Way to go ASIJ readers…nearly 5,000 books checked out for summer reading!

Have fun-filled summer…can’t wait to hear about your summer adventures!

Ms. Pretz

Summer reading gives you wings to explore new worlds, interests and ideas!

“Kids who don’t have educationally rich summers will be nearly three years behind their peers by the time they reach the end of the fifth grade… Much like we would expect an athlete or a musician’s performance to suffer if they didn’t practice regularly, the same thing is true for young people when it comes to reading performance.”— Ron Fairchild, Founding CEO, National Summer Learning Association

Recommended Reading Lists (click on links to open)

• Preschool – K Reading List
• Grades 1 & 2 Reading List
• Grades 3 & 4 Reading List
• Grade 5 Reading List
• Scholastic’s 50 Brilliant Books for Summer

Looking for your next favorite series? 

• Kidsreads
• Guys Read
• DOGO Books
• Spaghetti Book Club

Summer Reading Checklist Challenge

The Librarians’ of Japan met May 24th to select the finalists for the 2018 Sakura Medal.  A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all of my students who were test readers and helped me select the books I nominated yesterday…many of your recommendations made this years’ list!!! And a special thank you to a student from 5F who bravely book talked The Last Kids on Earth to all of the librarians attending the meeting yesterday…you were extremely convincing!

I can’t wait to share these great reads with my elementary students at ASIJ!  If you don’t know what to read this summer, it’s never too early to start reading the 2018 Sakura nominees.

Picture Book Nominees

Chapter Book Nominees

Graphic Novel Nominees

Turn and Talk

• Tell your partners your favorite genre i.e. humor, fantasy, realistic fiction etc.
• As a team, decide on one genre in the fiction section to visit first.

Genre Stack

• Pull a title of a book that already sounds “poetic” and might work as a good title.
• Scan for titles that look expressive & use descriptive language, alliterations, repetition, synonyms, antonyms or interesting vocabulary.
• Pull a few titles more titles.
• Go to another fiction genre or the picture book section and pull a few more titles.

Experiment

• Stand at a bookshelf and experiment with the arrangement of your titles.
• Stack the spine titles so that the titles are like the lines of a poem.
• Revise by rearranging the titles until you have a stack of books that sounds like a poem. 
• Try to include:  alliteration, synonyms, antonyms.
• Challenge:  add a simile or metaphor.

Back to the Stacks

Once you begin creating your poem, you might need more books…When you return to the stacks, you might look for figurative language, specific phrases or interesting vocabulary.

Experiment

• Rearrange the spine titles so that the titles are like the lines of a poem.
• Move the books to change the order of the titles until you find the arrangement that sounds the best.

Publish

• Take a photo of your finished poem.
• Leave your book spine poem on display for other patrons to read!

I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Example stack that might inspire a poem that includes interesting words & vocabulary, alliteration and repetition:

Example Poem

Mind Games

Hold fast,

the danger box,

Things not seen,

In darkness death,

A whole nother story.

(Common Core Standards:  CCSS 4.5a, 4.5c)

2017 Sakura Medal Winners