We may have talked about this briefly before in class-- why do some teachers/schools feel that spelling tests are not useful? Just wondering. I am sure some teachers/schools think spelling tests are more about memorizing and that students aren't actually learning anything by memorizing.
I could always research this on my own but I am just wondering if anyone has any thoughts about this.

Beliefs and Understandings Concepts

Beliefs and Understandings

Methods
Guided Reading -students are in small group instruction, based on similar reading levels, skills needed, kids read quietly while teacher monitors and guides reading experience, while teacher is working with small group, other students are in literacy centers.
Reading Workshop - Teacher teaches a minilesson ("literary gossip," management, skills), students engage in independent practice, teacher monitors through conferences with children, students share their work to get other opinions, to reteach and break into "kid speak."
Writer's Workshop - Teachers have a mini-lesson, students engage independent practice, teacher monitors through conferences with students, students share their work.
Working with Words (Phonics) - letters, sounds, combinations of letters and sounds, word walls, word activities (making words, tongue twisters, read my mind, brand name phonics, rhyming games, WORDO, big books - looking for patterns)

Concepts
Strategy Instruction

• Connections and Background - schema (what you know about the world and how you act in it), connecting schema to text (T-S), Text to text (T-T), Text to world (T-W).
  
• Questioning - Reading to answer questions, questioning the reading, how reading creates more questions.
  
• Visualizing - text puts pictures in our mind, how to create them, how to change them.
  
• Determining Importance - What is the most important piece of the text, what is second, etc.
  
• Summarizing and Synthesizing - Paraphrasing, what is the text about?, merging ideas to create new schema.
  

Critical Literacy
Informational Texts
Fluency
Visual Literacy
Book Clubs / Groups
Literacy Centers - specialized places for specific activities, kids are working independently on specific skills in specific spaces of the room, tend to be kid-driven.
Technology - used where appropriate and in spaces that will help children learn literacy.

Assessment
Kidwatching / Observations
Writing Samples
6+1 Traits - a way to talk about and assess writing, it is not a curriculum, use this with writing samples and vocabulary in minilessons. Developed by Ruth Culham, Vicki Spandel.
Running Records
Retellings
Interviews

field trip

I seem to always have questions on here but I was somewhat thinking about my Belief and Understanding paper and I just wanted to know if we add to our old paper or do we start fresh? anyone know?

also...

Leslie and I got to go on a our kids field-trip on Friday and it was an experience. I felt like I learned a lot about my kids outside of the classroom. It was also great to see how my teacher handled the children not in school. So if any of you guys have the chance to go on a field-trip, I would recommend going because it is a great experience.

HOORAY! WE SURVIVED THE PRAXIS 11.

Sight Words and Name Brand Phonics

We recently talked about fluency and the role of sight words in developing fluency for elementary students. Research ascertains that kiddos who know a lot of words automatically read in ways that are smoother, understand more of what they read, and succeed more (although it is never really stated what that last one means) than kiddos who are not fluent readers. Here are some resources I've used from the web that will help you think about ways to use sight words in your classroom:

Sight Word From Ms. Ross's Class :: Lots of information about sight words here, including flashcards, word lists and connections to additional web resources.

Mrs. Perkins' Dolch Resources :: Sight words are also sometimes called Dolch words. This site contains a similar array of resources, definitely worth looking through.

Zwolle Elementary Sight Word Fun :: Some of the links are dead, but it's a good collection of sight word resources as well.

Here's another site that features Name Brand Phonics lessons: 4 Block Literacy. There is a ton on this page, so take a few moments to look through and download freely!

Inquiry Project

I started researching my inquiry project and I just had some questions. From my understanding, we are not writing a paper. Right? The only thing we need to have is a one page handout (?) and something to show the class on presentation day. And what is a good amount of sources?? I found about 4 articles and I did 3 interviews so I think that would be enough but I am not sure.

I really enjoy these projects. I think we can all learn a lot from each others presentation and I am excited to see everyones!

Also, for the lesson plans for the LAP. Are we making up our own lessons or looking online for lessons?

The semester is almost over!!!

Organizing a Classroom Library

So I've been building this blog post for a while now, attempting to collect pictures and stories from my friends who still teach to show you examples of classroom organization of books. It's interesting that the more people I talk to, the more I realize there are many similarities in how we have organized our collections. This could be because I tend to seek out teachers who share the same philosophies I possess or perhaps because our organization methods are just that good. I'm kind of hoping it's the latter.

