Grand View Elementary School Library
manhattan beach unified school district
Heidi snively - library RESOURCE specialist
310/546-8022 x5404
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Read-Alouds and Presentations Week to Week by Grade Level

4/28/2025

 
Looking for content from previous weeks? Scroll further down.

Week of April 28, 2025 | All Grades
CYRM Winners | Screen Time Awareness | Children's Book Week

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California Young Reader Medal
Winners announced on May 1. Compare the state results with our local voting results.
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Screen Time Awareness Week
Jimmy Jet and His TV Set, by Shel Silverstein
 Poem
Though a child could never actually turn into a TV, or have brains turn to mush from excessive screen time, children who spend too much time with electronic entertainment might not enjoy an imagination such as is gained through exploratory play, pleasure reading, and quiet reflection. Unplug from screen-based entertainment and let your imagination run wild. Find out more at screenfree.org. ​

Children's Book Week
Celebrate with books that engage readers of all ages - pictures that invite second and third closer looks - stories that are fun and meaningful - books that beg for repeat readings! Find out more.

Week of April 28, 2025 | TK and Kindergarten
CYRM Winners | Screen Time Awareness | Children's Book Week

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Screen Time Awareness Week
If..., by Sarah Perry 
Illustrations present such imaginative possibilities as worms with wheels, caterpillar toothpaste, and whales in outer space.​
​Connections 101 Screen Free Activities

Children's Book Week
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The world of Mo Willems is exactly what Children's Book Week is about: books that engage readers of all ages - pictures that invite second and third closer looks - stories that are fun and meaningful - books that beg for repeat readings!
Crafty Connection Children's Book Week coloring page

That Is NOT a Good Idea! by Mo Willems
A plump mama goose is invited to dinner by a hungry fox while her babies warn that it is a bad idea.

Week of April 28, 2025 | First Grade
CYRM Winners | Screen Time Awareness | Children's Book Week

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Screen Time Awareness Week
The Dragon in the Clock Box, by M. Jean Craig
When Joshua says he has a dragon's egg his family plays along. Note: no electronic entertainment is visible and readers can see how family members spend their leisure time.

Connections 101 Screen Free Activities

Children's Book Week
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This book about imagination is exactly what Children's Book Week is about: books that engage readers of all ages - pictures that invite second and third closer looks - stories that are fun and meaningful - books that beg for repeat readings!

Crafty Connection Children's Book Week coloring page

Not a Box, by Antoinette Portis
To an imaginative little bunny, a box is not always just a box.
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What Is Inside This Box? by Drew Daywalt
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Monkey has a box, which he tells Cake has a cat inside, but only when the box is closed; Cake suggests that maybe there is a dinosaur instead.

Crafty Connection Take and make foldable box

Week of April 28, 2025 | Second Grade
CYRM Winners | Screen Time Awareness | Children's Book Week

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Screen Time Awareness Week
Open this Little Book, by Jesse Klausmeier
An imaginative exploration of the art of book making and a charming tale of friendship and the power of books. The special invitation at the end is the perfect lead-in for...
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​Emma Kate, by Patricia Polacco
The best thing to play with is a huge imagination.
Connections 101 Screen Free Activities

Children's Book Week
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This book about honesty is exactly what Children's Book Week is about: books that engage readers of all ages - pictures that invite second and third closer looks - stories that are fun and meaningful - books that beg for repeat readings!
Crafty Connection Children's Book Week coloring page

Betty Bunny Didn't Do It, by Michael B. Kaplan
When Betty Bunny breaks a lamp, she blames it on the Tooth Fairy. “Is that the honest truth?” her mom asks. “It's an honest lie,” Betty Bunny replies proudly. Honest lies, white lies, crying wolf – how can a little bunny keep track of the right thing to do?

Week of April 28, 2025 | Third Grade
CYRM Winners | Screen Time Awareness | Children's Book Week

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Screen Time Awareness Week
Goodnight iPad, by Ann Droyd
In this parody for the next generation, a family bids goodnight to their electronic gadgets before going to bed. 

