October Bat Appreciation Month

Why are bats important to the environment?

• Pest Control. Bats aren’t just skilled at creating detailed acoustic maps of their surroundings; they’re also nature’s pest control. It’s estimated bats provide a natural pest control to reduce crop damage and the cost of pesticides by over $1 billion each year.
• Pollination. Many bats are fruit or nectar-eating bats, which means as they fly from plant to plant, they’re pollinating those plants too. Bats not only maintain a healthy biodiverse ecosystem but contribute to our food supply. 
• Seed Dispersal. When bats eat fruit, they in turn disperse the seeds further, adding to our ecosystem’s biodiversity and helping regenerate forests.
• Nutrient Cycling. In delicate cave ecosystems, bat scat, or guano, provides nutrients upon which other cave-dwelling creatures rely.

October is the ideal time in the school library to get to know bats because many Halloween stories feature bats and they make a fun display.

Nonfiction:

Fiction:

Faction:

More: Pinterest and Activity book 

31st October Doorbell Day

On October 31st, National Doorbell Day will have doorbells ringing more than any other day of the year. The day recognises the little buzzer, unique tones, and rings that alert us to visitors to our doors every day of the year. And, of course on Halloween the doorbell will be rung more than usual, in fact more than on any other day of the year. 

Joseph Henry invented the first electric doorbell in 1831 and during the Great Depression, J. Ralph Corbett invented doorbells that feature different chimes. 

Of course, we can celebrate this day with Halloween picture books, but I want to draw your attention to books that are specifically about or feature doors, knocking and or doorbells.

Probably the most well known is The Doorbell Rang  by Pat Hutchins which looks at all the visitors sharing a plate of freshly cooked cookies.

And there is a lovely new book titled Knock Knock  by Catherine Meatheringham and Deb Hudson which takes the onomatopoeic word knock and gives it in other languages as well. 

There are others. This is what I can think of, but I'm sure there are others...

• Knock Knock Who's There?  by Sally Grindley and Anthony Browne

• A Visitor for Bear  by  Bonny Becker and Kady MacDonald Denton

• Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev and Taeeun Yoo 

• Who's That Knocking?  by Alison Lester

• Who's at the Door?  by Jonathan Allen

There's a series of Knock Knock books by Carol Hart and Nick East...pirate, dinosaur, superhero, alien...

There are a number of books with Knock Knock  in the title that are riddle books.

Think about how many fairytales have door knockers ie. characters who knock on a door ...the wolf in The Three Little Pigs;  Jack in  Jack and the Beanstalk  when he visits the giant; Hansel and Gretel;  the bear in Snow White and Rose Red.

PS. 

26th October Pumpkin Day

Tomorrow is Pumpkin Day, a day that probably has more significance in the  Northern Hemisphere because there, it is time to harvest pumpkins, but they are very visible here in the Southern Hemisphere because it will soon be Halloween and pumpkins play a big role in Halloween festivities. I have written about this day before, but not for a long time. 

We have a lot of books in the library that feature pumpkins! We have quite a few nonfiction titles because of life cycles and growing, both popular areas of inquiry in Early Childhood Education and a lot of fiction because of Halloween. So this is the time to go all out with a pumpkin display in the library. See what the library has on Pinterest here. There are some fun craft and art activities here to.

Best nonfiction:

Lifecycles and pumpkin information:   

  

• From Seed to Pumpkin  by Wendy Pfeffer             

• Pumpkins  by Robin Nelson

• Pumpkin  by Brenda McHale

• Pumpkins  by Jacqueline Farmer

• Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin Pie by Jill Esbaum

• From Seed to Pumpkin by Crystal Sikkens

• Let's Look at Pumpkins  by Katie Peters

• Pumpkins  by Jacqueline Farmer

• Pumpkin Circle  by George Levenson

• Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin Pie by Jill Esbaum

Halloween non-fiction:

•  Making a  Jack-o'-Lantern: step by step  by Angelique Johnson

• The Story of the Jack O'Lantern  by Katherine Kegan

• Halloween  by Laura Marsh

• Halloween  by Pierre-Marie Valat 

And most importantly fun fiction:

• How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?  by Margaret McNamara and Brian Karas

• We Planted a Pumpkin by Rob Ramadan

• Five Little Pumpkins by Ben Mantle (there are other versions)

• Christopher Pumpkin by Sue Hendra, Paul Linnet and Nick East

• The Pumpkin Who was Afraid of the Dark by Michelle Robinson and Mike Byrne

• Pick a Pumpkin  by Patricia Toht and Jarvis

• Pumpkin Eye  by Denise Fleming

• Pumpkin Trouble  by Jan Thomas 

And some short chapter books:

• Lottie and Dottie Grow Pumpkins by Claire Burgess

• Invisible Inkling Dangerous Pumpkins  by Emily Jenkins

• Nelson Pumpkins and Aliens  by Andrew Levins 

• Andy Shane and the Pumpkin Trick by Jennifer Richardson Jacobson

• The Pug Who Wanted to be a Pumpkin  by Bella Swift

• Pumpkin Power  by Patricia Cleveland-Peck

• The Pumpkin Project by Katie Smith

30th October World Teachers Day and Halloween

Yesterday it was World Teachers Day in Australia and tomorrow it will be Halloween, two things that involve children, one because there would be far fewer teachers in the world if there weren't children who need teaching and the other because it is something that really revs up the children I teach. They have been full of tales about how they have decorated their homes, what they are wearing and who they are celebrating it with. My children used to love it too, because we had a Canadian neighbour who used to organise the fun for the neighbourhood children in the way she experienced Halloween as a child. Now all of those children are adults, some with children of their own who no doubt will become keen about Halloween in the years to come.

