Christmas

This week Bashful Book Bee is celebrating Christmas!  In today’s  society and politics we have begun to have challenges to the name of Christmas.  Now I am a simple person, I never claimed to be a rocket scientist… but I like to think of myself as an older “child”… and you know the saying Out of the mouth’s of babe’s come words of wisdom… well this babe’ doesn’t understand the challenges…. The name of the holiday is Christmas….Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says:Christmas is a Christian holiday that is celebrated on December 25 in honor of the birth of Jesus Christ or the period of time that comes before and after this holiday.  Wikipedia defines it as Christmas (Old English: Crīstesmæsse, meaning "Christ's Mass") is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ and a widely observed cultural holiday, celebrated generally on December 25.  Now those are two non-religious sources definitions.  So my confusion is why would we want to no longer call the holiday Christmas, if it’s whole meaning is associated with that WORD.  Are we going to change the name of Kwanza, Hanukkah, Cinco de Mayo, or Ramadan…. Well no of course not…. The names of the holidays are the definition of what it is. So with that said, if you don’t want to celebrate Christmas, that is your choice. But changing the name will not change the holiday!

With Christmas on my mind, Bashful Book’s Bee’s Book of the week is the Gospel of Luke’s account Of the original Christmas story: Luke 2:9-14

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Other accounts from other books of the Bible

·         Matthew 1:20-25

o   20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

·         Isaiah 9:6-7

o   6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Our prayer for you this season, is to have a Merry Christmas!

For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com Remember when teachers order from Peppermint Pig  they receive 15% off cover price.

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. 

But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Twas the Night Before Christmas is on Bashful Book Bee’s bloggy brain…. To be more specific, A Christmas Classic is on my mind this week.  After a little research I discovered Clement C. Moore’s famous poem was written in the early 1800’s, around 1822, as a poem for his children.  A family friend in Dec. of 1823, submitted the poem to the editor of the Troy Sentienel (New York) where it was first published.  The title however, was “A visit from St. Nicholas”.  She didn’t submit Mr. Moore’s name as the author of the poem, because he never intended it to be published.  So, it was not until 1844 that Mr. Moore himself acknowledged the poem.  It was at the request of his children that he finally published the poem in a volume of his poetry entitled “Poems”.  Nearly 200 years later many would claim that Mr. Moore’s poem, now known as “The Night Before Christmas”, is still the most published, most-read,

 most-memorized and most-collected Christmas book of all~ 

Bashful Book Bee has a definite favorite copy, that being…

Mary Engelbreit’s illustrated  2002 version.

However, many many books have taken Mr. Moore’s pattern and set about creating new and different tales.  From Librarians, to Texans, to Dinosaurs…one and all have

excited anticipation on Christmas Eve.  I hope you and your children, will find lots of time by the fire place, or even the space heater (as we hillbilly’s do) to have some cuddle time to read together.

• ·         Librarians Night before Christmas by David Davis
• ·         Texas Night Before Christmas by James Rice
• ·         Dinosaurs Night Before Christmas by Anne Muecke
• ·         Texas Night Before Christmas by E.J. Sullivan
• ·         Night Before Christmas in Texas That Is by Leon A.Harris
• ·         Dinosaurs Night Before Christmas by Jim Harris

I’ve never been a History buff… but with the research I’m doing for this blog, I’m finding some bits of History I loveJ… Happy Reading…

For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com Remember when teachers order, they receive 15% off cover price when ordering from Peppermint Pig. 

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

School Closing

BashfulBook Bee hopes everyone uses this cold weather as time to stay in the house and Read!!!!

Christmas Gift Time

Christmas Time is in the air.  If you are around children, their excitement is contagious.  God surely knew when he gave us the Christ child, that CHILDREN would love the holiday.  I am excited to see more children knowing the True meaning of Christmas.  The birth of our savior is exciting.  And while the gift giving sometimes gets out of hand, I think the Wisemen gave us a great example to give Him gifts.  I believe it is because of love within us, that gift giving then must extend to our giving gifts to others we love as well…of course~  This Bashful Book Bee, loves giving gifts.... and most of the time they are books, of course, ~ 

My number one gift book for children is one of my all-time favorite books.

                         The Velveteen Rabbit  by Margery Williams was written in 1922.   