When Charlie McButton Lost Power, by Suzanne Collins
A boy who likes nothing but playing computer games is in trouble when the power goes out and his little sister has all of the batteries in the house.
​Connections 101 Screen Free Activities

Children's Book Week
These fairy tales are exactly what Children's Book Week is about: books that engage readers of all ages - pictures that invite second and third closer looks - stories that are fun and meaningful - books that beg for repeat readings!
Crafty Connection Children's Book Week coloring page

Elements of Fairy Tales Readwritethink.org
Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude, by Kevin O'Malley
Videos Before reading the story, set the mood with We Are Princesses and The Biker.
Cooperatively writing a fairy tale for school, a girl imagines a beautiful princess whose beloved ponies are being stolen by a giant, and a boy conjures up a muscular biker who will guard the last pony in exchange for gold.

Waking Beauty, by Leah Wilcox
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Prince Charming tries all sorts of silly ways to wake Sleeping Beauty before he learns how he is really supposed to wake her up.

Week of April 28, 2025 | Fourth Grade
CYRM Winners | Screen Time Awareness | Children's Book Week

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Screen Time Awareness Week
If You Give a Mouse an iPhone, by Ann Droyd
In this parody of the Laura Numeroff storiies if you give a bored little mouse an iPhone he's likely to miss out on all the real fun going on around him.
​Connections 101 Screen Free Activities
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Children's Book Week
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The following two stories are exactly what Children's Book Week is about: books that engage readers of all ages - pictures that invite second and third closer looks - stories that are fun and meaningful - books that beg for repeat readings!
Crafty Connection Children's Book Week coloring page

The Taking Tree, by Shrill Travesty
In this parody of The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein, a selfish little boy takes advantage of a long-suffering tree who finally gives him just what he deserves.

Video Click here for The Tree's Revenge, a brief animated parody
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Video Eat It Weird Al Yankovic's music video parody of Michael Jackson's Beat It.

Week of April 28, 2025 | Fifth Grade
CYRM Winners | Screen Time Awareness | Children's Book Week 

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Screen Time Awareness Week
Jimmy Jet and His TV Set, by Shel Silverstein
 Poem
​
Though a child could never actually turn into a TV, or have brains turn to mush from excessive screen time, children who spend too much time with electronic entertainment might not enjoy an imagination such as is gained through exploratory play, pleasure reading, and quiet reflection. Unplug from screen-based entertainment and let your imagination run wild. Find out more at screenfree.org. 
Connections 101 Screen Free Activities
​

Children's Book Week
This picture book biography is exactly what Children's Book Week is about: books that engage readers of all ages - pictures that invite second and third closer looks - stories that are fun and eye-opening - books that beg for repeat readings!

Girl Running : Bobbi Gibb and the Boston Marathon, by Annette Bay Pimentel
An uplifting account of the achievements of the first woman to run the Boston Marathon describes how as a girl, Bobbi Gibb was not allowed to participate in sports at school and was subsequently barred from the 1966 Boston Marathon, compelling her to prove that women are just as capable as men.

28th Annual Exer Urgent Care Gator Run
Now let's get signed up for the Gator Run!

Read-Alouds and Presentations Week to Week by Grade Level

4/21/2025

 
Looking for content from previous weeks? Scroll further down.

Week of April 21, 2025 | All Grades | Celebrating Earth Week

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Earth Day is an annual observance, held on April 22, to increase awareness of environmental issues. Millions of people worldwide gather to clean up litter, to protest threats to the environment, and to celebrate progress in reducing pollution. In 1969, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson suggested that a day of environmental education be held on college campuses. The following year, the lawyer and environmentalist Denis Hayes (then a recent graduate of Stanford University) led hundreds of students in organizing the observance of Earth Day on April 22, 1970. About 20 million people participated in this celebration. The event helped to alert people to the dangers of pollution and fostered a new environmental movement. Also in 1970, Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency to set and enforce pollution standards, and passed the Clean Air Act which limits the amount of air pollution that cars, utilities, and industries could release. Other environmental laws soon followed. (Hayes, Denis. "Earth Day." World Book Student. World Book, 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.)
The effort continues with Grades of Green, a grassroots organization that teaches kids about environmental stewardship that got its start at Grand View Elementary School in 2009. 

