Ellington Center School/Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge “Fizz! Boom! Read!”

Summer is a great time for children to read. Studies have shown that children who read during their summer vacation retain more of what they have learned throughout the school year and are better prepared for the first day of school in the fall. Encourage your child to become an avid summer reader by giving him or her lots of reading choices. Attached are some suggested book titles your child may want to read over the summer. The Hall Memorial Library staff has many of these and other great choices!

Along with the summer reading program at Hall Memorial Library, we would like to encourage you to participate in the Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge 2014. To participate, students fill out the attached reading log showing the reading they have completed. Children may read a book to an adult or sibling, have books read to them, or may read books by themselves. Either way, please “log” whenever your child has read or has had a book read to them on the Reading Log.

All reading logs are due in to their classroom teacher during the first week of the new school year 2014-2015. Youngsters who have participated in the Summer Reading Program will be celebrated and recognized with a certificate of recognition from our Governor and the Commissioner of Education. These certificates will be awarded to all participants who return their reading logs to Center School. If the reading logs are misplaced, just keep a record of book titles that have been read and bring that to school. Our objective is to encourage and recognize those students who have practiced their reading skills over the summer months!

Please help us make this a summer of reading fun for your child!

Sincerely, Trudie Luck Roberts Principal

Hall Memorial Library Summer Hours: Monday-Thursday > 10:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. Friday > 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Saturday > 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Summer Reading Suggestions entering Kindergarten

Suggested Authors: Kid’s Favorites:

Norman Bridwell (Clifford books) *Angelina Ballerina (Holabird) Eric Carle (Very Hungry Caterpillar) *Biscuit books (Capucilli) Mem Fox (The Magic Hat) *Chrysanthemum (Henkes) Leo Lionni (Swimmy) Bill Martin (Brown Bear, Brown Bear) *Click, Clack Moo (Cronin) Mercer Mayer *Corduroy (Freeman) Dr. Seuss books *Curious George (Rey) Denise Fleming books *Emily’s First 100 Days…(Wells) Don & Audrey Wood (Napping House) *In the Small Small Pond (Fleming) Jonathan London (Froggy books) *Miss Bindergarten (Slate) Jan Brett (The Hat) *Miss Spider (Kirk) P.D. Eastman (Are you My Mother?) *No, David (Shannon) Mo Willems (Elephant and Piggie, Knuffle *Olivia (Falconer) Bunny)

Caldecott Award Books (2004-2014) 2014: by Brian Flocca 2013: This Is Not My Hat by 2012: by Chris Raschka 2011: A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead 2010: Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney 2009: by Susan Marie Swanson 2008: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Slezick 2007: Flotsam by David Wiesner 2006: The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster 2005: Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes 2004: The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein

Building Community Through Shared Reading—Principal Trudie Roberts suggests: Only One You by Linda Kranz Anything is Possible by Guilia Belloni Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Marcus Pinkwater When the Wind Stops by Charlotte Zolotow Snowflakes Fall by Patricia MacLachlan and Steven Kellog The Cloud Spinner by Michael Catchpool Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld Summer Reading List* Fizz Boom Read ~ Grades K-2 Suggested summer reading compiled for the Connecticut Department of Education by Linda Williams, Connecticut State Library

