Book Love: Lines that Wiggle

I am always looking for good literature to support the topics that we are exploring in our classroom. More often than not, I find myself adapting books slightly to meet the needs of my age group or to fit the specific focus that I am trying to emphasize. But every once in awhile, I find a book that is EXACTLY what I'm looking for.

Title: Lines that Wiggle

Author: Candace Whitman

Illustrator: Steve Wilson

Why I Love this Book: I came across Lines that Wiggle as I was searching for some new ways to teach about working with lines as an early literacy skill. The text in this book is simple, which allows the creative and whimsical illustrations to shine. The lines in the book are raised, offering an additional tactile experience for the reader. Some of the lines are a part of pictures that are more imaginative, while some point out lines on real-life objects, such as leaves, sprouts, and animals. I loved that this book drew attention to different kinds of lines in fun and yet meaningful ways. For my teaching purposes, it is a perfect book to introduce lines to my students and get them excited about noticing them before we focus more exclusively on how lines make up letters, numbers, and shapes.

Read-Aloud Tip: This book lends easily lends itself to incorporating movement as you read. I encouraged my students to try to make different lines with their hands, arms, and bodies throughout the book. I used prompts like "Show me a line that wiggles!" or "Use three fingers to make a line in threes." 

Connection Activities: After we read the book, we did a quick "line hunt" to find lines in the classroom. It only lasted a few minutes, but there was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement about realizing that lines are everywhere!

There are a lot of different ways you could turn lines into art, but we chose to do a line page in our writing journals. The students used lines to draw anything they wanted, and then told me about what they created.