MBUSD Website Green District information page

Video ABC7 Eyewitness News Manhattan Beach Students are Pros at Saving the Planet 
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Week of April 21, 2025 | TK and Kindergarten | Earth Week
​Natural Resources

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Video Define the environment as what is all around us. Talk about trees, water, fuel, and electricity. Define and discuss natural resources: paper, metal, glass, oil. The animated Think Earth shows the impact humans have on the environment and how to minimize impact for a healthier planet.

The Earth Book, by Todd Parr
Students learn simple ways to take care of the planet. 

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Coloring sheets
Composting... Life in the Slow Lane! 
Clean Storm Drains = Healthy Oceans!

Week of April 21, 2025 | First Grade | Earth Week
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot, Repurpose, and Refuse

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Video Recycle Rex Rex and friends learn about recycling firsthand when the field where they play is in jeopardy of being turned into a landfill. Define and discuss the Six Rs and how excessive packaging contributes to waste. 
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Coloring sheets
Composting... Life in the Slow Lane! 
Clean Storm Drains = Healthy Oceans!

Week of April 21, 2025 | Second Grade | Earth Week
Out of Sight, Out of Mind. Where Does Trash Go?

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Clean Your Room, Harvey Moon! by Pat Cummings When Harvey cleans his room by stuffing everything under the rug he learns that though out of sight may be out of mind, it is not good enough when it comes to finding a place for his things. Discuss over-consumption and how landfills are filling to capacity. Talk about the importance of a clean beach.

Video clip Toys All Gone 
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Coloring sheets
Composting... Life in the Slow Lane! 
Clean Storm Drains = Healthy Oceans

Week of April 21, 2025 | Third Grade | Earth Week
Wetlands | Making Land Use Decisions for the Seventh Generation

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Curriculum Connection Ballona Wetlands field trip.

Video Common Ground, the Water, Earth, and Air We Share Curriculum connection Opening with a visit to a wetlands preserve, the video imparts the message of conservation and responsibility for our shared natural resources and respect for the environment. The narrator references "The Seventh Generation" principle, an Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy: decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future. If video is no longer available, read the book.​

Coloring sheets
Composting... Life in the Slow Lane! 
Clean Storm Drains = Healthy Oceans!

Week of April 21, 2025 | Fourth Grade | Earth Week
Hazardous Waste Disposal

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Someday a Tree, by Eve Bunting
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A young girl, her parents, and their neighbors try to save an oak tree that has been poisoned by illegal hazardous waste dumping.


Video Big Yellow Taxi sung by Joni Mitchell

Coloring sheets
Composting... Life in the Slow Lane! 
Clean Storm Drains = Healthy Oceans!

Week of April 21, 2025 | Fifth Grade | Earth Week | Taking Action

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Video Community commemorates the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
In 1969, Santa Barbara woke up to its coast coated in sticky, pungent oil. What came next changed environmental policy for the nation.

Black Beach: A Community, an Oil Spill, and the Origin of Earth Day, by Shaunna and John Stith

In 1969, Union Oil caused a hazardous oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara that flooded the Pacific Ocean, harmed wildlife, and devastated habitats. But from this ecological disaster sprang a new wave of environmental activism that would change the world.

Website Pop History Dig has an extensive report with many archival photographs about the disaster and its effects on the growing ecology movement.

Coloring sheets
Composting... Life in the Slow Lane! 
Clean Storm Drains = Healthy Oceans!

Read-Alouds and Presentations Week to Week by Grade Level

4/14/2025

 
Looking for content from previous weeks? Scroll further down.

​Week of April 14, 2025 | Spring Break

No school April 21 School resumes Tuesday, April 22

Read-Alouds and Presentations Week to Week by Grade Level

4/7/2025

 

Week of April 7, 2025 | TK and Kindergarten
Celebrating National Library Week and
Beverly Cleary's Birthday April 12 with Read-A-Thon D.E.A.R. Time

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Book! Book! Book! by Deborah Bruss
The animals on the farm go to the library to find something to do, but the librarian doesn't understand what they are trying to say.

Kindergarten This week, students will be introduced to using the other side of the library.