However, this classic tale still will be loved by all…from young children to adults.  The sweet little story is of a young stuffed rabbit given to a young boy at Christmas. While the story is primarily of the loving relationship the boy develops with his toy, the toy also meets many new animals  in the nursery.  These new acquaintances give the young rabbit the brutal truth that "he" is not "real".  The toy rabbit's greatest desire is to become real. However, through the sincere love the rabbit has for the boy, he learns the awesome lesson of selfless love, which proves to be the magic of being truly REAL.

Bashful Book Bee’s other great Christmas book recommendations:

• ·         The Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood.  Every child that Bashful has given this book to, reports it is STILL their favorite book~
• ·         A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
• ·         The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

Each of these books will bring smiles and warm fuzzy feelings to all of their readers.

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents, and grandparents.

This week Bashful Book Bee has Thanksgiving on her mind, and HOW THANKFUL she is that we live in a country where we are FREE to read what we want~

I am Thankful that our children live in a nation that CELEBRATES thankfulness. Thanksgiving and its foundation is what this week’s Bashful Book Bee BOOK of the week is all about. "Thank You, Sarah" by Laurie Halse Anderson is a wonderful book that gives readers the facts on the establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday for America. Sarah Hale is the dynamic woman who persisted for over 38 years in her endeavor to save the holiday. The book has colorful appealing art work that will capture children’s interest. The storyline gives added emphasis on Sara’s strengths of perseverance, persuasive writing, courage in taking risks and hard work. Every teacher should use this great book as a must read for each November!

Other great Thanksgiving books that Bashful Book Bee recommends are:

• Turkey Pox, also by Laurie Halse Anderson…a great Thanksgiving book that tells the story of  when snow nearly spoils tradition Nana uses a twist to save the day~
 

• Firefighters Thanksgiving by Maribeth Boelts…a Thanksgiving book that shows the duties our Firefighters face when working on the holiday, while being a fun rhyming story for children.
 

• An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louise May Alcott…This Thanksgiving book would be a great resource for teachers, to use to show students what Thanksgiving of the past on the prairie were like.
 

Bashful Book Bee hopes all of our readers have a blessed Thanksgiving with friends and family.

For more information and comments, please email us at

bashfulbookbee@gmail.com Remember when teachers order, from Peppermint Pig and mention Bashful Book Bee, they receive 15% off cover price.

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

Bashful Book Bee this week wants to talk about “bullying.” Anyone over 10 years old, knows bullying isn’t something new. In the 1960’s, Bashful Book Bee was bullied from the 1^st grade through the 7^th grade by the same little girl. Back then we hadn’t started calling it bullying, we just thought some people were mean or bossy. But for me, my mother taught me to turn the other cheek, and forgive 77 times 7 ….. I believe that concept, FOR ME, helped make me a person who hates conflict…and for the most part worries about hurting people’s feelings.

But in the last few years many students and adults who have been bullied in their childhood have evolved into very troubled people who finally erupt in a horrible way and take lives of others. As an educator, for the past few years the philosophy has been to treat bullies with kindness and encourage students to try and passively work out their differences.

There was a recent study by University of Texas at Arlington criminologist Seokjin Jeong who’s research found that our efforts to curb bullying with anti-bullying programs were having unexpected results. Evidence found many of these programs to    discourage bullying were actually in the schools that were creating more victims of bullying. You can find many references to his article by “Googleing” Seokjin Jeong.

While bullying is something I hope educators and good people never ignore, I believe this week’s book selections are coming up with the new and hopefully the best solution. That solution often being, equipping students to learn to defend themselves and strategies to discourage bullying!

Bashful Book Bee’s book of the week is:

Llama llama and the bully goat by Anna Dewdney. Most educators will be familiar with Llama llama…. But this one really does a great job of helping little ones see the bullying as a bad behavior, as well as ways to discourage the bad behavior.

Bashful found 4 other great bullying books, but they really are specific to a certain age group. Therefore, I put my age suggestions after each title…

·        Bully by Laura Vaccaro Seeger …Prek – 1^st… Simple words, but also a play on words. It uses the actually name of animals to “be” the mean words, for example the bull shouts to the chicken “YOU CHICKEN.”

