Secrets of the Apple Tree

Title: Secrets of the Apple Tree 
Author/Illustrator: Carron Brown And Alyssa Nassner   
Publisher: Kane/Miller Book Publishers 
Publication Date: January 1st, 2014 
Genre/Format: Non-Fiction/Picture Book 
GoodReads Summary: Who lives around the apple tree? Shine a light behind the page and see...

Explore a tree up close and you will find a small world filled with great surprises! From worms wriggling among the roots, to birds nesting high in the branches, the hidden wonders of this amazing habitat are revealed. 
What I Think: We are non-fiction fans at my house but we had some extra fun with this book. Each page shared information about nature found in and around an apple tree. One page would ask a question, almost like a riddle, that got my kids thinking about what we might find when we shined a light through the pages from the back. I used the flashlight app I have on my phone and when I held it up behind the page, we could see the answer to the question and check if they were right. Then, when we turned the page, we could read about what was illuminated with the flashlight. I've never seen a book that worked like this and it was great fun. While we were learning and thinking about nature, we were also super engaged in discovering if we were right.
     Now that the weather is warming up in our neck of the woods, it would be a great time to look closely at a tree and all the creatures that make their home in, on, around and under it. As a mentor text, this would also be a great activity to get kids outside with their writer's notebooks, observing and exploring nature and writing down what they see, smell, hear, feel, and (maybe) taste outside. There is great description - lots of $100 words - in this book that kids could try to incorporate into writing their own riddles. It might be possible to even create their own flashlight drawings or even a lift-the-flap type page or book.
Read Together: Grades Preschool - 1st 
Read Alone: Grades Preschool - 2nd 
Read With: Look Up! by Annette LeBlanc Cate, Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, Where In the Wild? by David Schwartz 
Snatch of Text: 

"Slithering, wriggling worms push 

through the soil around the roots.

A tree's roots grow long and deep. 

The roots soak up water from rain, 

which helps to keep the tree alive." 

Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Asking Questions, Making Inferences, Making Connections 
Writing Strategies to Practice: Descriptive 
Writing Prompts: Describe one of the hidden scenes from this book using your five senses to bring the image to life for readers. Take a nature walk, pay attention to details in the world around you, write your own nature-related riddles using descriptive words that incorporate your five senses.
Topics Covered:  Integration - Science

I *heart* It:

The One With My Best Friend's Wedding...Almost #slice2014

Every Tuesday, I participate in the Slice of Life challenge at Two Writing Teachers. If you want to participate, you can link up at their Slice of Life Story Post on Tuesdays or you can just head on over there to check out other people's stories. For more information on what a Slice of Life post is about, you can go here. 

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Alison and I have been friends since high school when we were in Freshman English together first period. From that very first day of school, we have been friends and shared so much of our lives with each other. In June, I'm excited to make a very special trip to Boston because she is getting married. Over the weekend, she was in town for her wedding shower. I joined her and her family friends to celebrate and talk about plans for her big day.

As I hugged her on Saturday, I thought of all the memories we share. From acting out Romeo and Juliet from English class and critiquing each other's papers to camping and rock climbing, summer mission trips in Missouri and Kentucky to touring Italy, visiting each other in college and after college, going sailing on Lake Michigan and trampolining with my family.  

It's amazing how many memories a person can stack up, file away in one's heart, hidden until a hug, a smile, a perfect spring day brings them all back. I'm so happy for Alison and thankful I am able to make the trip to Boston next month to be there for her wedding. What are some of your favorite memories with long-time friends? I would love to hear what stories come to mind!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5/12/14

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA! 

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and I decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them. 

Last Week's Book Adventures:

Jen Says: I should probably look through my posts from this school year and see if I can find some kind of pattern...but basically when I get busy, it's really hard to get posts up. Urgh. I've been listening to The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen and I'm loving it. I'm a little over halfway through. I'm still reading Jenny Han's To All The Boys I've Loved Before and I keep telling my husband how much I love it. It's awesome. We did read Secrets of the Apple Tree a few times this week, now I just have to get my thoughts down in a review. My kids loved discovering the hidden secret on every page.

Reviewed Last Week:

Click on any picture above to go read my review/post.

Upcoming Book Adventures: 

Jen Says: Hopefully I'll finish both The Moon and More and  To All The Boys I've loved Before and then I can get to reading Caminar so I can finally review it! 

This Week's Reviews:

Check back throughout the week to read these reviews/posts. 

So, what are you reading this week? 

Link up below and don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are reading!

To help build our community and support other bloggers, 

we ask that you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 

Also, if you tweet about your Monday post, don't forget to use #IMWAYR!

Let's Celebrate!

It's time to CELEBRATE This Week with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.  Every week Ruth invites us to share our celebrations from the week and link up at her blog. What a fun way to reflect on everything there is to be thankful for. 

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This week I'm celebrating Peanut!

*throws confetti*

My sweet Peanut is seven today! I can't believe how fast it has gone. It's crazy to think that he's seven already. My life has changed a lot since he was born in so many ways. It's interesting to look back to 2007 and think of how things were different seven years ago. I was still teaching, I wasn't vegan or even vegetarian (I craved and devoured meatballs all through my pregnancy...), I wasn't blogging, I wasn't writing, I wasn't on Twitter, I still scrapbooked (not digitally) but with paper and glue, I still printed pictures out and had a camera.

Peanut when he was nine months old.

Peanut earlier this week

What are you celebrating this week?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5/5/14

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA! 

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and I decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them. 