Crafty Connection Frog and duck coloring sheet

At-Home Crafty Connection Step-by-step instructions to make cheerful paper frogs (add a paper book)

Celebrating Author Beverly Cleary
April 12, 1916, McMinnville, Oregon - March 25, 2021, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
From Henry Huggins (1950) to Ramona's World (1999) Beverly Cleary wrote books for children, about children much like themselves. Children of today may find themselves amazed at the freedom to roam that was enjoyed by the children in Beverly's books, not unusual at the time.

National D.E.A.R. Day April 12 Drop Everything And Read
In 2006, to mark Beverly's 90th birthday, the American Library Association, and others set aside her birthday, April 12, as a day to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis a family priority. When Beverly’s own children were young, they participated in sustained silent reading time at school, known as D.E.A.R. Their enthusiasm for this activity inspired Beverly to give the same experience to Ramona, who gets to enjoy D.E.A.R. time with her class in Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981), introduced in Chapter 2.

Week of April 7, 2025 | First through Fifth Grade
Celebrating National School Library Month with Who's On First
Beverly Cleary's Birthday April 12 with Read-A-Thon D.E.A.R. Time

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Who's On First
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Extended Costello Family
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Bud Abbott and Lou Costello
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Chris & Paddy Costello (front L to R)
Who's on First? With split second comedic timing Bud Abbott and Lou Costello bring their hilarious baseball routine to a new generation of delighted fans.

Script Who's on First

Video Who's on First (1953)

Bonus Video 7 into 28 Lou Costello invents a new kind of math

Crafty Connection Who's On First coloring sheet 


Local news report Extended Costello family in the Library Beach Reporter article (May 5, 2013) 

Local news report Lou Costello's daughter in the Library Easy Reader article (April 14, 2010) ​
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Celebrating Author Beverly Cleary
April 12, 1916, McMinnville, Oregon - March 25, 2021, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
From Henry Huggins (1950) to Ramona's World (1999) Beverly Cleary wrote books for children, about children much like themselves. Children of today may find themselves amazed at the freedom to roam that was enjoyed by the children in Beverly's books, not unusual at the time.
Audio Excerpt Listen to actor Neil Patrick Harris read Chapter 1 of Henry Huggins.

"Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, in childhood."

Learning to read did not come easily for young Beverly, and once she did learn, she found the stories contained in early readers to be boring, simple, and unsurprising. Then, in the third grade, on a rainy afternoon at home, she found herself enjoying reading The Dutch Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins about the adventures of ordinary children. The book awoke in her the joys of reading for pleasure and she began spending extra time in the public library.

"Children should learn that reading is a pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school."

By the time Beverly was in sixth grade, a teacher suggested she should become a children's author, based on essays she had written for class assignments. Beverly first worked as a children's librarian and in a bookstore before becoming a full-time writer for children. In her work as a librarian, she struggled to find books to recommend to children, books that they would have fun reading, so she decided to write children's books herself, books about characters that young readers could relate to.

"I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all."

During an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 2011 at the age of 95 she stated, "I've had an exceptionally happy career." Beverly Cleary died in a retirement home a few weeks shy of her 105th birthday. No cause of death was given.

National DEAR Day April 12 Drop Everything And Read
In 2006, to mark Beverly's 90th birthday, the American Library Association, and others set aside her birthday, April 12, as a day to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis a family priority. When Beverly’s own children were young, they participated in sustained silent reading time at school, known as DEAR. Their enthusiasm for this activity inspired Beverly to give the same experience to Ramona, who gets to enjoy DEAR time with her class in Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981), introduced in Chapter 2.
Audio Excerpt Listen to Chapter 2 of Ramona Quimby, Age 8, presented by MrsMorrisReads
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    Library Program

    Our students enjoy weekly visits for presentations crafted to instill a love of reading, to enhance classroom lessons, and to inspire life-long learning. Visits include checking out materials, practicing information literacy, and exercising digital citizenship.
    Colleagues are welcome to borrow program ideas.

    California Model School Library Standards 

    Read Aloud 15 Minutes 
    Every Child
    Every Parent
    Every Day
    Why It Matters 
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