·        Bully Beans by Julia Cook and Anita Dufalla…. K – 3^rd… Has some great lessons, even that sometimes bullies, are bullied at home. Strategies and solutions to these events are given by the mother in our story, which then provides the children the courage and team work to stop the attacks.

·        Dixie and Big Bully by Grace Gilman would be great 1^st or 2^nd grade, for dog loving students….Dixie helps students feel comfort for students being bullied and accidentally taught the bully a good lesson.

·        Bully by Patricia Polacco… AWESOME, and would have been BashfullBookBee’s pick if it had been better for younger students. But it would be the perfect book for 3^rd – 8^th graders, maybe even high school…. It addresses peer pressure, also addresses what can be the motivation for a bully, even hits on cyber bullying~

I wish the world were a perfect place, but it’s not…. So I hope finding great books to help children learn good lessons, will help them to learn good qualities.

For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com Remember when teachers order, they receive 15% off cover price.

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

 

With the new release of one of Bashful Book Bee’s favorite series, this week’s book of the week is Pete The Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by Kimberly and James Dean. Pete’s story is a collaborative effort with Pete the Cat illustrator James Dean and his wife Kimberly. 

 

The original four Pete the Cat books were created by author Eric Litwin and James Dean as illustrator. 

·         Pete the Cat I love My White Shoes

·         Pete the Cat Rockin in My School Shoes

·         Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

·         Pete the Cat Saves Christmas

The Pete the Cat series originated with James pet, a little black cat. Jame’s love of this little cat, and his love of art, have ballooned into quite a creative series.

 James has created another series around his little black cat….his holiday series…

·         Pete the Cat, The First Thanksgiving

·         Pete The Cat Big Easter Adventure

·         Pete the Cat Valentine’s Day is Cool

James also has Pete’s song books

·         Pete the Cat Wheels on the Bus

·         Pete the Cat Old MacDonald Had a Farm

James has even now started writing Pete books, that are part of the “I Can Read” series….

·         Pete at the Beach

·         Pete’s Big Lunch

·         Play Ball

·         Too Cool for school

If readers visit Pete’s publisher’s web site, teachers will find all kinds of down loads to accompany lessons with the books.

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/feature/petethecat/

 What can Bashful say except… “Read Pete….he’s groovy”

 

For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com Remember when teachers order, they receive 15% off cover price.

 

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

 

 

This week’s “BEELOVED” book of the week is in recognition of
“Texas Digital Citizenship Week.”  Educators across the state of Texas will be engaging students, teachers and families in your community to think critically, behave safely, and participate responsibly online.  To provide teachers with a great book to support internet critical thinking, Bashful Book Bee is recommending Toni Buzzeo’s book
“But I Read It On The Internet.”  In the creative style that Ms. Buzzeo uses with her writing and pictures, Mrs. Skorupski…the librarian shows students and other educators how to critique information, whether it is a book or an internet site.  The pictures are colorful and the story line is captivating.  The book presents great insight on whether or not a book is true and how to know if a web site is credible.  The book even presents a great chart for readers to use on how to evaluate a web site. 

 

 

 

Bashful’s other recommendation this week is a series of books to promote good habits in kids. Sean Covey has written the 7 Habits of Happy kids…. Book 1: Be Proactive: You’re in Charge… Book 2: Begin With the End in Mind: Have a Plan…    Book 3: Put First Things First: Work First, Then Play… Book 4: Think Win-Win: Everyone Can Win… Book 5:  Seek First to Understand: Listen Before You Talk…     Book 6:  Synergize: Together Is Better… Book 7: Sharpen the Saw: Balance Feels Best…                                and yes Sean is Stephen Covey’s sonJ

 

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com

Remember when teachers order books from “The Peppermint Pig” they will receive 15% off cover price when they mention Bashful Book Bee.

 

 This week Bashful Book Bee has found several sweet books for children. I would recommend all of them highly.  However, my “beeloved” book of the week is….

