Book Shopping
April 28, 2021 | Felicity Greene
Every Monday during the first activity time of the day, the children of the Sky class participate in book shopping time. This is a time where the children exchange a book from their book bags for a new one.
The children take their time choosing a new title from a selection of books that the teachers change every few weeks. During this selection, the children are working on so many pre-literacy skills. These skills are a part of the foundation that children need as they develop as readers.
Reading is multi-faceted and has many moving parts. Developing print awareness and motivation, building letter knowledge, as well as using pictures to help understand the trajectory of a story, are all skills that the children have been expanding on during book shopping each week. These are skills that children will draw on as they learn to decode texts, use inferencing, and grow their comprehension of stories.
In addition to all of this, book shopping is fun! During a morning meeting this week, the children were asked what their favorite part of book shopping was. Here were some of their responses;
I like changing my old books for new ones.
I like having new books read to me.
I like reading the books and telling the stories with pictures.
I like seeing what all of the new books are about.
Felicity Greene
Teacher, Sky Class
Felicity Greene joined staff in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a minor in Children’s Literature and Childhood Studies. During her student teaching placement, Ms. Greene immediately felt at home in the classroom and is delighted to now be working at Mustard Seed among such a supportive and stimulating staff.
Excited to work at a school where she is free to incorporate her faith, Ms. Greene facilitates expression and exploration of faith with her students in the Sky class. She’s passionate about the role of literature in a child’s development and interested in development in general. She’s grateful to work at a school that pays such close attention to developmental markers in children, as she views developmental awareness to be a vital tool in teaching and caring for each child.
Ms. Greene is also delighted to be back in New Jersey where she grew up, able to be close to her childhood church community and family, especially now that she is newly an aunt. Along with her love of teaching, Ms. Green is passionate about baking as well as ice skating, in which she has competed in both individual and team competitions for more than twelve years. In addition to competing, Felicity also enjoyed coaching both children and adults with the Special Olympics Figure Skating Program in West Orange, New Jersey for several years.