Before we talk about organizing the physical texts, let's address how to obtain them. I had been a children's book collector for years, so I had several boxes of books to move into my classroom when I began, but I realize not everyone wants to collect children's books (relatives do begin to give you strange looks when you request the latest Kevin Henkes for your 18th birthday) and books are expensive! So what to do?

My thoughts:

1. Make friends with your local library. In Bloomington, we are fortunate to have the Monroe County Library Friends of the Library Bookstore. When the librarians take books out of circulation, they send them to the bookstore to be sold. This means the books have been well-loved, but you can obtain a hardcover of superior library-grade quality for a mere dollar. They tend to have a decent selection most of the time - I have walked out with armfuls of books one visit and nothing the next - and the books come fitted with snot guards already. (Snot guards are what my kiddos called the plastic wrapping libraries put on the books to protect them while being enjoyed.) They are open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday - for hours, check their website. It's a great way to get good books into your classroom while supporting the local library.

Other civic institutions also have books sales throughout the year, including the Red Cross. I've never been to the Red Cross books sale, but I hear it is amazing.

2. Book orders are a pain in the rump. Collecting money, making sure you don't lose the money, tallying up orders, sorting the orders once they come in: it all takes time, time that is valuable and could be spent doing other things, like lesson planning or reading a book yourself. There are the upsides, though: book orders provide low-cost books to your kiddos and their families and they also award you, the teacher, points for doing all the work. These points accumulate and can be redeemed for books in the book order, classroom supplies and other various goodies. Keep in mind that anything non-book takes what seems like forever to collect enough points for, but I found myself spending them on guided reading book sets and big books quite a bit. The big book club (the PC name for book orders) is Scholastic. When you get your first classroom, sign up.

3. Think alternatively. These are some other methods through which I have procurred books for my classroom: I had a lot of dietary restrictions in my room, meaning that regardless of what the caregivers sent in, not all of my kiddos would be able to enjoy the treat. At the beginning of the school year, I sent home a note explaining that due to the diets of my kiddos, I would not be able to have treats in the classroom but they were encouraged to send in a book in honor of their child's birthday. I would read the book to the class on their child's birthday, place a special sticker in the book to designate that it was donated for their child's birthday and place their birthday picture in the book as well. For kiddos who did not come to school with birthday books, I kept a stash of them in my desk drawer, purchased with those bonus points I referred to earlier.

I sent home another note right before Thanksgiving, asking caregivers to think about donating supplies or texts to the classroom rather than buying a present for me, if they were thinking this way at all. While I appreciate them, there can only be so many #1 Teacher mugs in my cupboard and if the teacher across the hall has the same mug, one of us has to be number two. I found that parents appreciated a list of things needed in the classroom - it was more helpful to them to buy something that would be used by all the kids rather than just myself. On the day before break, individual kiddos would open up their presents and show the class new glue sticks, glitter gel, and books.

Okay, so there are some options to persue when bringing books into your classroom. Be picky - don't let just anything in. Use your resources wisely as you only have so much space and so much time. This is the first thing I notice about the classroom libraries of my friends: we don't just let anything into our classroom.

Organizing the books in your room is a matter of personal taste. You want think about several things when putting together your system:

* How will student use the books?
* How will they keep them - in their desks, in their book bins?
* What can you get away with in your physical space?
* What will be best for instruction?
* What materials do I have to organize them with? (Baskets, bins, etc.)

For myself, I put my books in groups based on several factors: author studies, topics, genres, series and favorite characters. I found my kiddos were overwhelmed, as was I, by the sheer amount of books in my classroom. I began to rotate the books through the library - one the first school day of the month, I would introduce the new book bins (Sterilite baskets I bought at Target) and we would look at the contents. It kept them excited about the classroom library and ensured they would not be bored. It also reduced the amount of books in the classroom kids and had to manage. If a child took a particular shine to a book and the end of the month was approaching, I would allow them to hold onto it. I'm not that mean.

Students would select books in the morning while getting their backpacks taken care of, before starting writer's workshop. My kiddos worked with book bins, cheap magazine files I bought at IKEA. On the first day of school, they decorated the outsides of them and got to take them home at the end of the year. The rule was they needed to keep eight books in their bins at all times: three leveled texts and five enjoyment texts.

