Hanging out with Nerdy Birdy on Book Talk Thursday

It's another week of Book Talk Thursday, and I hope you are ready for another Virginia Readers Choice book! Today I am actually presenting at the Virginia State Reading Association (VSRA) conference with my friend Melissa from Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late about big kids and picture books. One of the books we will share is Nerdy Birdy by Aaron Reynolds. {Affiliate links provided to fund future book purchases.} I used this book with my fifth grade students as we discussed Author's Craft.



In the book Nerdy Birdy wants to hang out with the cool birds, but they don't get him and pick on him about his nerdiness. Finally Nerdy Birdy meets a bunch of other Nerdy Birdies who share the same loves with Nerdy Birdy. They start to hang out, and everyone is happy, until Vulture shows up. The birds all change their thinking about who should be included with their own little group. The question is, what does Nerdy Birdy do and how does he feel about all of this?

Classroom Application

Nerdy Birdy has a great theme focusing on accepting others. Students of all ages can identify with Nerdy Birdy and how he feels. The fifth graders really understood what was going on and even enjoyed Nerdy Birdy and the other birds in the book. I got plenty of giggles and comments. But we really focused on author's craft and how the author used various ideas and styles to get the message across to the reader. I used the author's craft freebie from Carla at Comprehension Connection to show how the author includes details to make the story more interesting and make more sense to the reader. You can read that post and grab that freebie by clicking {here}.

For the sake of time, I told each student to listen during the second reading for one area of the chart. Then we discussed what they found. Giving the students a reason to read helps them focus on what they need to glean from the text. Here are some of their observations.

Nerdy Birdy is a fun book in which the theme will resonate with students of all ages. All students can learn an important lesson from Nerdy Birdy and his friends.