It's a SPECIAL DELIVERY!

The kindergarten students and I shared a story from the summer reading list today. I think that reading one of the books from the list gets them excited about the others and hopefully drives them to the public library to check them out.

So, today we read Special Delivery, written by Philip Stead and illustrated by Matthew Cordell.  Special Delivery is about a young girl, Sadie, who wants to send an elephant to her great aunt Josephine, "who lives almost completely alone and could really use the company." An elephant is not your typical post office package, so Sadie finds some very creative ways to get them both to Josephine.  It's a story that celebrates the happiness of sending and receiving packages of all sizes.

When I used this book with third grade last year, it turned into a pen pal relationship with students in Minnesota.  

With the kindergartners today, they drew pictures of the animals that they thought Sadie should next send her great aunt Josephine. Prior to doing this the students identified all the other animals (along with the newly-arrived elephant) that Sadie had already sent to Josephine. They then thought of animals that were missing and should be sent.

I sent their art home with them to finish and encouraged them to mail their pictures to someone special. It's too bad that Josephine can't receive all of these great animals, but I bet that whoever receives these special deliveries will be just as pleased!