Last night, I was home alone (ahhhh, quiet time) just listening to the pounding rain outside.  We have a lot of storms in the Pacific Northwest, but I don’t think anyone had expected it to rain quite that hard.  That was about the time I wrote last night’s post about my favorite rainy day books.  Well, I got to school this morning and the sun was shining so brightly!  This book practically jumped up and slapped me in the face!  Puddles is all about the morning after a big rain storm, when the sun comes out, and the raindrops glisten in the sun.

image from Science Photo Library

I read the book to my kindergarten class, and they immediately started making connections.

“Hey, that was just like last night!”

“I don’t like it when it rains that hard.  It gets so dark.”

“That book says drip, drip, drip, just like Jan Brett’s book does.”
Another student – “HEY, that’s a text to text connection.”
(Have I mentioned that these are kindergarteners?  Can you imagine my delight in this conversation?)

So, then we went outside, on our beautiful sunny day to take it all in. When we returned, we re-read the book.  Boy, were their connections deepened!  We talked about how our connections just shifted and they were now text to world connections!  We had experienced this book out in the world.

It was a great book, great conversation, and a great teachable moment.

Happy reading!