Hello, I'm Patrick Adams. And I'm Caroline Leshear.
And this is Librarians of Littles, a podcast
where we review books, include makerspace connections,
and give tips or tricks for using the library
with our youngest learners. This week, we are
going to be sharing two books with you that come
from the Texas 2x2 list, a list of books created
by the Texas Library Association every year that
encourages students to read books that are fit
for children between the ages of two and second
grade. And so our first book this week is titled
Mr. S. It's published by Catherine Teigen Books,
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers in 2023.
The author and illustrator is Monica Arnaldo.
This book as mentioned is on the Texas 2x2 list,
but it has also been on the ALSC Notable Children's
Books list of 2024, the Governor General's Award
for Young People's Literature Illustrator Finalist
for 2023, the Junior Library Guild selections
2024, Publisher Weekly Best Books 2023, and the
School Library Journal Best Books of the Year
2023. Monica Arnaldo has also earned the Outstanding
International Books Grade K -2 in 2015 for her
book, Arto's Big Move. Monica Arnaldo is an award
-winning author and illustrator. She grew up
in Ontario, Canada, in the 1900s. That's what
she has on her webpage, and it hurts my soul.
In what? It hurts my soul. In the 1900s, like
it's... forever ago. It was yesterday. I was
talking to my mom the other day about water bottles.
You know how kids these days are like, I need
my water bottle and it's a thing. And my mom
was like, you didn't have your water bottles.
And I was like, no, I think that started happening
like around the turn of the century. The turn
of the century. Oh, oh. That wasn't a thing in
the turn of the century, and that's a valid statement.
We are so old. Oh, God. Nope, we're keeping all
of this in. We're keeping all of this. About
how old we are? Yes. Yep. Okay. All of this is
staying in. Yep. Yep. Well anyways On her website
she explains that as a child she invented trading
lunches and had to be actively restrained from
befriending wild animals other books that she
has done include are you a cheeseburger the museum
of very bad smells time for bed story arto's
big move little books a little book of big fears
little brothers and little sisters and she's
also worked with other authors to write A Dog
Day for Susan by Maureen Fergus and The Last
Slice, a Three Kings Day Treat by Melissa Richardson.
So the summary for this book, it is the first
day of school and students find themselves in
a classroom and on the desk at the front of the
classroom is a stack of papers, a warm mug of
coffee, and an impressive looking sandwich. As
the students do not see a teacher, they assume
that there isn't one until they notice that on
the board in neat handwriting is the name Mr.
S. As students are trying to figure out where
their teacher might be, they find that maybe
Mr. S stands for the sandwich and that must be
their teacher. Once they realize that their teacher
may be a sandwich, they start to get to work.
and they begin their lessons, they work on the
alphabet, they do art and story time and music
and as the day goes on the students question
if a sandwich can be a teacher. When a man finally
enters the room it appears that this may be their
missing teacher and the whole situation is solved
but in fact this missing teacher who throughout
the entire book you can see through the classroom
window is having a very rough day of it. turns
out to be the principal, Mr. Spencer, and the
student's teacher is indeed Mr. S. The Sandwich.
I really love this book. I think this is such
a great story. It's so cute. It's so fun. It
does not end the way you expect it to. There's
so many little jokes going on throughout the
story. This is going to be my new beginning of
the year book that I'm going to read with kids
as the school year starts, because this is such
a fun story. All of the mayhem that is happening
to Mr. Spencer in the background through the
classroom window is really funny, and it tells
an entire nother story just using the illustrations
in the book. There's some great Little in jokes
like the alphabet that they're learning All of
the letters are correlated to different like
sandwich types So like letter C is for club sandwich
and like that kind of thing So it was just like
in jokes with that And then I really really love
the conversation as kids are trying to figure
out if a sandwich can be a teacher and the argument
that well there's computer teachers and salsa
teachers and piano teachers and it's these images
of those physical things actually being teachers
and I just like that kind of humor to me is really
fun and even if the kids don't get it it amuses
me which I'm okay with and but I think that the
kids would really enjoy this story I think it's
just so fun and that twist ending where it's
nope yep the sandwich is actually your teacher
kind of thing is just Not something that would
be expected. And so I really enjoyed this I'm
gonna give it a five out of five bookmarks Because
like I said, this is gonna be my new beginning
of the year book. I Agree completely. This is
definitely a five out of five. This was this
maybe the most original first day of school book
I've ever seen yeah Yeah, I think most of most
first day of school books are fine. They're important
to have too, like for getting kids acclimated
to the first day of school and there's a lot
of feelings that go along with it. This just
makes it a lot more lighthearted. I might for
really young kids like our pre -k and kinder
who are like, it's truly their first day of school.
