For those of you reading this thinking to yourselves...wait a minute you teach 5th grade, why would you participate in a Picture Book Linky Party??! Well... because those big kids LOVE picture books just as much if not even more than the younger ones! Trust me...they beg me to read these 5 below...and while reading them, if there isn't a beautiful silence over the classroom with jaws to the carpet, eyes wide and 'lil drool dribbling down those *awed* 5th grade chins, then it must be a full moon!
Grab the button below, write on your blog about your 5 favorite picture books, and head on over to The Teacher Wife to link up!
My top 5... (oh so hard to pick only 5!!)
1.) Old Jake's Skirts By: Anne C. Scott
This book is a wonderful book about a scruffy old man that keeps to himself and is a bit of a loner, until the day he receives an unexpected surprise. The story turns quickly as Old Jake transforms and changes his loner ways. This book is awesome for teaching inferring through dialogue, and character change. My kids loved the "folk tale" way that I read it to them.
2. Henry's Freedom Box By: Ellen Levine
Does this story need an introduction? It truly tugs at the heart strings and my students love it. I used this picture book to teach questioning/predicting this past year and the things my students were saying and the discussions this book led us to were amazing!!
3.) The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere By: Henry Wadsworth
I was so surprised when I started reading this book. It is a picture book that is written as poetry. There are so many metaphors and *read between the lines* moments for your kids to infer. It also was a wonderful way to bring literacy into my social studies lessons.
4.) The Sweetest Fig By: Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg is one of my all time favorite authors. I tell this to my students often, and they usually can guess by the time we have read almost all of his books over and over again. I used the Sweetest Fig to teach inferring this year, and absolutely love to use fun voices while reading this one to my kids.
5.) The Garden of Abdul Gasazi By: Chris Van Allsburg
Another one of my fav's by my favorite author. I taught this book over a couple different days and used it as part of an author study as well as when I was teaching inferring. I even used this book to teach point of view/perspective of characters and how the story would change depending on the point of view the story was told in. My kids loved it!