 

Glasswings, a butterfly’s story by Elisa Kleven

This sweet story introduces readers to a species of butterflies that most people will not know exists… that being a Glasswing butterfly..  These fragile creatures can be found in Central and South America. Because of their translucent wings, they are nearly invisible.  The art work in this book is beautiful.  The story however brings the element of love of family to its creation. The story then has an added twist by taking our character Claire on a scary trip away from her family.  However her new friends, an ant, ladybug, and pigeon, acclimate her to her new environment and help her survive.  The story further educates readers by teaching them how each of these creatures helps in the pollination process, natural pest control, and soil circulation… to help promote plant growth.  The story provides a happy ending (which Bashful Book Bee thinks is a must) by bringing her family to her new home. Bashful Book Bee believes all readers will love this story and pictures.

Other great read selections for this week are:

·         Millie and the Big Rescue by Alexander Steffensmeier-Great farm story, combining hide and seek, friendships of the farm animals, a woman farmer, and encouragement to take new looks at our homes.

·         Gabby by Joyce Grant-Is a fun silly story about alphabets and beginning word sounds, with great lesson suggestions for teachers in the back of the book.

·         When I was little by Jamie Lee Curtis-another of Ms. Curtis’s sweet stories. Simple words that tell a tale from the perspective of a preschooler on how things were when “she was little.”

·         Pirates love underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort…. What can I say... a silly story, but a definite win win for little boys… Pirates and underpants, they will love it. 

 

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

 For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com Remember when teachers order, they receive 15% off cover price.

 

 

This week Bashful Book Bee has found a series that will be great teaching tools.

The Animal Fairy Tales by Charlotte Guillain, are not only fun stories, but great lesson resources.  The author takes fairy tales and replaces the main characters with animals.  The rest of the story is very similar to the original fairy tales, but with the change in main characters a new story evolves. Teachers will be able to use the stories as great compare and contrast tools, as a foundation for fairy tale lessons, and even history lessons.  Each book tells the traditional fairy tale, but the new lead character creates new stories and at the end of each book the author provides the history of each original fairy tale.  As much as young children love animals, they will love these stories. 

 

·         Goldiclucks and the Three Bear… instead of a little Golden haired girl, we have a little gold chicken

·         Kitten who cried Dog…instead of a boy who cried wolf, we have a kitten who cries dog

·         Little Red Riding Duck… instead of a little brown haired girl, we have a little duck

·         Pandarella…instead of a young maiden, we have a Panda

·         Poodle and the pea…instead of a Princess, we have a poodle

 

 

For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com Remember when teachers order, they receive 15% off cover price.

 

Bashful Book Bee "BEELIEVE'S" in sharing the love of books and reading with everyone. But her primary goal is to introduce books to children, teachers, educators, parents and grandparents.

It’s officially FALL…. This week’s Bashful Book Bee recommendations are great books to share with children about the excitement of the season… With the cooler air the weather makes us all excited to anticipate the fun events we look forward to in October and November.  The changing of the leaves, the soft winds, we can feel the anticipation of our first fire in the fireplace.  I hope fall brings you joy.  Our selections of this week should provide you with great books to bring the fun of fall to your children. 

This week’s Bashful Book Bee “BEELOVED FEATURE book is:

 

How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow

by Wendell Minor

This book is a fun adventure using fourteen states, exploring many of their famous landmarks…while using various synonyms of the word BIG to describe the landmarks with size and scale words that are descriptive of the state. The pictures are colorful, the words are creatively fun.  This book will be great for descriptive writing and reading lessons, but a perfect book to use for building your newest fall social studies lesson.

 

Bashful Book Bee’s other weekly recommendations

1.    Wild Child by Lynn Plourde

…. A rhyming story of how Mother Earth’s wild child, Autumn,

bounces through the beautiful fall season.

2.    Will You Be My Friend? By Bernadette Watts

…Sweet little story around the traditional story of rebellious little rabbits going to the cabbage patch, to be saved from the cold by a gentle scarecrow.

3.    Miss Maple’s Seeds by Eliza Wheeler

….a gentle story of Miss Maple’s gathering, love and care of seeds from the fall, to provide new plants throughout the land next spring.

4.    Ten Orange Pumpkins by Stephen Savage

…A counting book around all the traditional characters of Halloween.                                                                                                       

I hope you are enjoying our weekly blogs! Just a reminder, teachers who wish to buy these titles receive 15% off cover price.  For more information and comments, please email us at bashfulbookbee@gmail.com