Which brings me to another point: I had multiple libraries in my classroom. The above described the general classroom library. I also had a guided reading leveled library, collections of single-titled leveled books, for students to access, as well as a teacher-only library filled with anchor books for writing and reading lessons. I moved to the teacher-only library after never being able to find my anchor texts in the general library or having to take them from a kiddo who was enjoying them.

This is a lot of information on classroom libraries and doesn't begin to cover it all. Since my fingers are beginning to hurt from writing, here are some links to explore:

Mandy's Classroom Library

Tips for Organizing and Managing Your Classroom Library

ProTeacher Discussion Thread on Library Organization

Scholastic: Creating Your Classroom Library

Happy Internet surfing!

Shaun Pluta's Text Set for Summarizing and Synthesizing

How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long and David Shannon

http://www.lee-knight.com/Main/images/cover_art/how_i_became_a_pirate.jpg

Long, Melinda, and David Shannon. How I Became a Pirate. New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2003.

Synopsis: This is an imaginary tale where a young boy named Jeremy Jacob is spending a day with his family on the beach. All of a sudden a pirate ship comes along the shore and whisks Jeremy away to spend a day as a pirate. Along the way Jeremy learns to do things like talk like a pirate, eat like a pirate, and even gets the chance to bury some treasure. Jeremy loved spending the day with the pirates. The pirates say that Jeremy is welcome back anytime, but for right now he is ready to go back to his normal life... and to soccer practice.

Strategy Connection: In focusing on summarizing and synthesis, I would probably have the students do one of two things with this story. Having the students do as i did with the synopsis would demonstrate what the two skills are used for, but there are more interesting ways to engage the students so that the learn the lesson. For this story a good activity would be for the students to choose one to two sentences from each page of the story, and retell it. If the story still makes sense, they are doing a good job of synthesizing by shortening the story and summarizing picking out the most important details.





The Bug Cemetery by Frances Hill and Illustrated by Vera Rosenberry

http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/Tilted/9780805063707.jpg

Hill, Frances, and Vera Rosenberry. The Bug Cemetery. Boston: Henry Holt & Company Books For Young Readers, 2002.

Synopsis: This book is about a group of children that find a dead ladybug and decide to bury it, and make a headstone out of a rock that they decorate. Before long, all of the neighborhood kids want to join in the fun of burying dead insects and having funerals for them. The funerals are full of speeches and fake tears. At the end of the story, one of the childrens cats really dies and they have to have a real funeral. The students began crying real tears and they realize that "Funerals are not fun when they are for people that you love."

Strategy Connection: This book is very short but has a lot of good functions. As it is short I feel that it would be very good for mental sumarizing and synthesizing. In order to do this i would have student read through the story and do a mental retelling, where they write down the story as best they could remember it in their own words. By doing this, I would point out to the children that more often the not the parts of the story that they left in their story are very important. Students use these important sections in order to make sense out of the story. This essentially is sumarizing and synthesizing.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger's Why do you Love Me?

http://cdn.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/large/0/9780064436540.jpg

Schlessinger, Laura, Martha L. Lambert, and Paul Meisel. Why Do You Love Me? New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

Synopsis: This is the story of a little boy named Sammy. Throughout this story Sammy is trying to figure out why it is that his mother loves him. Is it because he is good at Karate, because he helps others? Are there times when Sammys mother does not love him like when he screams, or after he hits someone? It must be because of these things that Sammy's mother loves him. In the end Sammy's mother reassures him that she loves him all the time, good or bad, because he is hers and there is only one of him.

Strategy Connection: This book is full of important material and other material that could left out when retelling the story. This book would be great for students to begin to learn how to synthesize and sumarrize by figuring out how to draw out important details. For this book I would have the student read the story. Following, I would have prepared a worksheet with different sections of the story. The students job is to selcect the passages that are most vital to retelling the story. This builds on their skills and helps to refine their reading.

Summarizing and Synthesizing Information

Timothy and the Strong Pajamas
By: Vivian Schwarz
Synopsis:
Timothy likes the idea of being strong and having powers to help people. He realizes his super strengths when he puts on his newly sewn up pajamas. He uses his super strength to do good deeds and is willing to help anyone who needs him. Timothy doesn't realize who really helps him in need until he rips his pajamas and all the people who he helped ended up helping him get a lift home. The real hero turns out to be Timothy's mother who fixes the pajamas!

