This is a great informational book for young students to learn about airplanes, their parts and aviation in general, in a way that is entreating and engaging for young students. Actually I even learned a lot from reading. It teaches about the plane using the alphabetic order. This book can be used in both ELA class and science class. ( )

This book immediately engaged my students with the airplane on the cover. Transportation is a recurring theme in my classroom this year, of interest to every child. Our show-and-tells are often model airplanes, trains, toy cars, or anything that moves fast and has wheels. The book goes through the alphabet, devoting a page or two to each letter. Each letter stands for something having to do with an airplane. For example, the Aa page says “Airplanes fly in the sky. They take us from here to there by air. An airport is where airplanes take off and land”. Bb is for, Cc is for, etc. I did not like the font they used for the letters, because they do not look like the letters my children are learning. The capital J does not have a “hat” (a line at the top), and the lowercase A and G are “fancy” and look nothing like the letters they are familiar with. When writing a book for young children, I feel this is a careless mistake. Every curriculum I've ever seen for children this age teaches letter formation the same way. The photos in this book, however, were a great way for my children to gain real knowledge about airplanes. I almost always have an easier time reading illustrated books rather than books with photographs, but this read aloud went well. The photos sparked a lot of whole group discussion, so it took us a while to get through each page. I had a lot of “I see the wheels”, and “I see the number 7!”, or “I rode an airplane!”. This allows for an interactive read aloud, which for me is priority. I want them to be a part of the story, and it helps me know more about their experiences, which drives my instruction. My students were losing focus by the letter Xx page, so I wrapped it up. The activities that will follow next week will involve an open-ended play center. I've made a cardboard instrument panel using bulletin board paper for the children to play with and a sensory bin with rice and transportation manipulatives. Two children at a time will have access to the sensory bin for management purposes, and the panel will be big enough for two children. It will be a 4-child center, so the class will need to rotate during centers so that they all have a turn. Depending on how they do and what conversations they have, I'll decide if the topic is worth spending more time on. I did send home a letter to the parents to send in a picture of their child on a vacation, and to tell us how they got there. When I initiated this teacher-directed show-and-tell, I thought about my first year of teaching in the ninth ward. I could never have asked those children to bring in something I knew the majority of them would not have. This class, however, comes from a different demographic. I know that each child has traveled somewhere, whether they remember it or not, because of their “What I Did This Summer” project they brought in in the beginning of the year. I am excited to relate their experiences with transportation to this book and the lessons that follow.