Freckle Juice

Freckle Juice is a story about a second grade boy, Andrew Marcus, who is envious of his classmate, Nicky Lane’s, freckles. Andrew sits in class and counts the hundreds of freckles that Nicky has. He constantly gets called out by the teacher for not paying attention because he is daydreaming about freckles. One day, Sharon, a terrible little girl in Andrew’s class, whom he does not like, tells Andrew that she has a secret recipe that makes you grow freckles. She tells him that it will cost 50 cents (5 weeks worth of allowance), but it would guarantee him all of the freckles that he wanted. Andrew agrees to the deal and the next day in class he exchanges Sharon the 50 cents in return for the Freckle Juice recipe. Andrew goes home and immediately begins to concoct the recipe. It is a mixture of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, cranberry juice, and lemon juice. He mixes up all the ingredients and then drinks it as fast as he can (because that is what the recipe said to do). After he drinks it he gets a painful stomach ache and crawls into his mother’s room to look in the mirror to see if he has grown any freckles. Unfortunately he had not grown any freckles, but he was getting sicker by the moment. When his mom arrived home to find her son curled up on the floor, she gave him some medicine and sent him to bed, where he laid for 2 days. On the 3rd morning his mother came in his room and woke him up for school. Although Andrew was feeling much better, he did not want to face Sharon without having freckles on his face. Andrew came up with a plan t draw freckles on his face, but he did not have a brown marker, so he had to settle for blue. When Andrew walked into class with blue dots all over his face, the entire class began to laugh and the teacher called him to her desk. She handed him a closed box and told him that it was magic freckle remover and that he should go to the bathroom and use it. Andrew agreed with hesitation, and he immediately went to the bathroom and used the lemon-scented freckle remover. When he returned to class all of hit “freckles” were gone, and Nicky approached his teacher’s desk. He asked his teacher if he could have some of the freckle remover because he hated his freckles. Andrew could not believe it! He did not understand why Nicky did not want his freckles, but after drinking the freckle juice, Andrew no longer cared is he had freckles or not.
I really enjoyed this book because it teaches a good lesson about accepting yourself as you are, and not taking anything for granted. Andrew wanted freckles because he did not have them, and Nicky hated his freckles because he did have them. This book is a perfect example of “the grass is not always greener on the other side”.

Hop on Pop

Unlike many Dr. Seuss book, Hop on Pop does not seem to have a deep underlying lesson to teach children. It seems to be written for the younger, more immature reader. Its use of small, beginning words and rhythmical patterns are a great way to teach young children to learn to read in a fun way.
Another outstanding feature of the book is the great color use and illustrations. It uses simple colors such as red, blue, yellow, brown and green. This makes the reading encouraging for young readers because they are able to recognize the familiar colors, heightening their confidence in themselves about reading. Furthermore, the fun and simplistic illustration, of unique characters, make the reading more interesting, and fantasy like. Children have wild, vivid imaginations, so subjecting them to fantasy books at a young age with make their imaginations grow.

Green Eggs and Ham

This classic children’s book is an all time favorite of many. The book has two main characters, with clashing personalities. The first, who remains unnamed, is a grumpy, irritable person, who is not open-minded. The second character, Sam, is a happy, enthusiastic, easy going person. Throughout the entire book Sam tries to convince the other character to try green eggs and ham. At first, he refuses, and thinks it will end at that. Sam does not like that the second character will not try so he keeps up his persistence and tries to name several different locations where he could try the eggs. The second characters anger and frustration gets higher as Sam keeps pestering him. At the end of the book, he finally tries the green eggs and ham, and realizes that he likes them!
This book teaches a few very good lessons. First, it teaches to not judge something before you try it, or get to know it. This can be used in many different aspects of life such as, having an open mind, meeting new people, or teaching your children to try new foods and make new friends. Also, the book teaches you (from Sam’s point of view) that in life, if you remain persistent, you can accomplish your goals.

Perfect World vs. My world

Which one would you live in?

My world:
War, murder, pain
Love, affection, happiness
Tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes
Sunshine, breezes, snow
Death, disappointment, sadness
Family, freedom, choice
Evil, backstabbing, lying
Faith, forgiveness, understanding

A utopia (Community in the Giver):
Conformity, sameness, No choice
No disappointment, No competition, No hurt
No physical relationships, No deep relationships, No love
No hurt, No pain, No sadness
No color, No originality, No faith
Satisfaction, No bad memories, No war
No memories, No sunshine, No independent identity
No losses, No gains, No punishment

*A world with nothing to lose has nothing to gain*

Hero's in my eyes

Working all day
Taking care of the kids all night
That’s a hero to me

Taking care of your husband when he is sick in bed
Putting everyone before you to insure their happiness
That is a hero to me

Fighting goblins
Outwitting dragons
That is fun to me

Helping me with school
Never missing my volleyball games
That’s a hero to me

Lying in bed with me while I cough and sneeze
Making me soup when I am to weak to move
That is a hero to me

Escaping wargs
Winning a battle
That is fun to me

Hero's come in all shapes and sizes
In my eyes people who do good and selfless deeds in daily life are hero's

Dedicated to: Mom, Dad, Grandma and Jake

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

This book was one of my favorites growing up as a child. When I teach elementary school I plan on sharing this book with my students. The book uses rythme, rhyme and repetition to help children learn to read. The consistency of the book, in using the same line "... ... what do you see?", "i see a ... looking at me", helps it to flow easy, making the reading simpler on the child learning to read. Each new character we meet was seen by the previous character and then views the future character we are about to encounter. Also, each character is given a color, for example how the bear is brown. This helps us to identify the different chracters using simple character traits, and to help children learn and recognize different colors. altogether this is a great book to start children off with when teaching them to read. I would recommend it to any pre-K thru 1st grade teacher!

Adventures and Heros

When I was in 5th grade my teacher read my class the book The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I really enjoyed the book then, and I am enjoying it even more reading it the second time around. Bilbo is my favorite character out of any book I have ever read. He is funny, in a non-obvious way, and he is just a genuinely nice person (hobbit). His innocence to the world around him plays well into his characterization of being frightened of the outside world at the beginning of the book. Bilbo grows through experience and understanding, just as normal people do. He is afraid of the unknown, but as soon as he gives things a chance he becomes unafraid. He is also heroic in subtle way. He does not do anything amazingly out of the ordinary; it is the little things he does that make him hero-like. He takes the challenge of going on the adventure with the dwarves as their burglar, even though he is terribly frightened. On the journey, thus far, he outwits Gollum, steals swords from the trolls and becomes an expert at burglary. Slowly, as time passes, Bilbo is forming more into a hero. At first he is a shy, timid little hobbit who stays in his hobbit hole, and now he is a brave, risk taking, hero like hobbit who enjoys the adventure he is on.