"Who Let the Letters Out" is a song that we sing while reviewing the alphabet during the first weeks of school. I believe I borrowed the idea from Dr. Jean. After finally finishing our review and arriving at Z, we created this book. There's a page for each letter of the alphabet. The kids love to sing the whole book.
This next book is inspired by The Okay Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It's a great story about accepting the things that we're just okay at, knowing that the more things we try, the more likely we are to find that something we excel at. The person's body in the story is actually made with the letters OK, so we made our bodies like that too.
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud is a wonderful book that I borrowed from my first grade teacher friend Mandy from across the hall. I definitely have her to thank for the inspiration behind the book we created. Basically, the story says that everyone walks around with an imaginary bucket. People either fill it or dip into it. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this concept. I hear these comments often from my kids: "So and so just filled my bucket," or "So and so just dipped into my bucket." I asked each of my kids how they fill other's buckets and wrote this book. Mandy painted the bucket you see in the picture. It's the cutest thing and reminds all our first graders to fill those buckets!
I found the inspiration for this last book on another first grade teacher blog: www.fisforfirstgrade.blogspot.com Melissa posted a picture of one of her kids holding a large talking bubble that said, "I'm a first grader!" The instant I saw it I thought, "That needs to be a book." Here's what I came up with. By the way, I convinced several adult readers in our school to pose for the book as well. I want my kids to see that their heros are readers too.
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