PICTURE BOOKS Rocks in His Head by Carol Otis Hurst A young man has a lifelong love of rock collecting that Slow Down for Manatees by Jim Arnosky eventually leads him to work at a science museum. Lexile: Injured by a passing motorboat, a pregnant manatee is 440 rescued and taken to an aquarium to recover and have her ALA, NSTA baby in a safe environment. Lexile: 860 NSTA Moustronaut Goes to Mars by Mark Kelly A small but plucky mouse named Mike is sure that he can I Took a Walk by Henry Cole help the Space Shuttle astronauts, and ends up saving the A visit to woods, pasture, and pond brings encounters with whole mission. Includes facts about NASA and space travel. various birds, insects, and other creatures of nature. Flaps fold out to reveal the animals on each two-page spread. Pluto Visits Earth! by Steve Metzger Lexile: 190 Angry at being downgraded to a dwarf planet by NSTA Earth scientists, Pluto travels through the solar system, asking other planets along the way for The Voyage of Turtle Rex support, in hopes of regaining his planetary by Kurt Cyrus status. Lexile: 380 Follows the life of a giant prehistoric sea turtle. IRA Lexile: 580 NSTA 11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offil Just Ducks! by Nicola Davies A young child tries a series of wacky experiments, On her way to school, a young girl spots mallard ducks in such as seeing if a piece of bologna will fly like a frisbee the river and enthusiastically describes their appearance, and determining whether seedlings will grow if watered habits, and behavior. Interspersed throughout the pages are with expensive perfume, and then must suffer the facts about ducks. Lexile: 940 consequences of experiments gone awry. AAAS A Leaf Can Be… by Laura Purdie Salas by Candace Papa’s Mechanical Fish In rhyming text and illustrations, explores some of the many Fleming things a leaf can be, from tree topper to rain stopper. In the summer of 1851, with encouragement and ideas Includes facts about leaves and a glossary. Lexile: 170 provided by his family, an inventor builds a working IRA, NCTE submarine and takes his family for a ride. Includes notes about Lodner Phillips, the real inventor on whom the story Eat Like a Bear by April Pulley Sayre is based.Lexile: 480 Follows a bear from the time she emerges from her den in NSTA, SLJ Best April after four months without food, through months of eating fish, ants, and huckleberries, to midwinter when the In the Small, Small Pond by Denise arrival of two cubs interrupts her long winter's rest. Fleming ALA, NSTA Illustrations and rhyming text describe the activities of animals living in and near a small pond as spring progresses Robot Zot! by Jon Scieszka to autumn. Lexile: NP On a mission to conquer planet Earth, tiny but fearless ALA Robot Zot and his mechanical sidekick leave a path of destruction as they battle kitchen appliances. Lexile: 390 Yucky Worms by Vivian French While helping Grandma in the garden, a child learns about June 29, 1999 by David Wiesner the important role of the earthworm in helping plants grow. While her third-grade classmates are sprouting seeds in Lexile: 620 paper cups, Becky has a more ambitious, innovative science ALA project in mind. Lexile: 750 ALA

April 2014 Summer Reading List*

BEGINNING READERS Energy Island: How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed Their Pearl and Wagner: Two Good Friends by World by Allan Drummond Kate McMullan It's windy on the Danish island of Samsø. Meet the Pearl and Wagner, a rabbit and a mouse, work together to environmentally friendly folks who, in a few short years, build a robot for their science project. Lexile: 340 worked together for energy independence, and who now Robot, Go Bot!: A Comic Reader by Dana proudly call their home Energy Island. Lexile: 920 IRA, NSTA Meachen Rau A young girl makes so many demands on the robot she Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert has constructed that he runs away. Simple text and bright pictures show how butterflies use ALA flowers and identify several types of butterflies. Lexile: 160 ALA GRAPHIC NOVEL Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner Oh No!, or How My Science Project De- During a cross country ski trip through the winter woods, adventurers can discover all sorts of animals living under stroyed the World by Mac Barnett the snow. Lexile: 700 After winning the science fair with the giant robot she has ALA, NCTE, NSTA built, a little girl realizes that there is a major problem. Lifetime: The Amazing Numbers in POETRY Animal Lives by Lola M. Schaefer An evocative counting primer combines contrasting In the Sea by David Elliott illustrations with engaging animal facts that invite young A collection of poems for children featuring woodcut illus- children to count a woodpecker's 30 roosting holes, a trations and rhyming text from David Elliot on the charac- giraffe's 200 spots and 1,000 baby seahorses. Lexile: 860 teristics and behaviors of sea horses, sharks, urchins, NCTE, NSTA whales, and other sea creatures. Lexile: NP

