The book “Wanted: The Perfect Pet” is a great children’s picture book written and illustrated by Fiona Roberton. The book is about a boy named Henry and Henry wants the perfect pet and he thinks the perfect pet for him is a dog. He thinks of all the things he can do with a dog and he is very lonely so he really needed a companion. Then a couple days later Henry saw a dog on the newspaper and called the number and ordered it to his house. A few hours later a duck disguised as a dog arrived at his house and when Henry started playing with the duck the ducks disguise fell off and Henry found out the duck was not a dog. Then eventually Henry realized that the duck was the perfect pet for him after all and the book ends. I can relate to this book in a text to self connection. In this book Henry really wanted the perfect pet which is a dog, then he realized the perfect pet for him was a duck. I can relate to this because sometimes I really want something and then I realize that it is not the right thing and I receive something else and it is the thing that I want. Another connection I can make is a text to world connection. In the book Henry really wants and needs something because he is lonely and many other people in the world also want dogs because they are lonely and they need a companion. All in all this book is amazing and I definitely would enjoy longer books like this one.

The book “The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind” is a great and touching children’s picture book written by: William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer and illustrated by: Elizabeth Zunon. This book is about a boy who’s village is starving and a boy named William tries to help and tries to create light. William creates his own windmill that produced enough energy to powerfully light up a lightbulb and gave inspiration for his village and he tried to get water to water the crops but didn’t succeed until many years later. A connection I can make to this book is a text to self connection. In this book everybody thought William was crazy and that his ideas were a waste of time until he actually made them work. I can connect to that because many times I try and do something and people don’t believe it will come true and that it is just dumb but I prove them wrong and that my ideas can work and you have a great feeling of excitement after. Another connection I can make to this book is a text to media connection. This connection is about the TV show “Shark Tank” and it is about people asking for help from famous entrepreneurs to try and get advice and jumpstart their businesses but in return the entrepreneurs get a certain amount of percentage of their income from the company. The TV show connects to the book because many people don’t believe in people’s businesses and they say that they won’t be successful, then they get help from the people at Shark Tank and prove them wrong and that in the end their ideas were brilliant. All in all the book “The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind” is a phenomenal book and definitely inspires others to express their ideas.

The article “Do Cellphone’s Belong In Schools” is about wether or not it is a good idea to let students use their phones in school. Some people and teachers say that it is a bad idea and it takes away the chance to interact with people in the real world. Others say that phones are useful in school and you can do things like take pictures of experiments and quickly research things.

Just Talk About It Answers:

1. There are benefits to using cellphones in school and class and sometimes it would be a good idea to use them at recess so you can have a break and relax. You can also check important news and do useful things in class, like using it as a calculator or take pictures to use as notes. Some of the drawbacks to using cellphones in class are: losing focus, getting off task, getting lost in the digital world of your phone and not paying attention to the teacher. In my opinion I do not think using cellphones in class would be a good idea and the cons outweigh the pros.

3. I think in the future cellphone use in school would most likely stay the same, but in daily life I think people would use them more. In the future I would imagine that cellphones would be more useful and more of a need in daily life.

The book “The Noisy Paint Box: The Colours and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art” is a very colourful children’s picture book about colours by Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Mary GrandPre. The book is about a boy named Vasya Kandinsky and he is a normal boy but once he starts growing up he realizes he has a talent. Vasya started to hear colours as things like music and it opened a whole new world in his life. He tried to avoid these noises and colours and got a normal job but eventually he realized he should do something about the colours and it is his true career. I can connect to this book in text to self connection. Sometimes when I am doing something I get a feeling that it is not right for me and I should be chasing my true passion. I feel like something is holding me back as if I need to be doing something else. Another connection I can make is a text to text connection. I have read a book about a man who doesn’t know what his true passion is. The man tried everything he could do and then finally he got a gut feeling that something he was doing felt right and was very curious and interested why. The third connection I can make is a text to media connection. I watched a movie on TV with my family a while ago and it was about a man who had a wife. He was very happy with his life but sometimes he was feeling that his wife was not his true soulmate. Eventually they divorced and the man found his true lover and then they both lived together with the love of their lives happily ever after. All in all “The Noisy Paint Box: The Colours and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art” is a great book and is very interesting to see Vasya’s life story.

The book “There” is a children’s picture book about growing up by: Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick. The book is about a little girl that is around 5 or 4 years old that is curious about their future. They wonder how tall they will be, when they mature and what things they would do when they grow up. One way I can relate to this book is a text to self connection. I am curious of what job I will have in the future, how tall will I be and what opportunities I will have. The next connection I can make is a text to world connection. Many people in the world right now are struggling to find jobs they enjoy and many people don’t know what they will be doing for a living in the future. Some people are worried that they would not know what to do ever and some people are not having the best luck finding a job. The third connection I can make to the book “There” is a text to media connection. Sometimes when I am watching TV I come up upon ads that try and help people know what they will do for their jobs in the future. They gave tips on what to do and how to know if the job you are thinking about is right for you. The last connection I can make to the book “There” is a text to text connection. Sometimes I read books about adventure stories and the stories are about people that are  very curious and go and try many different things. They travel the world, try different foods and try to maintain different lifestyles and try to find the key to live a luxurious life due to curiosity. All in all “There” was a very interesting book and I am looking forward to reading similar books.