Last night I went to Book Club, which is made up of teacher friends that I have taught with in the past and one of them told us about a young girl in her class who'd given her a card and coffee voucher for WTD and how touched she was because it was from a family who could least afford it. Isn't that always the way? My school shouted us pastries at morning tea which was a first! Given all the remote learning of the last few months they were appreciated. I haven't had lots of time to reflect upon remote learning now that the mayhem of school is on again, but one thing I do know after this week, is that I spent a lot more time planning lessons for remote learning than I have this week for face-to-face. Nevertheless it is great to see the students, interact with them and have them share their thinking with you.

A book I added to the library this week was Ten Delicious Teachers just perfect for WTD and Halloween!

Other great teacher picture books depending upon the age of the children you want to share them with:

                        

The list of Halloween titles is far too great to list here, but I always enjoy reading Miss Smith's wonderful storybooks, by Michael Garland.

1st October National Ghost Hunting Day

I have just come home from school where I was doing the library displays for the beginning of next term. Halloween is quite popular with the children I teach, possibly because of the large number of expat families at school. I like the chance to get all the books out that feature ghosts, witches, wizards, monsters and 'creepy dark'. These books tend to only go out of the library at this time of year when they are 'facing'  children and being talked about. I also take the opportunity to do a pumpkin display and this year bats. In that way there is a good balance of fiction and nonfiction out and there's plenty to explore.

So when I noticed that in the USA the first day of October is Ghost Hunting Day I thought it very fitting that October starts and finishes with ghosts. There's so many good books to read with ghosts as characters. In the the picture books these are popular:
• Ghost in the House by Ammi-Joan Paquette
• Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara
• Leo a Ghost Story by Mac Barnett
• Little Ghost by Vivian French
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Susan Pearson
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Marcia Vaughan
• Ghost  by Luk Depondt and Guido van Genechten
• Ready Steady Ghost! by Elizabeth Baguley
• Zen Ghosts by Jon M. Muth


As the school year gets closer to the end, I also have a larger number of fluent readers looking to immerse themselves in a good chapter book or series of books, so I have also put these 'ghost' stories out on display.



• The Haunted Library by Dori Hillestad Butler    (eight books)
• Ghost Hunters and the Incredibly Gruesome Ghost by Cornelia Funke (four books)
• The Toilet Ghost by Pamela Butchart ( one of the three stories from Wigglesbottom Primary)
• Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost by Kjartan Poskitt (one of six books)
• Knitbone Pepper Ghost Dog by Claire Barker (one of three books)
•  Ghosts on the Loose  by Tim Healey  (one of the Mortimer Keene series of five books) )
•  The Ghost Library by David Melling
• The Ghost Teacher by Tony Bradman
• The Little Ghost by Otfried Preussler
• The Case of the Graveyard Ghost and other Mysteries by Duncan Ball
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier


Here's quite a list to get you started on the ghost hunt!





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26th October National Pumpkin Day

National Pumpkin Day is celebrated in the USA today. It is not so relevant here in Australia as it is Spring, not Autumn, but given it falls in the same week as Halloween and Australian children do seem to have embraced this celebration and there are soft American pumpkins available in our shops so that we too can carve Jack-o-Lanterns it is good to highlight just how many picture books celebrate pumpkins. See my pinterest page for what is in our school library and if you are looking for a good picture book to buy that lends itself to good classroom activities purchase How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara and Brian Karas.

 

2nd November Halloween aftermath

Just wanted to share two classroom success stories that started with a children's picture book.

Firstly a library activity with a preschool class of four and five year olds.  We read a very short picture book called Say Boo! by Lynda Graham-Barber and Barbara Lehman. It is about a little ghost called Ben who is having trouble saying 'boo' and therefore isn't able to frighten anyone on Halloween. He practises and learns to say other words, all of which rhyme with 'boo'. He learns 'moo', 'coo' and 'whoo' from animals he meets until finally when crying, he realises that he is really saying 'boo hoo' which contains the word 'boo'. The children loved that Ben was struggling with something that they found easy, which I found a bit off putting, but they were equally pleased when he succeeded. We made a list of the rhyming words and then made a white paperbag puppet of a ghost. The children had to name their ghost a name that rhymed with 'boo'. They came up with really good names such as Lou, Sue, Spew, Stu, Choo, Woo, Floo and Prue. When we had made the puppets we 'floated' and 'rustled' round the library and then came back to re-enact the story and the rhyme I borrowed from here. Good fun was had by all.

Secondly, I lent the book, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara and G. Brian Karas to a Year 1 teacher at school and suggested she read it and do as Mr Tiffin, the teacher in the book does with his class. She was very excited about it as it fitted in with her unit of work on celebrations and involved a lot of maths. In the book the teacher buys three pumpkins, a big one, a middle-sized one and a smaller one. The children in the class have to predict which will have the most seeds and then in three groups they clean out the insides of the pumpkin and estimate how many seeds they have. They also need to come up with a plan as to how to count them. The next day after the seeds have dried each group gets their seeds back to count. The Year 1 teacher did this with her class and the children are still talking about putting their hands in the pumpkin and what it felt like. They were involved in estimation, skip counting, hypothesising and testing and they had a lot of fun doing it.  If only I could put photos of children on my blog you would see this fun!