Today, the kindergarten students and I read The Story of Fish and Snail by Deborah Freedman. This is the second book by her that we have read this year. We read Shy by Deborah Freedman back in September. Deborah Freedman's books' messages resonate with the students and make it easy to incorporate into lessons about friendship, reading, and where these two often cross paths.
Right from the start, I talk about Fish diving into a book and share that I hope the students find book they want to dive right into.
Fish and Snail have very different ideas about fun and adventure and soon one friend hurts the other's feelings. The students easily identify how Snail feels upon being told that Snails ideas are boring.
Included with being sad, they add angry and upset, which is exactly what happens on the next page.
Things escalate pretty quickly and soon these two friends are saying things that they will soon regret. But lucky for all of us, Snail does something very brave and both Fish and Snail find a way to make each other happy.
After reading this engaging and thoughtful story, the students and I gathered in a circle and talked about how to be good friends in the library. They shared these ideas:
"read to each other"
"share books"
"help each other find books"
"take turn with books"
"be kind"
"include others"
"read books"
"find friends in books"
"read with each other"
I echoed that I hoped they would find great adventures in books this year and hopefully find a few friends along the way. Fish likes books about pirates and treasures, while Snail likes books about kittens and princesses. To get them thinking about the types of books they wanted to read, I took If I Had a Hammer by Pete Seeger and adapted it to the library. Corny as it sounds, we all had such a fund time singing about our reading interests. Here are my lyrics to that tune.
If I had a friend
We'd read together
We'd read on the rug
We'd read at the tables
We'd read about (fill in the blank here)
We'd read about (fill in the blank here)
We'd read about (fill in the blank here), and (fill in the blank here), and (fill in the blank here), and (fill in the blank here)
All over this library
All over this library
After singing, the students drew pictures on Fish and Snail of the things they want to read about:
making necklaces
Giraffes and Cats
Flowers
More giraffes! I think Shy made an impression
Flowers and people
Friendship
Spiders and butterflies
Trees and owls
Engaged readers tell their own story.
These students made great book choices.
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