Books I've Bought Very Recently, Or Why Teachers Are Poor But Have Interesting Libraries

I bought them at used bookstores in the Seattle area and had to ship them back here to New York. I finally picked up the parcel today. I'm really excited!

One of them is a Read-Aloud book: over ninety ten-minute excerpts from children's classic novels. Sweet!

Another is called "Manners." On the cover and the inside lining, there are little comic strips. The first is a situation, like someone dropping something. Then four panels show possible ways to react to that situation, one of which is by using manners. I will definitely use this with my sixth-grade students. And after we discuss manners, what they are, when to use them, when you've experienced good or bad manners, they can write their own comic panels about manners! Fun, right?
I also picked up a civil-rights book, a Martin Luther King, Jr book, a book about Japanese-American children in WWII, and an American Indian myth book (by the INCREDIBLE Jane Yolen). I got these because I want to get as many non-white-people-filled books in my room as possible. And they're rather difficult to find. If anyone has suggestions or titles that include "multilogicality" that work well in the classroom, I'd love to hear about it!

I found three books at Value Village, popular novels which are already in my classroom library. At less than a dollar each, I decided to get these for extra copies.

You might be able to see the two software boxes in the top row. One is a SpongeBob SquarePants typing program, and one is a SchoolHouse Rock Grammar Rock game. SWEET!

Oh, and yet another book I'm really excited about, there on the right. It's called Stop, Look, Write. It's all photographs! The point is to use these pictures as a way to inspire writing other than boring prompts like "What is your favorite animal?". I've done this before, with a black and white calendar of New York City, but some are more potent with stories than others. So here is a whole book with ripe photos!

Additionally, I picked up a two-dollar copy of the movie Willow. At first it was just for me, but then I realized that I bet the kids would love it, and they probably won't have seen it before. Live-action adventure movies, that aren't rated R? Yes, they do exist!

All these items costs a total of about $55. Not too shabby!

And, um, I bought four more books on half.com last night. Another Jane Yolen book (Ballad of the Pirate Queens), a Ralph Fletcher novel (Fig Pudding), a Chris Van Allsburg book (Two Bad Ants), and something else that I can't remember. That was $35 including shipping. Excellent!