Bibliographic Information (APA): McCaughrean, G. (2002). My Grandmothers Clock. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Brief Annotation: In this story a young girl notices her grandmother’s large grandfather clock that does not work, when she asks her grandmother about it her grandmother explains to her that she does not need a clock to help her tell time. This puzzles the girl, the grandmother further explains how she does not need minutes and hours to tell time, but rather the happenings in a minute, a blink of an eye, how long it takes her to formulate thoughts, how long it takes the earth to orbit the moon , or how many times her heart beats. At the end of the story the granddaughter realizes that the purpose for her grandmother to keep the clock is to use it as storage for other things.
Genre: Concept book
Grade Level: K-5
Readers who will like this: Readers who like their everyday ideas about life challenged, as well as those who are close with a grandparent.
Response/Rating (1-4): This story did a very good job at explaining to young children about the concept of time measured in things other than minutes or hours. It gives a nice understandable perspective to young readers about other ways to measure life.
One question you would ask before a read aloud: Have you ever thought of ways to measure time other than the hours in a day or the days in a week?
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ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think this is a concept book? Double check that classification.
ReplyDeleteI would think about using this book as the introduction to a time-telling unit in math. And it would be useful with measurement, too. Remember that a "foot" was originally the length of a person's actual foot!