Monarch Awards

Every year students in the state of Illinois get the chance to participate in a voting process to pick their favorite book among a list of 20 books chosen by educators in the state of Illinois. This year we have a new list of 20 books. Each child must read, or be read to, at least 5 of the 20 books. We will vote in February.

Kindergarten
We started reading Monarch books this week with Mo Willems We are in a Book! This hilarious adventure stars Gerald the Elphant and Piggie the Pig. These characters can be found in many other Gerald and Piggie adventures by Mo Willems. Students were introduced to these characters on pigeonpresents.com. We learned Gerald is a safety monitor who loves quiche and Piggie loves to chew bubble gum and dance! After reading we participated in centers concentrating on different areas. Some of us matched upper and lower case letters with Gerald and Piggie. Others read books, illustrated our favorite part of the story, and read and counted our popcorn words.

First Grade
First graders kicked off the Monarch reading list with That Cat Can't Stay by Thad Kranesky. We learned a few facts about the author and illustrator before predicting what they story would be about. We used the illustrators cover photo to predict which character wanted the cats to leave as well as the possible reasons why. During reading we listened to the rhythmic rhyming pattern of the story. After the story we played a brainteaser game from National Geographics called Cool Cats.

Second Grade

In second grade we started the Monarch reading list with Pop! The Invention of Bubble Gum by Melissa McCarthy. This story is a non fiction book based on the transformation from chewing gum to bubble gum. After reading the story we watched a video on the process of creating bubble gum. The machinery used for making and wrapping Double Bubble bubble gum produces 900 pieces every minute!