Last Week's Book Adventures:

Jen Says: I finished listening to Just One Day by Gayle Forman and read some of Night Circus and also Jenny Han's To All The Boys I've Loved Before. Peanut and I finished reading James and the Giant Peach. I just love Roald Dahl. He asked to reread The BFG so we started that.

Reviewed Last Week:

 

Click on any picture above to go read my review/post.

Upcoming Book Adventures: 

Jen Says: I'm going to keep reading The BFG with Peanut and I'm hoping to have time this week to really settle into To All The Boys I've Loved Before. Over the weekend I attended my first ever SCBWI event which has me even more motivated to keep revising my novel so it's tricky trying to balance my reading with my writing. I also still need to read Caminar! I'm really hoping I can finally get to these reviews this week...thanks for being patient with me!

This Week's Reviews:

Check back throughout the week to read these reviews/posts. 

So, what are you reading this week? 

Link up below and don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are reading!

To help build our community and support other bloggers, 

we ask that you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 

Also, if you tweet about your Monday post, don't forget to use #IMWAYR!

Let's Celebrate Learning French!

It's time to CELEBRATE This Week with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.  Every week Ruth invites us to share our celebrations from the week and link up at her blog. What a fun way to reflect on everything there is to be thankful for. 

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This week I'm celebrating learning French!

*throws confetti*

I grew up speaking both English and Spanish. In middle school, I bought a sign language dictionary because it fascinated me. I ended up taking a sign language course when I was high school and that led me to working with students who are deaf and hard of hearing. Learning different languages has always been fun. 

I reread The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson last week and now I'm listening to Gayle Forman's Just One Day. In Just One Day, the main character finds herself on an adventure in Paris. The Devil in the White City mentions Gustave Eiffel and his world famous tower. 

Both of these books reminded me that I have long wanted to learn French. French is the next language that has caught my attention. Today I remembered that I downloaded the app Duolingo to my phone a while ago. I finally opened the app and logged in and chose French as the language I wanted to work on. 

Quickly, I found myself repeating the words on my screen and wanting to get the challenge right. As soon as I got home today, I couldn't wait to get back to my app. I love that it changes the style of question. It will give me a word in French and ask me to find the picture that matches the word, it might show me a sentence in English and ask me to type it in French, or it will let me listen to a sentence and then I have to repeat it and record myself saying it. If I do well, I earn jewels, if I make a mistake, I lose a heart. It's fun! I would love to someday take a real class and learn more about the ins and outs of the language but for now this is really fun and I'm definitely learning. 

I visited the Duolingo site and found that it was named an Apple App of the Year and Google Play's Best of the Best. It can help you learn Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portugese. I'll have to share an update of how I'm doing in a month or so! 

What are you celebrating this week?

The One With Giant Chess and Beanbag Pillows! #slice2014

Every Tuesday, I participate in the Slice of Life challenge at Two Writing Teachers. If you want to participate, you can link up at their Slice of Life Story Post on Tuesdays or you can just head on over there to check out other people's stories. For more information on what a Slice of Life post is about, you can go here. 

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Last week, I picked up the kiddos from school/daycare and we visited a new-to-us library two towns over. We've visited many of the libraries in our area but this one was hidden and I didn't even realize it was there until recently. It's a gem! I'm so glad we stopped in and I have a feeling we'll be visiting again. They had lots of great activities for the kiddos. 

My mom taught Peanut how to play Chess and he has been wanting to teach me (I know how to play...I just forget which piece can move which way...and I have zero understanding of the strategy to it all...). We discovered this giant Chess set right away but Little Bean was moving the pieces all over the place so we didn't last long here.

Instead we found a nook where Little Bean could play on this computer. It was neat because he could use the mouse but the screen was also a touch screen. He did pretty good with the mouse for a while but when he realized it was a touch screen, he was much more comfortable with that.

Peanut and I played Uno while Little Bean was on the computer. The space had a bunch of fatboys, which are fancy beanbag pillows that Peanut loved jumping on. They also had this great white board with magnetic poetry words. They also had a felt board with different shaped blocks that velcro-ed to the wall. There was one more area we didn't even explore but it was almost dinner time. 

I loved seeing what they had to offer to kids at this new library. What do you love about the kids' section of your local library? We usually find ourselves with all the puzzles and snuggling in to read under a tree in the corner of our library. If you have something special you love about your library, please share!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 4/28/14

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA! 

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and I decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them. 

Last Week's Book Adventures:

Jen Says: Last week ended up being a much busier week than I expected! I unfortunately wasn't able to get up posts that I had planned to have up...so we'll try again this week. The good news is that I attended two amazing workshops - one was with The Breakthrough Coach and the other was Influencer Training from Vital Smarts. It was all interesting and I'm excited to put it all into action.

I finished up listening to The Devil in the White City but it took me all week so I didn't get to anything else. I was able to reread more of Night Circus but I'm not done yet and I never got into The Fault in Our Stars.  

Reviewed Last Week:

 

Click on any picture above to go read my review/post.

Upcoming Book Adventures: 

Jen Says: I'm not sure what I'm going to listen to next. Since it's almost the end of April, I think I'll move on to something new instead of rereading/listening to another book. I do want to reread The Fault in Our Stars so I'm ready to watch the movie in June. I also plan to read Caminar so I can review it on Friday.

This Week's Reviews:

Check back throughout the week to read these reviews/posts. 

So, what are you reading this week? 

Link up below and don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are reading!

To help build our community and support other bloggers, 

we ask that you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 

Also, if you tweet about your Monday post, don't forget to use #IMWAYR!