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce BIOGRAPHY Sidman Celebrates the shape of a spiral in nature, from rushing riv- by Jacqueline Briggs ers to flower buds and even the shape of an ear. Lexile: 330 Martin ALA, NSTA, A biography of a self-taught scientist who photographed thousands of individual snowflakes in order to study their NONFICTION unique formations. Lexile: 830 ALA, NSTA Things That Float and Things That Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors?: Don’t by David A. Adler The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell by An apple floats in a tub of water, but a ball of aluminum foil Tanya Lee Stone sinks to the bottom. But wait. If that same ball of foil is An introduction to the life and achievements of the first flattened out and shaped into a boat, it floats! How can that American female doctor describes the limited career be? Lexile: 600 prospects available to women in the early nineteenth- NSTA century, the opposition Blackwell faced while pursuing a I Face the Wind by Vicki Cobb medical education, and her pioneering medical career that Introduces the characteristics and actions of the wind opened doors for future generations of women. Lexile: through simple hands-on activities. Lexile: 540 ALA, NSTA ALA

*Many of the listed books were selected as exemplary books by one or more of the following organizations: the American Library Association (ALA), the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) or the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY). Summer Reading Favorites & Classics For Kindergarten to Grade 2

Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang by Robert Numbers from ten to one are part of this lullaby which McCloskey observes the room of a little girl going to bed. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard proudly return to their home in the Boston Public Garden with their eight offspring. Lexile: The Mitten by Jan Brett 630 One by one, animals in a snowy forest crawl into Nicki's lost white mitten to get warm until the bear sneezes, sending The Little Engine That Could by Watty the animals flying up and out of the mitten. On each turn of Piper the page, signature borders inspired by Ukrainian folk art Although she is not very big, the Little Blue Engine agrees hint at what animal is coming next. Lexile: 800 to try to pull a stranded train full of toys over the mountain. by Margaret Wise Brown Lexile: 680 Goodnight to each of the objects in the great green room: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter goodnight chairs, goodnight comb, goodnight air. Lexile: Adventurous Peter Rabbit disobeys his mother and wanders 360 into Mr. McGregor's garden. Lexile: 660 Harold and the Purple Crayon by Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Crockett Johnson Sendak Harold goes for an adventurous walk in the moonlight with A naughty little boy, sent to bed without his supper, sails to his purple crayon. Lexile: 490 the land of the wild things where he becomes their king. by Ezra Jack Keats Lexile: 740 The adventures of a little boy in the city on a very snowy Caps for Sale by day. Lexile: 500 A band of mischievous monkeys steals every one of a The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss peddler's caps while he takes a nap under a tree. Lexile: 480 Despite everyone's dire predictions, a little boy has faith in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, the carrot seed he plants. Lexile: 230 No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring On a day when everything goes wrong for him, Alexander Lowrey is consoled by the thought that other people have bad days One night a puppy, who is always late coming home, finds too. Lexile: 970 there is no dessert for him. Lexile: 640 Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin On a cold winter night many animals gather to party in the An alphabet rhyme/chant that relates what happens when cave of a sleeping bear, who then awakes and protests that the whole alphabet tries to climb a coconut tree. Lexile: 530 he has missed the food and the fun. Lexile: 280

FAVORITE AUTHORS Byron Barton Mem Fox Dr. Seuss Margaret Wise Brown Ezra Jack Keats Maurice Sendak Anthony Browne Jon Klassen David Shannon Eric Carle James Marshall Williams Steig Donald Crews Robert McCloskey David Wiesner Tomie de Paola Jon Muth Mo Willems P. D. Eastman Jerry Pinkney Karma Wilson Ed Emberley Peggy Rathmann Jacqueline Woodson STUDENT NAME: Entering Grade:

Ellington Center School /Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge

“Fizz! Boom! Read!”

Reading Log Sheet

*Return all reading logs to your new classroom teacher during the first week of the new school year.*

I read the The book was I read the Book Title book to… read to me book myself! by…

*Return all reading logs to your new classroom teacher during the first week of the new school year.* Student Name: Entering Grade: Fizz! Boom! Read! 2014 Log Sheet I read the The book I read the Book Title book to… was read to book by me by… myself!

*Return all reading logs to your new classroom teacher during the first week of the new school year.*