Bermuda would make a great family reunion vacation spot. What is not to like about Bermuda? Pink sand beaches. Friendly people. Crystal clear aquamarine blue ocean. Good food. The only downside is that it is a little pricey. Here are our favorite places to stay and eat, fun things that we enjoyed doing, and some recipes to make Bermudian specialties.
Book reviews of action adventure and realistic fiction chapter books by an 11-year-old girl in 6th grade.
To cover the Culture Revolution, I selected Little Leap Forward, a chapter book about living during this time in China. Zen Shorts still remains one of my all time favorite picture books because is manages to combine Chinese Philosopher Chuang Tsu’s parables in a way that is accessible to kids and yet leave adult readers pondering Big Ideas. Finally, for everyone who has a Joy Luck Club story from their homeland, I hope that you all have had a chance to read this book that broke the ground for a new Asian American literature genre twenty-five years ago.
The vocabulary words for Week 12 are from the picture book, Gregory, the Terrible Eater.
The words for Week 11 are from the picture book, Annie and the Wild Animals by Jan Brett. I noticed that in my son’s Kindergarten room, the teacher or maybe literacy specialist, mounts a special poster with the cover of book and the list of vocabulary words from the book. They have a time called “Text Talk” where they read the story and talk about the big words. The words stay up all year so the children can look at them. Sometimes, the words come home via a handout to the parents in my child’s backpack, but times are tough and I think they are conserving on paper so I copied these words from the posters and made up the sentences myself. I find that this post is very popular so I will continue it on my own as my child is moving on first grade next year.
While not all these books are from when I was young, they all have an old fashioned innocent feel. In fact, my number one pick, Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same! by Grace Lin reminds me so much of my favorite Little Bear series in that it has a tight story line that is both silly and sweet. Easy readers are a rite of passage for both kids and parents. I remember searching for easy readers that were not mind numbingly boring as both parent and child are attached at the hip during this period of literacy.
Capability:Mom gave me her summer camp newsletter because there is a boy there who all the kids go to when they need a good book recommendation. The kids think he is a kind of genius boy wonder that knows pretty much everything on the planet. I believe he is in middle school. He was kind enough to write up his book recommendations for the newsletter and I have retyped it for you. I love peer to peer book recommendations. Who better to know what you will like than your friend?!