I would not read this immediately to them. I
would probably wait a week or two until, so a
lot of those Kindergarten pre -k kids they they
really some of them really do think that they're
like being abandoned This is for some of them.
It's their first time like out of the house and
there's a lot of tears and They haven't been
anywhere before and some of them truly do think
that they're not they have to live here forever
So I don't know if I would read it to them like
on the first day or anything I might it might
be like a second week of school for them everybody
else who understands that this is, you know,
a fun routine and like, school's not for them
to live at forever. Like, it would be fun right
away for them. But yeah, definitely a five out
of five for originality there. It was a great
one. I loved it. It's really cute. And like I
said, the humor just got me. I was smiling the
whole time I was reading the book. It's just
really great. And the pictures are really cute.
And something else that I really, really liked
about it was that the students in the classroom
are very diverse. Like there's different skin
colors. There's a student that is a wheelchair
user as part of the class. And so like, that's
just a subtle kind of thing that incorporates
just everybody being included. And I really like
that addition to the story, even though it's
not really necessarily pointed out, it's just,
Hey, these are all the kids and they just kind
of do their thing. But Being able to see that
is just a nice added bonus also that I really
enjoy. Alright, so I'm going to be honest, for
a makerspace activity for this, I was struggling.
I was having a hard time because if we're trying
to think of something for pre -K students to
do... The idea of the book is like sandwiches
and things like that. And so that's challenging.
What I did do is I looked at, because this is
a Texas two by two list book, the Texas Library
Association has cards with different activities
and different ideas of how to, like they have
questions that you can ask during the book and
some like writing prompts, but they also have
some activities and stuff like that. So I went
there and looked and what they have, as an activity
that's suggested for this is building a sandwich.
And the way it works is there's two papers that
you'd have to print for every kid. The first
one is a sandwich. It's like a bun that's connected
by multiple rectangles. The idea is you cut that
out, fold all of those rectangles up so that
the sandwich collapses. And then on the second
page, are the ingredients for your sandwich.
So like lettuce, tomatoes, meat, that kind of
stuff. And there's even like an egg and all sorts.
So you can pick and choose what you add. And
then you add those into the folded pieces of
the sandwich and makes a sandwich that the kids
can have so they can have their own little Mr.
S sandwich. Which is a really cute idea. For
pre -K, that's gonna be a lot more challenging
because... That especially if you do this as
a beginning of the year book because that's gonna
take a lot of fine motor skills using scissors
Folding the paper following the instructions.
That's gonna be really really challenging. So
That's an option if you're working with bigger
kids and you wanted to do something like that
That would be a pretty good option. I don't think
it would be super successful with pre -k students
I think with pre -k students the better option
would maybe be just to pull out the Legos and
have them build their own Mr. S sandwich out
of Legos or they could pick another type of teacher
that they would like to make and build that with
Legos or they could make a person teacher if
they wanted that like something like that instead
because because it is about teachers and they
can either make their own Mr. S sandwich teacher
or they could make a teacher and then talk to
you about you could ask them questions about
what their teacher teaches and how they teach
and I'm sure they'd give you a whole story background
of what they want in their teacher which would
be a cool way to find out like what they expect
teachers to do and be like and that would be
a fun way to kind of get to know the kids a little
bit more is to have them build a teacher and
then get to go around to each table as they're
building and like talk to them and find out what
they think. school should be like and what they're
looking for in a teacher. So that might be a
way to build some connections that way. That'd
be fun. So yeah, but other than that, I don't
know, like sandwich things is food. Making connections
with food is always kind of hard when you're
in the public, when you're in a library setting,
because I always also try to convince my students
that we We try to avoid having food in the library
a lot. So yeah, same. I don't want to I don't
want to mix those messages with the students
either a lot. So that can kind of be hard sometimes.
