Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

During my time as an Elementary School teacher in Annapolis, MD, I was able to attend a reading conference for a week. It was a very energizing week in which I really fell in love with children's books again, a love that had previously been lost. I loved kids and loved teaching, but was losing the love of reading. It's a tough thing to pass on the love of reading to your students when you yourself are not a "lover." Looking back, I believe my primary frustration with reading during that period in my life, was lack of time. I would typically have 3 or so different reading groups in my room, all reading different books/novels (because this is what's required), plus I had a story that I was reading to the entire class (usually during dismissal time or something similar to help the class feel connected...they always loved all having the same story to talk about as they walked out the door and it was good for certain kids to hear other kids take on what's happening in a story), then there were the short stories we were working on on a daily basis to teach reading comprehension skills. It never seemed to phase the kids, they loved reading and learning and took it all in stride..one of the beauties of youth :) I, however, had a terrible time figuring out how to "get it all done" and at times it made me feel quite overwhelmed, hence losing the love of reading. It became a chore to me. I had to pre-read the novels, pre-read the short stories, pre-read what we were going to being reading/studying for Science, Social Studies, Math, etc. Then read it with the class while preparing myself for the next sets of stories (if that makes sense?) Oh, and then there was the pursuing of a Master'd Degree (another requirement) that meant a lot (A LOT) more reading. Time was just not on my side. This was my biggest stress as a teacher....I wanted to get it all done, but had to sacrifice a lot to do so. I will always have a tremendous respect for good teachers because I know all that they give up to do so.
The reading conference helped regain my love for reading and I've been building on that love for the past two years.
But it has really sparked over the past couple weeks!! While cleaning out a room a few weeks ago, I came across this book, Boom Chicka Rock by John Archambault:

It's a book I picked up while at that reading conference, but had forgotten all about. Well, Madeline couldn't be more excited to see such a book big!!! She has had me read it over and over to her every day since I found it (you would think a book so big wouldn't have been lost!). Then yesterday while we were playing/cleaning upstairs, I came across the cassette tape for the book I had purchased. I searched the house high and low for something that would play a cassette, but came up with only a broken boombox. So off to the computer we went. While searching the Internet I couldn't find any audio versions of Boom Chicka Rock, but I did find some cute videos of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The kids LOVED them and watched them over and over. They had two favortes...I'll post the links below. Warning: the songs were stuck in my head alllll day. Madeline kept going over to the "big book" to try to follow along but I had to keep explaining that it wasn't the same book. I plan on getting her Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for her Tag Reader, so she can follow along with it then :)
Oh, and I do love children's books!!!!

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Version Two