Determining Importance Connection:
For this connection you can have the students use their folded sheet of paper that has, "What the piece is about" on the left side and the other side having, "What it makes me think" Have the students fill out the what it makes me think side first and then the what the piece is about side lastly. It is important for the students to make a connection with the text before figuring out the summary. Making the connection uses deeper meaning and is more important.

Today I Feel Silly By: Jamie Lee Curtis
Synopsis:
This book focuses solely on the moods that children may sometimes feel. It has a creative way of describing each mood. A little girl goes through all these silly little moods and describes what she does when she feels a certain mood.

Determining Importance Connection:
For this connection you can have the students use their folded sheet of paper that has, "What the piece is about" on the left side and the other side having, "What it makes me think" Have the students fill out the what it makes me think side first and then the what the piece is about side lastly. Have the students try and recall a time when they felt silly or felt a certain mood and what did they do? Then have them summarize what the story was about.

Los Gatos Black on Halloween By: Marisa Montes
Synopsis:
This book does a great job of illustrating a spooky Halloween theme with very exciting but spooky illustrations. All the typical Halloween characters come out Halloween night to have a party till some very scary intruders come crash the party and tell some very scary tales!

Determining Importance Connection:
Use the strategy "How reading changes thinking" pg. 183 and have the children talk about what they think the story may be about before reading the text. Afterwards have the children write out or discuss how their thinking evolved after reading the story.

Jenny Yearby's Determining Impotance Text Set

The Grandchildren of the Vikings by Matti A. Pitkanen

Synopsis: This non-fiction book is a great text for children to relate to because it is all about the lives of actual children. This book tracks voyages of Vikings from long ago. Vikings settled in places like Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Children from these different places are introduced throughout this text and one is able to see the similarities in their Viking traditions. They are all grandchildren of Vikings whose backgrounds are very similar. This book has amazing photographs of these children and landscapes of where they live, as well as maps to show where these places are located.

Determining Importance Connection: For this text I would use the strategy, "Finding Important Information Rather Than Just One Main Idea" (p 166). This is when the students mark important information in the book with sticky notes. This is probably my favorite strategy because children are challenged to constantly be thinking and comprehending what they are reading. Children can even write what they were thinking when they read the idea on the sticky note so they may discuss with their peers or teacher why they put a sticky note in that spot.

Tiger Math: Learning to Graph from a Baby Tiger by Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel

Synopsis: This is a non-fiction book about a Siberian tiger, T.J., born in a zoo in Denver, Colorado. This book is unique in that all of the pages on the right tell the story of the tiger cub, and the pages on the left show graphs, including picture graphs, circle graphs, bar graphs, and line graphs, to help tell the story of T.J. As a young cub, his mother died, which would make it hard for T.J. to get proper nutrition. He would not eat anything for a long time, but when he finally did, he grew to be a beautiful, healthy tiger.

Determining Importance Connection: For this text I would use the strategy, "Important to Whom?" (p 167). In this strategy, students find what they believe to be the most important ideas of the text. When they find a main idea in the book, they underline this sentence or paragraph. Next, the student will be able to write down what they believe the author wanted to teach them. I believe this text is a great book for this strategy because it is possible children will come up with several different main ideas. Then, this gives the opportunity for children to really discuss what they have written down and see how their responses may be similar or different from their classmates.

Ancient Egypt Revealed by Peter Chrisp

Synopsis: This book is a great non-fiction text all about ancient Egypt. It has actual pictures and transparencies of the pyramids, tombs, hieroglyphs, mummies, etc. The text gives in depth information about topics from what life was like on the Nile River in ancient Egypt, to animal gods, to mummification and what ancient Egyptians believed happened in the after life.

Determining Importance Connection: For this text I would use the strategy, "Determining What's Important When Writing Information" (p 162). Students would be able to read this text and see what good informational, non-fiction books look like. The children would choose a topic of their own they wanted to write a non-fiction book about. When writing a book like this, it is essential for the author to be an expert on the subject. This would be a great activity for students to understand the importance of becoming experts on their subject of choice.