Well, and I also think, though, at the very beginning
of because you would read this problem in August,
probably. At the very beginning when you're still
kind of establishing your routines and procedures
and I think I might not even have necessarily
anything in particular tied to it and just be
like we're still teaching routines you're in
school that's the connection. Yeah and like and
just when you're in school you do these things
the kids are in school in this book they're doing
these things you're gonna do these things and
just have. Teaching routines be your lesson for
that day. I think for this one just because it
is a beginning of this school year book It's
just establishing routines could be yeah Appropriate
for our the youngest youngest kids. I think you're
right I love the building a sandwich for the
older kids who have already you know, they just
need a refresher Yeah on what their routines
are ideally ideally they've been coming to the
library for a few years and they kind of at one
point knew the expectations and so you just but
ideally they'll only need a refresher but for
younger kids let's just learn that the library
is a safe place and that's what we're doing still
yeah and that's fine I think yeah that's a good
idea yeah this week for our library of littles
management tip In previous episodes, we've mentioned
that the pre -K campuses that we've worked on
have their own makerspace labs. So this week
we wanted to talk to you about how we kind of
set up those labs, the zones that we use to set
up the makerspace labs and kind of how that works.
So in our makerspace labs, they're separate from
the library. We still do makerspace in the library,
but we have separate makerspace labs. that are
used by the classroom teachers with their students.
And those labs are set up into six distinct areas.
Those six distinct areas are designated with
colored duct tape that correlates to what the
area is, and it sets a defined space in. the
makerspace lab. So the students have somewhere
to work, but that they're not roaming the entire
room with all of the materials and getting everything
everywhere. So the six areas that we defined
all have something to do with a portion of STEM
or STEAM education. The six areas that we have
in our makerspace labs include coding and robotics,
simple machines, creation station, the construction
zone, organic mechanics, and the tinker table.
So some of these are more self -explanatory than
others, but in coding and robotics, the students
are working to learn how to make robots move
using coding. So they're learning cause and effect.
We use a lot of the simple robots that students
can either press buttons directly on the robot
or they're using other things to have the robots
move. to see the correlation between the actions
that they're telling the robots to do and the
actual movements that they make. A lot of these
robots are more simplistic. We try to avoid using
a lot of iPads with screens to control robots
just because at this age A lot of screen time
isn't the best. And honestly, a lot of these
students end up getting plenty of screen time
in other locations. So we don't need to continue
that trend in this space. In the simple machines,
the students are using those simple machines.
So they're using levers and pulleys and wheels
to build and create. In the creation station,
this is an art and crafts kind of station where
We have different activities where they can use
those crayons and markers and colored pencils
and construction paper to build and create different
activities each time they come in. Our construction
zone is just that it's building blocks, it's
Lincoln logs, all of those things for the kids
to build and create and see what they can come
up with. Organic mechanics is a fun area where
students get to use natural materials like leaves
and sticks and dirt to build and create and our
tinker table is where students get to take things
apart they get to deconstruct we use some we
get volunteers to donate different pieces like
computers or old DVRs, that kind of stuff, remote
controls. And the students with supervision and
some kid -friendly tools get to take those things
apart just to see what's inside and see how they
work. And so those six zones are set up in our
makerspace so that they're color -coded. So if
coding in robotics is the blue area, That area
is defined with a blue line of duct tape on the
floor so the students know to stay in that area
with those materials and so on so each color
each Zone has its own color and we define those
spaces clearly so the students know where to
stay and this works in correlation with something
we've mentioned before each of those zones has
a card that has a Set number. I think it's usually
five or six close pins with the same color and
students that are in that area will take the
clothes pin off of the card and put it on their
shirt while they're in that area. Once there
are no more clothes pins, that area is closed.
It can't accept any more students. And so if
the students can't find a clothes pin, they know
they need to go to a different area. And then
when the students want to move, they take that
colored clothes pin off and put it back on the
card and go to a new area to take the correct
clothes pin color. This also helps that it's
color coded to match the duct tape so the teachers
can see if there's a green clothespin in the
blue area that somebody either didn't put the
clothespin back or needs to go back to their
area. That kind of thing, and it helps with management
a lot. For such a large space with a lot of things
happening at once. And it's been working. I think
it works pretty well with the students and the
teachers have kind of gotten accustomed to it
and. Most of the teachers, when they go in there,
they really enjoy being able to give the kids
the freedom to move within. But the fact that
it's all kind of separated out and they have
their own spaces, it makes it a lot easier to
kind of keep an eye on the students and not have
kids just running all over the place the entire
time. And they're not crowding in a particular
zone or anything like that. It's all, everybody's
pretty well spread out. And I know that some
teachers have made it so that like if you're
in the coding and robotics area one week the
next week, you have to go somewhere else so that
that area becomes available for other students
and that kind of thing. And they kind of work
that out as how their class, what's best for
their class and for their students. But having
those defined spaces really helps the kids to
understand where they should be and what they
should be doing in that area, which is really
nice. Yeah. Well, our next book for today. is
called No Fair. It was published by Viking in
2023 and it is written and illustrated by Jacob
Grant. It's on the Texas 2x2 2024 list and the
Illinois Reads birth through 4 2024 list. Jacob
Grant always knew he wanted to be an artist.
