Description of the book: This book is about a family that goes on a vacation to visit family. During the story, the parents give their children a Polaroid camera to capture memories throughout their trip. The kids were snapping photos during their drive of landmarks, the motel, the rain they encountered, the pool at the motel, some power lines, and many other objects that the kids were fascinated with. At the end of their trip, the kids were looking back at all of the photos they had taken. They realized that the photos did not remind them of their vacation. Each photo was just an object to most people but to them, they were so much more. They saw the power lines as tall robots, or they imagined how they would set up their motel if they owned one. Every picture had a different idea and what was most important was that the kids knew their idea in each picture and had fun capturing objects through the lens. 

Connection to trait: This is a great example of the trait Ideas. The author gives the readers an interesting object to think about and to relate to while listening or reading. In this case, the object was the camera and all of the pictures that were taken. Within each picture, there was a new idea and object. 

Use in the Classroom: I would use this book as a starter for a personal narrative writing assignment. This is a great book to show examples and ideas for students and also to show how many ideas and topics are out there waiting to be written about. Some prompt ideas might include What was your favorite Vacation? Have you ever captured your vacation through photos? What is your favorite photo that you have ever taken? Or take a series of pictures and write a story about one or more. 

Description of the book: This book was about what it's like to go on a roller coaster. The author explained the experience from start to finish. Many students who have been on a roller coaster could relate to this book and experience. The author wrote about the nerves and excitement before the ride and all the way to how people feel after they exit the roller coaster. 

Connection to trait: This book is an example of organization. The author flows through the experience of riding a roller coaster. The book is easy for readers to follow and grasp what it's really like to ride a roller coaster. This book would leave a child interested and maybe even intrigue them to experience a roller coaster. 

Use in the Classroom: I would use this book at the beginning of the year as a read-aloud and to connect it to a writing lesson about organization. I would explain to the students how even writing needs to be organized. Teaching the students to write the process of something or how an experience of theirs has gone is a great first way to practice organization in writing. Having a beginning, middle, and end and teaching them the importance of making sure their writing flows is another point I would teach them through this book. 

Description of the book: This book is about a character named Lilly. Lilly loves to go to school and especially loves her teacher. Lilly learns a lesson when she decides to bring her purse, glasses, and quarters to school one day. She is so excited to share her show-and-tell with the class that she does not listen when her teacher says to wait her turn. This leads to Lilly getting in trouble and getting her show and tell taken away. Lilly learns from her mistake and her teacher understands that everyone does not always have great days. 

Connection to trait: This book is a great book to use when talking about using voice. The main character in this book uses a lot of dialogue and keeps the readers engaged through it. While reading the book the reader can really imagine Lilly telling the story in her own voice. 

Use in the Classroom: I would use this book to show my students how important word choice is. I would want my students to understand how dialogue really makes a story stronger and how the reader should be able to hear the main character telling the story as they read. I would then have my students practice on their own and create their own short story implementing voice. 

Description of the book: This is a great book for younger students. It's about a fox who encounters a duck while he is on the hunt for a chicken for dinner. After snatching the duck from the henhouse he decides to keep it for dinner. The duck keeps the fox on his toes and plays a few tricks on him so he won’t be dinner for the fox. The duck then ends up being too smart for the foxes' good and ends up back on the farm. 

Connection to trait: This story is full of descriptive words for younger grades. It's a great way to start to introduce the topic of descriptive words and why they are important in writing. This book has adverbs, verbs, and adjectives which makes it more interesting and energetic. 

Use in the Classroom: This book shows creative ways how to incorporate words that add to the story. I would use this book as an example for my class and show how creative writers can be with word choice. For example, in this book, they did not only use adverbs, verbs, and adjectives but they made the words different colors and made them vibrant. 

Description of the book: This book is about all different kinds of dinosaurs that come together and dance. They call it the dinosaur stomp. They sing, dance, sip tea, and enjoy each other's company. 

Connection to trait: This book has great sentence structure and fluency. Each sentence flows and connects to the next. This book keeps students engaged through the use of word choice and energy within each sentence. 

Use in the Classroom: I would connect this book to a lesson about sentence fluency and how to make each sentence more and more interesting. The more interesting each sentence is the higher chance the reader will be more involved.

Description of the book: This book is about punctuation and where periods, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, colons, quotation marks, and apostrophes are appropriate in writing. This is a great book for students to learn the importance of punctuation and where they are appropriate to use. 

Connection to trait: This is a great book to use as a mentor text for conventions. This book shows the importance of punctuation, sentence lineup, capital letters, grammar and so much more. This book is excellent for younger grades when they begin to write and start to learn about punctuation. 

Use in the Classroom: Like I said above this book is great for the younger grades. I would use this for a lesson about punctuation. I would ask what the students know about punctuation so far and what each different punctuation is used for. We would read the book and then apply it to writing as a class and then I would have them apply it to their own writing.