Margot Bopp's Visualizing and Inferring Annotated Bibliography

Lakin, Patricia, and Scott Nash. Beach Day! New York: Dial, 2004.
This book is about four friends that decide it is the perfect day to go to the beach. It includes their journey to get to the beach by using one word expressions and illustrations that show many different expressions on their faces. Throughout their journey they participate in fun activities such as: going to the park, playing in the sun, and building sand castles. It is a book that is very relatable to young readers and is also a fairly easy read for young readers.

Strategy Connection: This book could be used for the strategy, “Creating Mental Images That Go Beyond Visualizing.” The reader could read the book and look at the illustrations to answer the questions: I see…, I hear…, I can feel…, I can smell…, and I can taste… The students could then write their own story using the, I see…, I hear…, I can feel…, I can smell…., and I can taste… It allows young readers to rely on their own senses to understand and make sense of the book they are reading.

http://www.amazon.com/Beach-Day-Karen-Roosa/dp/0618029230/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223611512&sr=1-2Beach-Day-Karen-Roosa/dp/0618029230/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223611512&sr=1-2

Malkin, Michele, and Michele Malkin. Pinky's Sweet Tooth. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 2003.

This book is about a niece that is helping her aunt who owns a bakery to win the Bake Off Contest at the County Fair. The aunt is a very popular baker in the town that is known for her tasty and creative cakes and desserts. Throughout the book the aunt wants to come up with a creative cake that will win the Bake Off Contest at the County Fair. The niece helps the aunt by asking people throughout the town their opinions and giving her own opinions. The aunt ends up bringing a gigantic cake that is made of all the people’s favorite cakes. The aunt wins the contest! .

Strategy Connection: This book has many amazing pictures that would help the reader to develop mental images and create inferences. This book is a food related book and has many in depth descriptions of different types of deserts making it a great book to use for the strategy, “Creating Mental Images That Go Beyond Visualizing.” The reader could read the book and look at the illustrations to answer the questions: I see…, I hear…, I can feel…, I can smell…, and I can taste…

http://www.amazon.com/Pinkys-Sweet-Tooth-Michele-Malkin/dp/0525470883/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223611394&sr=1-1

Thompson, Lauren, and Jonathan Bean. The Apple Pie That Papa Baked. New York: Simon & Schuster Children's, 2007.

This book describes the steps that occurred in nature to create “Papa’s apple pie”. The book has a very simple and repetitive way to explain to the reader that “Papa” gets the apple from the apple tree, that needs water to grow, the water comes from the clouds, etc. This book brings what happens in nature to a very simple concept such as making a pie. It allows the reader to learn how a tree grows and how apples are made that are then used to create the pie.

Strategy Connection: The repetitive nature would make it very easy for a beginning reader to understand and visualize. Therefore making it a great book to use for a visualizing activity such as: Sketch to Stretch. The students could read this book and not look at the pictures and then create pictures that go along with the text. The students could also simply look at the pictures and create a story that goes along with the illustrations. This book allows the students to use their creativity and imagination to create both a story and illustrations.

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Pie-That-Papa-Baked/dp/1416912401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223611084&sr=1-1

Question about the LAP

I was thinking about the LAP project and I came across a couple of questions. How do you want the LAP to be turned in? Right now I am typing all of my responses (reading interview, retelling) on the computer and printing them out. Will that be ok? And how we will turn in the running records? Is it ok to have them hand-written? It would be hard to have those corrections typed up. I am just trying to get a mental picture of how the LAP will look.

Amanda's Text Set- Visualizing & Inferring

Saltzberg, B. The Soccer Mom From Outer Space

The night before a young girl plays her first soccer game of the season; her father tells her a story about his own first season playing soccer. His mother acted like all the other parents cheering on their children at the soccer game but she started to act differently and began to look like a pickle. His mother began to yell and roar whenever the team would score a goal, she was turning into an alien!

Strategy Connection: This book pertains to this strategy by having the students cover up the words on the pages and make their own predictions and meaning of the story from the pictures. Once the students created their own meaning, they would uncover the words and read the story to see how their interpretation compared with the actual story. This books has some great pictures that would really get the students thinking and really use their imagination. This is a great text to use for this strategy. Students would enjoy seeing how their own meaning relates to what the author wrote.