As a child, he was shy and art gave him a way
to express himself. He attended the Art Academy
of Cincinnati where he majored in graphic design.
He worked in graphic design for five years until
he discovered his talent for writing children's
books. He currently lives near Chicago with his
wife and two kids. Some of his other books include
Umami, No Pants, Bear Meets Bear, In this book,
a boy and his father go on some errands with
the promise of going out for a donut afterwards.
As they go through the day, their boy complains
that things aren't fair. He lost a race. His
treats are smaller than everyone else's. and
things like that. Eventually his father explains
in simple terms that life isn't always fair,
and fair doesn't necessarily mean the same thing
for everyone. I thought this was a fun, cute,
relatable story for young children. I think every
kid in the world at some point has the realization
that life isn't fair because it really just isn't.
It's kind of a life lesson that we all kind of
go through at some point. The illustrations are
really simple. Liked that it was the book was
written in dialogue, but it didn't have word
bubbles instead They had I think it was black
writing for The father's words and the little
boy his name is Pablo his words were written
in red So it was still like easy to distinguish
who was talking when? but it didn't take away
from the story at all and it kind of made it
a little bit easier, I think, for the kids to
follow along. It's, uh, I liked how the illustrations
made it. It was, like, really clear that, like,
a lot of the things that the boy thought wasn't
fair were, like, his dad was getting all the
big things, and the little boy was getting all
the smaller things, but, like, because of the
way the illustrations are, you can really see
that, well, dad's a lot bigger, so, like, it's
kind of fair that, like, he gets the bigger things,
because... He kind of needs it because he's so
much larger and like it was Really well done
because it was so the proportions were kind of
perfect for it I guess it was a really good visual
for like for kids to see that You know because
I know we all explain to kids that you know fair
means different things for different people We
all need different things. We're all we're all
different humans with different needs and This
just really made it a little bit easier to physically
see why our differences are important and why
we might kind of need different things. So I
thought it was fun. I think I'd give it like
a four out of five. Not necessarily like it wasn't
a groundbreaking book or anything, but it was
still simple and relatable and cute and kind
of it was a fun to read book. I agree. Absolutely.
It was a good book. It was cute. The pictures
were very pretty and kind of just warm and enjoyable.
And then, yeah, like, this is a lesson that,
you know, it's really hard for some kids to understand
that... Fair doesn't mean everybody gets exactly
the same thing. You know, fair is everybody getting
what they need at the time. And so this isn't
like, I definitely agree if this is one of those
books that is a good social emotional lesson
for near the beginning of the school year so
that you can explain, you know, fair is making
sure everybody has what they need so they can
be successful. And that doesn't mean that everybody
gets the same things all the time. You know,
we have some students that to be successful,
they need to have that extra space where they
can go and get some energy out before they come
and sit down on the carpet and do their lesson
or whatever. And some kids need to have that
fidget in their hand. And that doesn't mean everybody
gets it just because someone else does. If this
is what that student needs so they can be successful,
it's fair that they get it and you don't, if
you don't need that to be successful. And so
like being able to have that conversation, because
of this book and being able to show look Pablo's
dad is much bigger so He gets to pick up the
bigger items where Pablo is smaller So he's gonna
pick up the smaller items because he physically
can't pick up the bigger items. That's fair They're
splitting the work evenly for what their abilities
are and what their needs are at the moment And
so like I agree. It's a it's a really cute story.
It's a lot of fun and it definitely makes it
so you can incorporate some important lessons.
And so this would be a great book to use near
the beginning of the year also to kind of start
having those discussions with kids. It's not
going to be the last time you're going to have
those discussions, but this is a good way to
start that foundation. And you can always keep
going like this is a good book that if you start
near the beginning of the year with it, you can
keep going back to it and be like, remember when
we read this and we had this conversation. So
yeah, I agree. That's true. I think it's a good,
I think it's a great book. I enjoyed it. It's
cute. It's fun. The pictures are very pretty.
