I was thrilled at the end of last week to get my first Take A BOOK On Vacation pictures from a student. These pictures come from Austin B., who is an incoming First Grade student. Austin and his family traveled to Binghamton New York, which is 353 miles from Hollywood Elementary School. While in New York Austin and his family visited The Discovery Center of the Southern Tier. Click here for a link to their website. This looks like such a fun place to visit! I'm going to have to add it to my list of places to visit whenever I make it to New York! Austin is reading one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Horton Hatches The Egg. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. If you haven't read this classic from Dr. Seuss, I recommend picking it up from the public library!
Thank you to Austin and his dad for participating in the Take A BOOK On Vacation program. Keep checking back during this week, because I will be posting more student pictures and a two special pictures from a staff member! Happy Reading!! Miss Hazuda
There are some great books if you want to learn more about Yosemite, the surrounding areas, and the people who helped create these National Parks. The first book, is one that was on all grade levels summer reading suggestions, The Camping Trip That Changed America by Barabra Rosenstack. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. I can't say enough about this book, I just love it so much! I loved learning all about Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir's camping trip. And how this lead to these wonderful breath-taking places being protected and able to be enjoyed for many generations. Watch the book trailer below.
While my family and I were traveling in Yosemite National Park, I was thrilled to see a sign about the camping trip. It was the site of one of their stops overnight. I had to stop and get a picture of the sign and the field where they camped.
sign about the camping trip
field where the two men camped
When we traveled up to Glacier Point I also read that they camped up there too. Just seeing the views that we saw, I can only image what it looked like when they were there.
view of Half Dome from Glacier Point
To learn more about John Muir, I just recommend the book John Muir: America's First Environmentalist by Kathryn Lasky. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. There was so much that I learned about John Muir from this book. It starts in Scotland, where John was a young boy. The book talks a lot about his love on nature, but you also learn that he was an inventor. My favorite invention of his an early-rising machine. This was a clock that was attached to a bed. When the "alarm" was set on the clock, a pulley system would set the bed on end so the person would have to get up. Some days I could really use this! The rest of the book takes you through his life and his journeys. This book is a wealth of information about John Muir and a great introduction to him and his work.
Two really good books about Yosemite National Park are Letters Home From Our National Parks: Yosemite by Lisa Halvorsen (click here for a summary on Goodreads) and Welcome to Yosemite National Park by Pamela Dell (click here for a summary on Goodreads). Both of these books provided lots of facts about the national park. There are excellent photographs in each book. These are a great introduction to Yosemite, if you are not familiar with it.
my dad with some sequoia trees
For a great introduction to sequoia trees, read Giant Sequoia Trees by Ginger Wadsworth. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. This book has some great pictures and information about these giant trees. Seeing them in pictures does not even come close to seeing them in person. They are just so big and while you are walking among them I felt so small. Each day that we hiked among them, I just couldn't believe my eyes! One thing that I found very interesting was the bark in not hard like our trees. The bark on the sequoia's is soft and squishy.
All of these books are available through the public library. Many of them you will have to put on hold as they are owned by libraries outside of St. Mary's County. It doesn't take a lot of time for them to come to whatever library you request. Visit the public library site by clicking here. Would love to hear if anyone checks out any of these books.
Since this post ended up being a long one, I'll talk about books about San Francisco in another post.
I had the best time on my vacation to Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Parks and San Francisco. It was an amazing trip. If you get a chance I would highly recommend visiting these National Parks and many others. There are so many wonderful things to see in our country. Well, my vacation got off to a bit of a rocky start. We got stuck in Chicago, on the tarmac for just about two hours. Then when we got to the San Francisco Airport, we had to wait another two hours in line for our rental car! So we were four hours late getting started on our journey to Yosemite National Park. It was a LONG drive to our first stop. It took most of the time at Yosemite to recover. So I didn't get a lot of reading done. Here I am at Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park. Behind me are two Sequoia Trees called Twin Sisters because they are connected. I'm reading all about the hike we are about to start, so we can see the General Grant Tree, which is the second largest tree in the world. When walking though all those tall trees, you just feel SO small! They are just amazing, you can't hardly believe your eyes.
In this picture I'm at the entrance to Sequoia National Park. I'm reading all about all the wonderful hikes that my family and I are going to be going on. We found some helpful books about the three National Parks. The sights that we saw in Sequoia were just incredible and beautiful! Once we left Sequoia National Park, we went back to the airport and turned in our car. We got a shuttle that took us to our hotel in San Francisco. We did a lot of tours in San Francisco. One of the tours was to the Alcatraz Island. The tour of the prison was very interesting. While there I picked up the book Al Capone Does My Shirt by Gennifer Choldenko. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. I started reading it while I was waiting for the ferry to take us back. Monday I'll be posting some kid books about the National Parks and San Francisco for the students in case they want to learn more. There will be a mixture of fiction/nonfiction and chapter books and picture books. Looking forward to seeing some "Take a BOOK on Vacation" pictures from our HES students and staff! Happy Reading!! Miss Hazuda
I can't believe it is already July 13th! I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I was on vacation in California. I was going to post before I left, but my departure date came quicker than I thought it would. I had a truly fabulous time visiting Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Then we spent five days in San Francisco. I'll be posting some really good books about all of these places in a few days. I'll also be posting my "Take A BOOK on Vacation" pictures. Don't forget to send me any pictures of our HES students reading over the summer. Click here for all the information. Happy Reading!! Miss Hazuda
Hope everyone is having a great start to their summer. I finally feel like mine can start! I waited until this past Monday, June 17th to get sick. My summer, so far, has consisted of lots of tissues and naps and a bit of reading. Hope nobody else has gotten a summer cold. There are two books that I want to highlight, one is for the primary students (Kindergarten through Third Grade) and the second is for the intermediate students (Fourth and Fifth Grade). The first book is for the primary students, First Big Book of Space by Catherine D. Hughes. It is a National Geographic Little Kids book. Even though it says "little kids", I think that Third Grade students will benefit from the nonfiction text. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. As I was reading this book, I realized how much I didn't know about space! I was fascinated by all the neat facts that I learned. For example I didn't know that were five dwarf planets! This book is broken down into five "chapters": Looking Up From Earth, Earth's Neighborhood, Earth's Other Neighbors, Far Far Away, and Exploring Space. There is also a map of the Solar System and Parent Tips. The Parent Tips include ideas for you to extend your child knowledge of space. It also has a Glossary and an Index. This book will be available through the Public Library, it is on order at many of the branches, which means you can put it on hold. We will have this available for checkout in our Easy Nonfiction Section at HES next school year. The second book is a very interesting book for intermediate students. The book is A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. This was a very interesting book, because of the way it is set up. Each chapter is told from a different characters perspective. I did have to go back and reread a bit in the beginning until I had the characters straight in my mind. I think that I really liked this book because I love puzzles and that's what I felt this book was. Here is a little tease about the book, cakes are very important. The best part is: there are many cake recipes included. I can't wait to try a few out! If you read the book and make a cake, didn't forget to come back and comment to let me know how you liked the book and the cake. This book is available at the Public Library, you might need to put it on hold. I'm hoping to have it at HES next year. What have you read so far this summer? Don't for get about our "Take a BOOK on Vacation" activity.Last year we had eleven students (three from one family) and four staff members participate. I'm hoping for more this year! Happy Reading!! Miss Hazuda
