What Ms. Moore Read Over the Summer

Here are some of the most recent books I've read and recommend for my students. (I read a lot more books for grownups than usual this summer.) Cover images and descriptions are from Goodreads. 

Picture Books

When Iris's elevator button-pushing is disrupted by a new member of the family, she's pretty put out. That is, until the sudden appearance of a mysterious new button opens up entire realms of possibility, places where she can escape and explore on her own. But when it becomes a question between going it alone or letting someone else tag along, Iris finds that sharing a discovery with the people you love can be the most wonderful experience of all.

Outside is waiting, the most patient playmate of all. The most generous friend. The most miraculous inventor. Our connection with nature is not so easily obscured by lives spent indoors.

Llewellyn, a little rabbit, is a collector. He gathers things in jars--ordinary things like buttercups, feathers, and heart-shaped stones. Then he meets another rabbit, Evelyn, and together they begin to collect extraordinary things--like rainbows, the sound of the ocean, and the wind just before snow falls. And, best of all, when they hold the jars and peer inside, they remember all the wonderful things they've seen and done. But one day, Evelyn has sad news: Her family is moving away. How can the two friends continue their magical collection--and their special friendship--from afar?

A little girl sees an empty lot in a city and imagines what it can be.

She sees
a place to grow,
a place to play,
and a place to love.

With the help of her stuffed bear, the girl brings her community together to create a beautiful garden.

Middle Grade Fiction

Marty, Ralph, and Skyler might make the ultimate secret combo when battling alien-slime ninjas in their favorite video game, but in real life they're just regular kids. That is, until the three best friends discover Awesome Dog 5000, a robotic dog with very real power-ups. Awesome Dog can "bark" a sonic boom, "walk" at speeds over three hundred miles per hour, and "fetch" with an atomic cannon. Life for Marty, Ralph, and Skyler just got a major turbo-boost!

Attention, readers! AWESOME DOG 5000 is a wild action-comedy told through a mix of text and black-and-white illustrations, with a mystery to solve at the end. Can you handle the awesomeness?

Nonfiction

Do you know the difference between a fact and an opinion? It can be a hard thing to understand. Some things are facts--like the number of robots in this book. Other things are opinions--like which robot would make the best friend, or which robot dances best. And sometimes to tell the difference between a fact and an opinion, you need to wait to get more information--that's because facts can be proven true or false, and opinions are things you feel and believe--but that you can't prove.

Honoring the path of a slave, this dramatic picture book biography and concise anthology of Aesop’s most child-friendly fables tells how a child born into slavery in ancient Greece found a way to speak out against injustice by using the skill and wit of his storytelling–storytelling that has survived for 2,500 years.

Beginning at birth, the honeybee emerges through the wax cap of her cell and is driven to protect and take care of her hive. She cleans the nursery and feeds the larvae and the queen. But is she strong enough to fly? Not yet! She builds wax comb to store honey, and transfers pollen from other bees into the storage. She defends the hive from invaders. Apis accomplishes all of this before beginning her life outdoors as an adventurer, seeking nectar to bring back to her hive. Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann describe the life cycle of the hard-working honeybee in this poetically written, thoroughly researched picture book.

When Sharon Langley was born in the early 1960s, many amusement parks were segregated, and African-American families were not allowed entry. This book reveals how in the summer of 1963, due to demonstrations and public protests, the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland became desegregated and opened to all for the first time. Co-author Sharon Langley was the first African-American child to ride the carousel. This was on the same day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Langley’s ride to remember demonstrated the possibilities of King’s dream.

In 1848, Mary Walker was born into slavery. At age 15, she was freed, and by age 20, she was married and had her first child. By age 68, she had worked numerous jobs, including cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and selling sandwiches to raise money for her church. At 114, she was the last remaining member of her family. And at 116, she learned to read. 

From Rita Lorraine Hubbard and rising star Oge Mora comes the inspirational story of Mary Walker, a woman whose long life spanned from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, and who--with perseverance and dedication--proved that you're never too old to learn.

Ideas for New Series Titles

For "You Be the Author" week, students could choose a pen name, create an original book title within a chosen genre, or come up with a new book for an existing series. Here are some of the series ideas (publishers take note!):

• Scary Stories 4 You
• Dog Man Goes to Space
• Harry Potter and the Magic Odd Squad
• If You Give a Cheetah a Cheeto
• The Wild Robot: The Visit
• What Is the Coronavirus?
• What If ... The Sun Exploded Tomorrow?
• Captain Trousey Boxers
• Magic Tree House: Video Game Warriors
• Craters (sequel to Holes)
• Dream Jumper: The Hidden Shadows

What a Character!

For one assignment, students could choose a character, a setting, or a genre to describe in words or pictures. Here are some of the characters they sent in:

Telling Fibs

Fibonacci, a mathematician who lived during the 1200s, developed a number sequence named after him. Each number is added to the previous number to get the next number: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 and so on.