And so I would definitely use this book to help
start having those conversations for sure. And
there were also a few things like in the background,
like I know we talked about like the things they
physically say in the book, but there were also
a few things in the background that were drawn
in that were like, you could also talk about
how like, Like Pablo has a dog that like comes
around with him and like the dog is like trying
to like pick up like pieces of donut on the ground
and Pablo's always dragging away and like, well,
you could talk to the kid about like, look, it's
not fair for the dog either. He's trying to go
get the donut and that's not fair that Pablo's
dragging him away even though he just want to
be dragged away. And there's a kid in the background
over here who's in a wheelchair. It's, you know,
not everybody has to use wheelchairs. It's not,
it's fair that that kid has a wheelchair if he
can't get up and walk like you don't need a wheelchair
to walk like that's a pretty easy one to see
that like another way to talk about absolutely
you know how different uh fair is different for
everybody um yeah and i like the idea of like
referring back to it later in the school year
it's a really good it's almost social story like
yeah it's not quite a social story but close
to it so I was thinking for this one because
because the sizes of everything were so clear
cut and there was some great proportions in there
for like the big dad with the big drink and the
small kid with the small drink it might be fun
to build different houses for like different
size items so like something that you might just
have lying around the library would be like the
different size counting bears because there's
some that are like real big and some that are
super duper not that are much smaller So like
you could just use like the small Legos and just
build like a different house a different size
houses for them to like little fit inside or
like you could even take it in a Goldilocks direction
I guess and like build do it alongside that and
have like different size chairs for the bears
or something like that if you were gonna if you
happen to be doing that as well you could also
if you don't have like the I mean really you
could do that with like almost anything that
you have like lying around like you if you have
like different size puppets Or you could just
print different size pictures and just, you know,
anything that you like. It doesn't necessarily
have to be like counting bears, but just building
different structures for items or ideally some
kind of toys that the kids are really into for
the kids to build with. So, and kind of having
like a proportion lesson or like big and small
kind of tie it in with that. I like that a lot.
I like that idea of being able to build and have
different items for them to build for. and then
just kind of having it be random so like some
kids are building bigger houses and some kids
are building smaller houses and then be like
look it's fair because you're building for this
while he's building for that or whatever you
know yeah and it could be really like anything
that you have around the library puppets or i
mean if the kids have a like at the beginning
of our school year we usually have like a teddy
bear day where they build or they they bring
in their teddy bears and they could we could
do that on teddy bear day and like notice the
different sizes of our kids teddy bears and like
what can you do for the teddy bear that would
still be fair yeah because they're our teddy
bears are all a little bit different so we're
going to take care of them a little bit differently
absolutely that's really cool i like that idea
a lot I like these books. I think both of these
books are really good books. Like you said, like
you pointed out, I think both of these would
be good books for near the beginning of the year.
Definitely didn't mean to do a beginning of the
year episode today, but it worked out really
well. I think I probably will use these both
at the beginning of next year. Like, for real,
they're really great. They're both really good
books that will be very useful with the kids
and enjoyable. I think the kids will like both
of them. Thank you all for joining us today on
this episode of Librarians of Littles. We hope
you found some fresh ideas for inspiring young
learners. Please be sure to subscribe and connect
with us on social media. Thank you for listening
to this episode of Librarians of Littles. We
hope that you've enjoyed it. Check back each
Wednesday for a new episode. Librarians of Littles
is a podcast produced and hosted by Patrick Adams
and Caroline Legere. Editor, Patrick Adams. Our
theme song is performed by JD Adams. You can
follow us on Instagram at Librarians of Littles.
You can follow us on bluesky at littleslibrarian
.bsky .social. And you can send us your emails
at librarianoflittlespodatgmail .com. Good first
week of school kind of books. So well done to
us Wrong time of year, but good job. That's okay,
you know Hey, that's all right We can we can
realize that we found some good beginning of
the year books and you know what? Just save them
and use them next year because I think yeah,
I think I'm definitely gonna use the mr. S book
next year cuz that's I Really enjoyed it. It
was a lot of fun. So that one was super cute.
Yeah that might be my new favorite like beginning
of year book yeah it was like because i just
i've i've had it on my shelf and i hadn't looked
at it and then we were like let's do a two by
two series so i was like okay what two by twos
haven't we hit yet and that was on the list and
i was like all right let's check it out i know
i have this one on my shelf in the library so
i went over and grabbed it and read it and i
was like oh i like this so that was real cute
good choice yeah