Wonderful Word Wednesday: another Snow Day

I fell in love with picture books at a very young age.  My mom and grandmother always were reading to me.  Some of the best memories were when I "thought" I was reading but I had just memorized the story because I had heard it so many times.  With that said,  I have purchased many picture books however over the years I have tried to decide how I could use the books in my classroom and not just have another tremendous picture book (although nothing is wrong with that either).  Most of my picture books are used with word study-after all a wonderful story obviously has marvelous vocabulary.

Today I am going to share Snow Day by Lynn Plourde. If you just looked at the cover of this book, I am not sure that most 5th grade teachers would not choose it. First of all I love this book for it's dedication: With love to Mom-thanks for making the magic of snow days last all year long!  I teach the students about how author's dedicate their books to someone.  This book is written in simple easy to read text which makes it another great mentor text for parts of speech, figurative language and sequencing events. The story is about a brother and sister and how how they spend their snow day.  Not once are computers, DS, XBox or television even mentioned.  Reading books, dreaming about being a princess or a pilot, enjoying three family meals together, cupboard carousing and of course playing out in the snow! I love the closing line: Snow day, melts to dreams. Keep dreaming about future show days!