'Tis the Season - for Winners!

February is always an exciting time in the world of Children's Literature.  For 2013, the Caldecott and Newbery went to The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate and This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen, respectively.

A host of other books were of course given honors by the Caldecott and Newbery judges.

Wander on over to TeachingBooks.net to hear what these winning authors and others have to say about their craft.

Book Bags ... Not Just for Kinders

This past week the LP Reads team has been busy assembling new book bags for the Kindergarten classes.  The book bag project was inspired by an established set that Mrs. Miller uses to create additional touch points for children with books outside of the classroom.  Each book bag comes complete with a fiction and a non-fiction book, a recommended reading list, and activities related to the bag's theme that parents can enjoy with their children.  While Mrs. Miller's collection includes many bags that she has come up with on her own, the majority of the Kinder collection has come from Reading Rockets.  The bags are created for Pre-K to 2nd grade children and the themed guides are all free and downloadable from the Reading Rockets site.  So if you are a Kinder parent who can't wait to get started with the book bags or the parent of an older child hoping to get in on the fun, head over to Reading Rockets and check out their selection of themes.

The Reading Rockets website is also a fantastic resource for all things reading, so even if the book bags and activities don't strike your fancy, you might be interested in their themed booklists, videotaped author interviews, or research about reading.