Book about lesbian families.

I found this book while I was looking through our text book and I picked it up at the library yesterday. The name of the book is Molly's Family by Nancy Garden. The book is about a little girl who has two mom's. One mother is her birth mother and the other is her adopted mother. When she is asked at school to make a picture of her family for back to school night, her drawing gets made fun of by a boy in her class. He tells her that she can't have two mommy's. Molly tries to defend herself by saying how other people in the class sometimes have just a mommy or just a daddy. After this little boy still wasn't giving up, Molly talked to her mom at home. Her parents explained to her that you can have two mommy's, two daddy's, or grandparents or other people can be your parents too. The teacher talks to the class about different types of families and at the back to school night Molly proudly displays her picture and the class finally learns to accept all differnet families. I found this book very helpful and very easy for a child to read. I would keep this in my classroom library regardless if I had a child with gay or lesbian parents, or not. I think it's important to let children know about things they may not be familiar with. I'm sure some parents wouldn't like a teacher telling their child about gay/lesbian couples, but it's something they're going to come in contact with whether they like it or not. It's everywhere now, all over TV and even in cartoons! I would also read this book to my class if there was a child in the class with gay/lesbian parents and they were being targeted by other students. I suggest everyone read this book it's really worth it!

Happy 4th of July !

Gus and Grandpa

I read a book titled Gus & Grandpa and the Two-Wheeled Bike for my annotated bibliography. I think this is a perfect book to have in a classroom because it's really inspiring. It's basically about this little boy who still has training wheels on his bike and really doesn't want them on anymore but is too afraid to take them off. He sees his next door neighbor doing tricks on his two-wheeled bike and wants to be able to do the same. His dad tries to convince him to take off the training wheels but he gets upset and doesn't want his dad forcing him. He decides to take a trip to his grandpa's house and while he was there they start looking through old stuff in his garage. They stumble upon his dad's old two-wheeled bike and when Gus doesn't see training wheels on it he feels a little better about himself and feels like he could do it if his dad did. His grandpa and him go to the park and Gus learns how to finally ride a two-wheel bike with a little help! It's really inspiring and helpful for children who may be afraid to try certain things. I think that when children see that other people have fears just like them, it makes things a little easier for them. It's an easy read and it's reccommended for kids ages 6-8 and the title of the book again is Gus and Grandpa and the Two-Wheeled Bike by Claudia Mills and Catherine Stock. (it's also a series!) which as we know gets a lot of kids interested in reading.

Our visit to Bradford.

Today was definitely interesting. I walked into a classroom in a school I had never been to and thought I knew no one there and then ended up with a student I tutor! It was amazing to see how different he was in school and how different it was working with him when I got to do something fun and not "work." The children enjoyed the book The Fungus That Ate My School and I highly reccommend it to anyone who has not read it. I don't know any kids who wouldn't LOVE to have their school eaten by fungus, I know that I would have when I was their age. It was an easy-read and the kids even helped me read a little! It also brought up great discussion. My kids were talking about finding mold and fungus outside on their driveways and also about how to create machines to get rid of the fungus! It was definitely a pleasure reading with those children and I would love to do it again. =)