Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Strikes Again!

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Finds a New Fan!

This week I read the third graders one of my favorites from my own childhood--Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald. It's amazing how a classic remains fresh and engaging from generation to generation. I read a chapter called, 'The Radish Cure" which is Mrs. Piggle Wiggles' cure for a little girl who didn't want to take a bath. Logical consequences prevail and at the end she finally acquiesces, but the journey to that end tickled the funnybones of the third graders. We talked a bit about what makes a book a "classic" and how a good story can appeal to children for many years and in many different times. They were very interested to know that the book from which I read was published in 1949!! And even more interesting was that I was only a year old when it was published!!! All the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books flew off the shelves and I actually ordered more copies for our library and several on loan from the County Schools. The power of a good story.....

Also in the Library this week....

Kindergarten--We read Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson in January and now it was time for the sequel Bear Wants More. In this charming story Bear wakes up and is hungry, hungry, hungry and eats so much he can no longer fit back into his den!

First Grade--What happens when you have something really, really, really wonderful to share at school, but it's not sharing time? Poor Lily finds out the hard way in Lily's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes. Her movie star sunglasses, her three shiny quarter, and that purple plastic purse....ah, they are just too much and she just has to share them. Mr. Slinger, her teacher, has to take them, of course, and then Lily exacts her "revenge." But all works out in the end and Lily still wants to be a teacher when she grows up....unless she decides to be a scuba diver.

Second Grade--I must be nostalgic this week because in Second Grade I read one of my favorite fairy tales and one I remember had an effect on me as a child. Toads and Diamonds retold by Charlotte Huck is a great example of how fairy tales were used to teach lessons to children. First written in the 1600s, this tale graphically delineates the different results of kind words and mean words. Perhaps this is something that we should all read again from time to time....

Third Grade--see opening post

Fourth Grade--Continuing our Tall Tales unit, fourth graders heard Steven Kellogg's rollicking version of Paul Bunyan. We recognized the characteristics of a tall tale and students are beginning to come up with great ideas for their own tall tales which we will begin writing after Spring break.

Fifth Grade---Fifth graders were at Catalina Island this week for CIMI.

Sixth Grade--We continued working on our research for our research blog postings and some students began their draft posts this week. In the next few weeks, we'll finish our posts and then comment on them.