Yanuell and I had a wonderful first day of school together! We spent some time catching up on summer excitement and then got right to work! Yanuell brought a book that he wrote last year to school with the intention of adding pages. The book is called Killer Dinosaurs and it's loaded with facts about various dinosaurs. Yanuell had four new dinosaurs already in mind to research and write about. We went to the computer lab and spent time reviewing Microsoft Word. He immediately began researching these new dinosaurs and writing about them. He found images of the dinosaurs on the web and exciting facts to include in the book. Three of the dinosaurs had lived in Asia, so we did a brief geography study. After completion, we reassembled the book and read it cover to cover - alternating pages between us. To continue with our dinosaur themed day, Yanuell and I read a new book that I purchased this summer called Dinosaur Roar, by Paul and Henrietta Strickland. The book has two page spreads that feature a simple comparison of 2 different dinosaurs. It's a simple book of opposites that feature vibrant water color illustrations that are wonderfully painted to illustrate the comparision concepts. "Dinosaur clean, dinosaur slimmy." "Dinosaur fit, dinosaur fat." "Dinosaur short or very very long." The book has a comfortable rhyme-scheme throughout. Yanuell loved that the fierce dinosaur in the book was smaller than the huge meek one. Although young, he had an interesting understanding of juxtaposition! Yanuell was thoroughly enjoying our reading and decided to pick out another dinosaur book from the library books that I had checked out for him. He decided to go with, A T. Rex Named Sue: Sue Hendrickson's Huge Discovery, by Natalie Lunis, because he had actually seen this exhibit at the Field Museum over the summer. Lunis describes Sue Hendrickson's discovery on the final day of her expedition to the badlands of South Dakota. This was not the first major discovery by Sue—she had previously found a piece of amber with a perfectly preserved insect more than 45 million years old. She became hooked on fossil hunting. What made her find exceptional was the discovery of the largest and most complete T. Rex. What happened next was also a bit of a surprise. There were law suits as different parties laid claim to the dinosaur bones. After five years the case was decided and the bones were put up for auction. Not only was Sue big but she garnered a really big price—$7.6 million was what the Field Museum paid. Yanuell was absolutely adorable when we read this part, he wished that he had been at the auction to buy Sue!! He kept saying, "Miss Kara, I NEED to buy Sue!" We ended our reading session on Raz Kids with a very exciting advancement!! Yanuell moved up to level E! He was so proud of his reading accomplishment!!!