact filled books.  I think the approach used with these books is to introduce complicated subject matter and scientific terminology in a fun way to young readers.  Early readers would benefit from going over maybe a chapter at a time, where as older readers could use these books as a means to exploring more subject matter and research on their own.  When I tried reading this book to children, they enjoyed the material and I felt subject matter was retained by not trying to read everything and going back to it every few days.

Alive:  The Living, Breathing, Human Body Book by DK Publishing
This book is an interactive science book.  Although I can't see being able to get a hold of this book for each and every child in a classroom, this would be a fun book for allowing a child to look over during a quiet reading period.  It has interactive sound and pop out pages.  There is so much information in this book that it is one of those books that you can work on one page at a time, possibly leading kids to explore other topics.  This would be great to pull out if you want to teach certain science concepts along with reading.




http://www.randomhouse.com/teachers/
I found this resource, not only great for teachers but parents might like this link as well, just to keep up to date and current literature and ideas for reading to children.  The site offers ideas according to grade or age levels.  It also has a search option that seems pretty comprehensive.  It offers ideas on reading programs as well.  I found this to be an easily navigated resource, so it could be useful for finding ideas without having to spend a massive amount of time trying to figure out how the site is organized.


http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=4
I personally find searching for children's books and any books for that matter, very convenient and easy on Amazon.com.  I realize that this a resource for buying books, but it can be so much more.  Because Amazon.com uses Web2.0, we can all use the values of book reviews if we are on the fence about choosing a book.  Amazon.com also makes it easy to buy used book, out of print books, and books from several publishers.  I have found leaving reviews and reading reviews to be an essential part of this site.  I also have a dear friend who is librarian who uses this for her go to site for finding books, so when I asked her for ideas for my blog post, she said for easy online navigation...go to amazon.com