Author Greg Pincus invented the “Fib” form of poetry, in which each consecutive line has the same number of syllables that appear in the Fibonacci sequence. During Poetry Week, students could choose to write a Fib. Here are some of their creations:

I
love
to swim.
My favorite
is the butterfly.
I also love video games

image from mocomi.com

- G.F., Rm 12

Me
Golf
Hit it
Very far
Mom, always cheering
In my dreams I feel like a pro
- M.F., Rm 13

Run     
Twirl             
Jump up     
Spin around
Jazz, tap, hip-hop too
There are so many ways to move
Lyrical, ballet, contemporary, acro too
- C.B., Rm 14


I
like
baseball.
The Yankees
are my favorite.
They have a lot of great players.
They've won twenty-seven World Series Championships.
- L.T., Rm. 14

bbrr
ice
its cold
snow falling
winter is coming
I can't wait to make a snowman .
- E.A., Rm 14

I
like
flipping.
I'm soaring!
Flying through the air.
Gymnastics is my favorite sport.
- S.W-B., Rm. 14

Hi
I'm
Joelle
and I like
chocolate ice cream
and I like to draw and make crafts.
- J.W., Rm 14

So
my
passion’s
basketball
but I also like
to play video games - all sorts.
- E.R., Rm 17

I
like
playing
games because
they are fun ... they are
only fun though when it is fair.
- A.R., Rm 17

I
love
football.
Gronkowski
goes for a touchdown,
lives in a very big mansion,
and he invites his brothers to Gillette Stadium
- G.Z., Rm 18

I
love
my pup.
He is cool.
Pup fits in my cup.
He likes to snuggle up with me.
- I.F., Rm 18

What Does That Mean?

image from thegreatcoursesplus.com

One option for the Reading Around the House assignment was to find a new word and share its definition. Below is the list of some of the words that kids found ... do you know them all?

If you would like to learn even more words, check out freerice.com or vocabulary.com.

• adjoining
• aglet
• amid
• ancient
• antidisestablishmentarianism
• archaeologist
• comrades
• convened
• cultivate
• dimwit
• durable
• forfeit
• holler
• inferior
• liminal (I had to look it up)
• lofty
• mumbled
• obscure
• pandemic
• pelt
• mysteries
• sensation
• substance

Celebrating the April Reading Challenge - 2

Governor Raimondo challenged every student in Rhode Island to read every single day during the month of April. Garden City students rose to the challenge, sending in "shelfies" and building book forts and reading nooks as their library assignments.

ABC Story by Ms. Moore and Ryan G.

(and a sentence from Avalena H.)

Photo found at twisterdsifter.com

When I looked out the window and saw a GIANT HEDGEHOG floating by, I knew it was going to be a strange day. I called animal control, but there was no answer; JUST as I hung up the phone, I heard a crazy sound from outside.

Animal control had evidently already been contacted, came, and they brought a huge cage that they KNOCKED together, but which the hedgehog was refusing to go into. LET me think ... MAYBE it would go in if I gave it a biscuit! But NO, the hedgehog stomped ON the biscuit and then PROCEEDED to take a running jump and fly into the air!

He flipped through the air and landed on my neighbors doorstep; my neighbor was QUITE surprised when he heard the hedgehog knock on his door. He thought that the pizza that he ordered had arrived, but when he flung open the door, the hedgehog RAN into his house. The hedgehog destroyed everything in his path, STOMPING on TOYS and crushing them UNDER its feet. My neighbor screamed, "Make it stop! Make it stop!" ... He was VERY WORRIED that this X-TREME animal would ruin everything. But what could I do to help? YIKES!

I was scared of the animal, but figured I could chase it with a giant ZIPLOC bag on a stick to scoop it up. ALAS, not only were there were no big enough bags for a giant hedgehog, but he crashed through the sliding doors at the BACK of the neighbor's house and CONTINUED through the yard, knocking DOWN a fence and EXPLODING through a garden.

Suddenly, FRED from Animal Control came with a new GIANT trap. I only HOPED that he would go in it. I JUST did not know if the hedgehog would go in. KILLING the hedgehog was no option. LUCKILY, in the sky, a shape took form as it buzzed closer. It was a spacecraft! With pictures of giant hedgehogs on its sides! The hedgehog MIGHT leave NOW!

Sure enough, he stood still and looked up into the sky at the approaching OCTOGON-shaped flying ship. Slowly, a hatch opened and a PLASTIC rope was lowered with a giant basket at the end. I was QUESTIONING how the spacecraft REALLY got to Earth, but right now I was just SUPER happy!

THE next day, I checked on the hedgehog. I was UPSET that the hedgehog was not there. But then a VERY small stuffed hedgehog floated down from the sky on a gentle WIND. I now had a souveneir of my eXciting eXperience. YES, it was a very good time after all.