Now that we`re all done reading the Forest of Reading books at school I went looking for some other books from some of our favourite Blue Spruce authors. I found Monkey Business by Wallace Edwards. Edwards was the author of Uncle Wally`s Old Brown Shoe which the kids just loved. They really enjoyed the illustrations. So yesterday I pulled out Monkey Business and read it to a grade 2 and 3 class. They loved it! The book starts with a definition of an idiom which none of them really understood. After one or two pages there was a lot of shouts of "I get it!!" They enjoyed the pictures and especially finding the magic page. This is a fantastic book for grades 2 to 5. Monkey Business is a fun way to teach idioms.
Uncle Wally's Old Brown Shoe is a repetitive story that begins with an old brown shoe. I read it to classes kindergarten to grade 3 this past week. I don't think the story itself really grabbed the kids. I thought they might read along with the repetitive parts but none of the classes did. What they did love was the illustrations. They were all quick to shout out or put their hands up to let me know what they saw. Even the class on Friday was pointing out new things that classes earlier in the week hadn't pointed out. The illustrations are really great. We've talking a lot this week how everyone can be a writer. This was a good tie in because I started each chat with 'How do you write a whole book on the subject of an old brown shoe?!?' The kids really did like the book and a show of hands indicated that some would vote for Uncle Wally's Old Brown Shoe to win the Blue Spruce award in the Forest of Reading.