Saltzberg, B. Crazy Hair Day

Stanley Birdbaum is so excited for crazy hair day at his school. He has rolled and wrapped and dyed his hair. He has dipped it and sprayed it and made it pretty much perfect for this special day. He is ready to celebrate crazy hair day at school. But when Stanley enters the classroom, he comes to find that crazy hair day is . . . next week. What makes this situation even worse is that today is school picture day!

Strategy Connection: This book would be good to use during a sketch to stretch. Children usually always can think of a time when something bad has happened to them at school and they were embarrassed. This book would be good for the teacher to read to the students and then have them use their prior knowledge and sketch a time in their life when they felt the same way as Stanley. This book gives good detail before and during the event so there is a lot of description which would really get the students engaged in their own drawings and understandings. If the students did not have an even that related to this particular book, they could think of another book or maybe even a particular page or part in this book that they would like to sketch.

McNamara, M. How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

Mr. Tiffin asks his class “How many seeds in a pumpkin?” as they all gather around the small, medium, and large pumpkins in the classroom. Robert, the biggest kid, guesses that the largest one has a million seeds; Elinor, sounding as if she knows all, suggests the medium one has 500 seeds; and Anna, who likes even numbers better than odd ones, guesses that the little one has 22. Charlie, the smallest boy in the class, doesn't have a guess. Counting pumpkin seeds is quite confusing as well as messy. But once the job is done they found that the smallest pumpkin had the most seeds!

Strategy Connection: This book would be great to have the students use their different senses when reading or listening to the story. Most students can probably recall a time when they carved pumpkins and began counting the seeds. When fall comes, there is a certain smell that comes too. Studnets should use their senses to recall smell, taste, sight, feeling and hearing when reading this book about pumpkin seeds. Students will better connect with the story by using this strategy and become more engaged in the learning.

Kourtnee's Determining Importance Text Set

Sis, Peter. Train of States. Harpercollins Childrens Books, 2007.

http://www.amazon.com/Train-States-Peter-Sis/dp/0060578386

Book Synopsis: This book would be a great book to introduce to the class for a social studies unit. The author designed it so that the train cars each represent one state. The train cars are arranged in the order the state was added to the union. All the train cars are unique in its own way with its own page. The author creatively teaches the reader each states capitol, state flower and random other facts about the state that a lot of individuals may not already know like flowers, birds, trees and nicknames.

Determining Importance Connection: With this book I would use a strategy called "Important to Whom?" (p 167). This is when you have the students read the book and chose what they think is the most important or the main idea of the book. Then have the student draw a line under that response and write down what they think the author wanted them to learn and remember. Sometimes they write down the same responses, but other times their answers are very different.



Jones, Lynda. Five Brilliant Scientists. New York City, NY: Cartwheel Books, 2000.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Black-Heroes-Brilliant-Scientists/dp/0590480316

Book Synopsis: This book is an informational text for primary students about the achievements of five black scientists. It discusses their early lives as well as how they came to be successful. Susan McKinney Steward was the first black female doctor in New York State. George Washington Carver is a world famous agricultural scientist. Ernest Just was a marine biologist. Percy Julian was a chemist and Shirley Jackson was a nuclear physicist. Loved the illustrations in this book!

Determining Importance Connection: With this book I would use a strategy called "Finding Important Information Rather Than Just One Main Idea" (p 166). This is when the students use three sticky notes labeled with an asterisk (*) to mark three important ideas in the text. Because this book discusses multiple people I would allow them to use three sticky notes per person but they would have to be able to defend their stance and explain their thinking behind their decision for choosing the three things they chose to put a sticky note on.



Penny, Malcolm. Talking About Our Environment. Heinemann/ Raintree, 1999.

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Environment-What-Think-About/dp/0750224916/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225049136&sr=1-1.

Book Synopsis: This book could be used for primary aged students. It discusses the current environmental problems we are facing in the world. For example it mentions recycling, disposing waste and waste products and preserving our natural resources. It teaches children what they can do to help out and play their part so things can progressively change for the future.

Determining Importance Connection: With this book the students could use a strategy called "Becoming Familiar with the Characteristics of Nonfiction" (p 161). This is when you take the topic (which with this book would be the environment) and write down the facts they already know about the topic. Next they make a list of questions/wonderings they want to ask before they do their research or read the book. Lastly the students make a list of 5 new facts they learned as they read. They can also draw illustrations like real authors do.