Bamboo People Giveaway!

Thanks to Mr. Schu and Mr. Sharp (who I have "won" books from in the past few months), I decided to pay it forward and host my very first giveaway.  The premise is simple.  I have two copies of Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins and will mail them off to 2 lucky winners!  To sweeten the pot, they are both signed copies!  We were lucky enough to have Mitali Perkins in our library a few weeks ago - she had an amazing presentation for the 4th graders (you can read about it and their comments here: http://zervaslibrary.weebly.com/1/post/2012/05/mitali-perkins-visit.html) and she also graciously signed several copies of her books for me to pass on to deserving recipients.  That could be you!

From www.bamboopeople.org:
Chiko isn’t a fighter by nature. He’s a book-loving Burmese boy whose father, a doctor, is in prison for resisting the government. Tu Reh, on the other hand, wants to fight for freedom after watching Burmese soldiers destroy his Karenni family's home and bamboo fields.
Timidity becomes courage and anger becomes compassion as each boy is changed by unlikely friendships formed under extreme circumstances.
This coming-of-age novel  takes place against the political and military backdrop of modern-day Burma. Narrated by two fifteen-year-old boys on opposing sides of the conflict between the Burmese government and the Karenni, one of the many ethnic minorities in Burma, Bamboo People explores the nature of violence, power, and prejudice.

First Grade Fun!

First graders have been busy over the past few weeks and I have been slow to put up their work!  To end poetry month, they practiced their visualization (and I practiced my poetry reading over and over).  I chose to read from Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky.  I picked out a poem to repeat (and repeat and repeat) and the students illustrated while I read (I didn't show them the picture).  Here's what they came up with (and apologies for bad lighting and the amount of parenthesis in this post):

The Hatchickens

The Ballpoint Penguins

The Hatchickens

The Hatchickens

The Ballpoint Penguins

The Clocktopus

The Clocktopus

The Ballpoint Penguins

The Ballpoint Penguins