Book Bash!

I am so excited to be a part of Kinder Friends!  This is a great group of bloggers and I am excited to get to know some new online buddies.  We wanted to do a blog hop on a great topic that all teachers love - books!  Hence, the "Book Bash" was born!  Since the end of the school year is fast approaching, I thought I would write about a couple of my favorite end of the year books and share some activities and freebies.  (This blog post contains affiliate links for your convenience.)

One of my favorite books of all time to read is The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson.  Do you know The Gruffalo?  He has knobby knees, and...............you will get the reference if you know the book!  Ha! Ha! If you don't know the book, you should!  The Gruffalo is a delightful tale that rhymes, introduces different characters, and is full of surprises!  I was first introduced to The Gruffalo when a student brought the book in for her birthday.  I said I would read the book and I was blown away.  I kept saying how cute this book was and my student kept saying "I know!"

This is an excellent book that rhymes and is a story that you will want to read over and over.  It is the tale of a little mouse who is walking through the woods and he meets other animals who want to eat him.  He scares them off by telling the animals that he is meeting a Gruffalo, and describes a scary character.  The animals scurry away and then much to the mouse's surprise, he runs into a Gruffalo.  The Gruffalo is hungry, and the mouse looks tasty.  Will the mouse live?  And if so, how?  You must read it to find out.

I love this book so much that I wanted to extend our learning and focus on comprehension skills.  I created a literacy pack that is full of activities to reinforce sequencing skills (with many opportunities with picture cards for the pocket chart, a worksheet, crowns and a storyboard with puppets).  This also has many differentiated worksheets to practice character, setting, cause and effect, and more!

I wanted to share a cute freebie from the pack.  It is a storyboard in color with the characters from the story (there is also a storyboard in B&W in the big pack).  You can laminate them and put them on popsicle sticks and have your students retell the story.  Click on the image below to download your freebie.

Check out the preview below of the skills you will find in this packet.  If you like the freebie and are interested in more, you can find the packet in my TpT store here.

Another end of the year favorite is Humpty Dumpty by Daniel Kirk.  This is an adorable story of Humpty Dumpty that rhymes and is so enjoyable  Humpty wants to go to a birthday parade for King Mo, but Humpty's mom is worried about her little egg.  He promises to be careful and off he goes with his friends.  Well, Humpty can't see in the parade and so he climbs a wall - uh-oh.  It turns out that King Mo likes puzzles and gives it a whirl after all the king's men tried.  This story rolls off the tongue and is just so endearing.

After reading this story, we make a brick wall.  I fold a piece of white paper and staple it about 1/3 of the way up.   However, you could also have your students glue this (only on the sides) to save time.

The egg pattern I have is on thick cardstock.  I trace the egg pattern on different colors of construction paper.

I let the children pick the egg and have them decorate one side "regular" and one side "cracked".
They make a brick wall pattern on the white paper.  Then, they glue down the poem and can recite the poem and act it out.

If you'd like the words to make your own Humpty Dumpty, click below.  I did update the way the poem looks from my example.  This was back in the day before TpT and all the cute borders and fonts, and I was at a school that used D'Nealian.

I hope these ideas help you add some fun into the end of your school year.  My last day is June 10th with students.  How about you?

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Make sure to hop on over to Brittany's blog, A Kindergarten Love Story, to find out about some of her favorites books!