This book follows the story of Jody who is growing plants in her back yard. She plants the seeds with her grandparents and they teach her how to care for and harvest her plants. She even feeds her family with these plants!

I enjoyed this book primarily for the illustrations and the small details you can find in those illustrations. A lot of the borders on the pages are stems and seeds. At the beginning of the book, you can see that Jody's mother is pregnant. If you look closely at the end of the book, her mother is holding a baby in a small blanket! There are a lot of small details that children may not be able to pick up so It would be fun to read the book aloud and see if the kids pick up on those details. If they don't, you can explain it to them! ( )

Summary:
Jody and her grandpa have planted scarlet runner beans in her yard. The story gives step by step instructions on how to plant, grow, pick and how to cook these beans.
Personal reaction:
This book was interesting but I wish it would of used another type of seed that most children would be able to identify.
Extension ideas:
1. I would use this book in talking about science or spring. i would have the class plant their own bean sprout.
2. I would use this in talking about social studies and the weather. In what part of the U.S could you plant certain seeds and during what times of the year.

This book is about a young girl and her grandfather starting a bean garden. In the beinnging of the story the grandfather and young girl count tweleve beans and plant them in the yard. The gradfather goes away for awhile and leaves the watering and picking up to the young girl. She watered the beans everyday unless it rained. Soon flowers sprouted and beans came from them. The girl picked all the beans she could reach and soon her family ate them. The gradfather returned and picked the beans the girl could not reach and started the process all over again. They used the beans from inside the large beans to plant them again.

This book is a good informational book. It shows children how to nuture for something and that if you work you will get great end results. This book also reminds me of my niece and her first experience with plants. My dad and my niece went to our garden and picked all the peppers she could reach and helped my dad water it daily.

In a classroom, we could count seeds and then have a classroom plant and give one child at a time the responsibility to water the plant. We could also just have every child have their on in class plant and water it everyday.

Jody’s Beans is a story of a young girl’s exploration of the process of life through the planting of runner bean with her grandfather. The step by step experience of growing a garden is intertwined with the patience it takes for new life to form. Jody’s granddad takes Jody and the reader from planting to harvesting, to saving seeds to use for the next generation of runner bean plants. The illustrations throughout the book tell the same story, only it is applied to Jody’s mother and her developing pregnancy.

I loved this book. The author did a great job of developing the theme of the story in a subtle way. The birth of a second child can be a traumatic time in the life of a child; this book ties the process to a process that can be understood by all ages. The illustrations were simple which also adds to the theme of the story.

As an extension, this book offers several different opportunities. The obvious is to use this book along side a science lesson on plants for kindergarten through second grade. Read the story to the class, then have a lesson on seeds. This will help them to understand the need to be patient while waiting on thier plants to grow.

It would be a good book to share with a kindergarten or first grade class to discuss the seasons of the year. It shows the different parts of the plant lifecycle for each season. ( )