The book “Wangari’s Trees Of Peace: A True Story From Africa” is a great children’s picture book about a woman planting trees by: Jeanette Winter and also illustrated by: Jeanette Winter. The book is about a woman named Wangari who started a movement in Kenya and many women planted trees. Wangari also went to a university and was the first women in East Africa that earned a PhD. I can make a text to self connection from the book “Wangari’s Trees Of Peace: A True Story From Africa” that is about me plantings fruit trees. When I was a kid I used to plant to fruit trees with my mom in my backyard and it was very fun and it relates to the story because Wangari and her people also planted trees. The second connection I can make to this story is a text to text connection about when I was reading a National Geography book. I was looking through it and I found a part about tress, plants and the environment. The part of the book was very fascinating and it related to “Wangari’s Trees Of Peace: A True Story From Africa” about trees. Another connection I can make is a text to media connection when I was watching an environmental channel a couple weeks ago. The channel talked about how to grow plants and trees and how to properly take care of them and take care of the environment. The show was very interesting and gave me some very good information. All in all the book “Wangari’s Trees Of Peace: A True Story From Africa” and it was very enjoyable.

The Book “The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau” is a great children’s picture book about a man who loves the sea and I can make many connections. It is by: Dan Yaccarino and also illustrated by him. The book is mainly about Jacques Cousteau’s TV shows and how he shows the whole world about the life of the sea. The first connection I can make to this book is a text to self connection when I went to the Bahamas a couple years ago. On my vacation I saw the clearest water I had ever seen which was very turquoise and I saw many cool fish, jellyfish and my brother came about 5 feet next to a reef shark when he was snorkeling near the shore of the island we were on. The vacation was all very fun and it was cool to sea many interesting marine animals. The second connection I can make to this book is a text to text connection and I was reading a book about marine animals. The book was very interesting because it told me about many fascinating animals and fun facts about them and lots of the pictures were real people snorkeling and seeing all the animals and it was just like the book explaining how they got to see it on TV. The third connection I can make to the story “The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau” is a text to media connection when I was watching TV and I found a marine animal show and how to save them. They gave some very helpful tips on how to save the animals for example they said to try and reduce your carbon footprint and not use so much electricity and it was very fun to watch. The last connection I can make is a text to world connection about the waste and plastic in the seas that are affecting marine life. Lots of times on the news they talk about the pollution in the world and how there are many oil spills and lots of garbage that ends up in our oceans. Waste and plastic comes into the oceans and marine animals think that some of it is food so they eat it and eventually they die and it is a very sad topic and is hard to fix. All in all making connections to “The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau” was very fun and I can relate to many experiences in the book about the sea and marine life.

The book “Bat’s Big Game” is a great children’s picture book about wanting to win and I can relate and make many connections to this book. It is illustrated by Margaret Read MacDonald and illustrated by Eugenia Nobati. One way I can connect to this book is in a text to self connection. I can connect to “Bat’s Big Game” by winning, one of the times that I really wanted to win was in the volleyball tournament. Me and my team were trying really hard to beat our opponents in the tournament, but we did not win but we all tried are hardest and that was what mattered. Another connection I can make to this book is a text to text connection which is when I was reading a book about hockey based on a true story. In this book one of the teams that was playing in a game was losing but they really wanted to win so they tried their hardest and brought the game back to tie at halftime. During the next half they were really determined to win and their mindset at the moment was only to win against the other team. This relates to “Bat’s Big Game” because “Bat” did everything he did to win, even if it meant cheating. The last connection I can make to “Bat”s Big Game” is a text to media connection when I was watching the soccer 2018 World Cup on TV. In this connection my dad’s nationality team (Iran) was going against Portugal which had one of the best soccer players in the world on it which was Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristian Ronaldo was taking a penalty shot on Iran and everybody was very nervous including myself and then Cristiano Ronaldo took his shot and then miraculously the goal keeper of Iran saved the shot and everybody jumped up in joy because of how amazing it was. Iran did everything they could to win but unfortunately they did not and the final score was 2-1 for Portugal but now everybody knows how skilled the goal keeper of Iran is and they tried there hardest to win the game just like “Bat” did. All in all making these connections for the first time in picture book blogs was a very fun experience and I am looking forward to do more of these activities. 

The book “Sir Cumference and The Dragon of Pi” is a children’s picture book about math written by: Cindy Neuschwander and illustrated by: Wayne Geehan. In the beginning of the book Sir Cumference’s stomach was hurting so Radius gave him some medicine and he then turned into a great dragon. They were all shocked on what happened and Radius went to get help. He could not find the doctors so he searched in his office and then he found the potion and he needed to measure the great dragon and give 3 1/7 spoonfuls of the medicine but he didn’t have much time because the guards were going to slay the dragon by sunrise. So he hurried into the forest and began measuring Sir Cumference the dragon with his mother Di of Ammeter. The knights were enclosing on them by time they got there so they had to hurry. They measured the diameter and the perimeter then gave him the medicine and BOOM! The great dragon turned back into Sir Cumference and they celebrated with Pie because Radius used mathematical Pi to save him. The theme about this book is problem solving and math. Radius had to solve many problems using math to save his father and he had grit. In my opinion I really enjoyed this book because in our previous lesson in math we just learned about Pi and it was really cool to read a book about so we could really understand it better and have fun with it. All in all “Sir Cumference and The Dragon of Pi” is a great book and people could read from ages 7+.