Picture Book Thursday: Birds

Eggs Written by Marilyn Singer Illustrated by Emma Stevenson Holiday House Ages 4-11

Sparrows Written by Hans Post & Kees Heij Illustrated by Irene Goede Lemniscaat Ages 4-11

Duck & Goose: How Are You Feeling? Written and illustrated by Tad Hills Schwartz & Wade Ages 2-7

Hi folks. I had planned to come up with some witty kind of bird pun but decided to spare you. You can thank me later. I did pick birds as this week's topic. I think you're going to like what's out there. Here goes...

Eggs
Wow! If there's something you want to know about eggs in a picture book format, this is the book for you. Here's one tasty tidbit for you. "But an ostrich egg is nowhere near as big as the egg of the enormous and extinct elephant bird, which lived in Madagascar three hundred years ago. It was large enough to contain 2 gallons of liquid or more than one hundred hen's eggs." This beautifully illustrated title is reminiscent of a naturalist's journal complete with inset illustrations and script-like notations. If you're doing an egg unit, you simply need this book.

Sparrows
Yet another nicely illustrated book, this title follows the life cycle of the sparrow. This is one intriguing little bird and the book does a nice job of filling in the reader on the history of the sparrow as well. Not Native to North America, the sparrow actually competes with native birds. This and some other facts ("It can weigh as much as 7 sugar cubes.") will lead to some nice open ended questions and conversations in your classroom.

Duck & Goose: How Are You Feeling?
This quirky board book features those lovable characters Duck and Goose. The pages sport one word text in the form of emotions and are coupled with illustrations of our fine feathered friends portraying those emotions. Proud, frustrated and patient are just a few of the featured feelings. This is a super title to generate some talks on feelings with your students. And don't forget to check out Duck, Duck, Goose if it isn't already part of your classroom library.

And that wraps up today's picks. If you have any feedback on books we've featured I'd love to hear from you. Soooo...I'll see you tomorrow at the Round Up.

Activity Make color copies of the the egg illustrations from the back cover of Marilyn Songer's Eggs. Have your students cut out the eggs and glue them onto sentence strips to make patterns.