Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies Illustrated by Mark Hearald
What I like: This delightful collection of poems has something for every season. You could tie these in with so many science lessons in addition to all the writing lessons it could work for.
What I love: The illustrations are great and, for a collection of poems meant for children, which can sometimes be not so great, these are really quite wonderful.
What I wish it had: There are so many poems in here to use in class, I really don't think it's lacking anywhere.
When I'd use it: This is obviously a book of poems, so it's full of possibilities to be a mentor text for poetry. I'm currently using it as a source of mentor texts to teach figurative language.
Best Age Groups: With all the variety in here, I'd say it could work anywhere K-5 depending on how the lesson was structured and what the goal was. I cannot stress enough how many good pieces there are to use in here.
And can I mention it enough times? The illustrations...
are totally...
wonderful, too.
Main Image from bibelotshops.com Others from anatarambana.blogspot.com and arepreading.tumblr.com