Never the Same Read Twice

You never realize the true versatility of a book until you've re-read it.  I'm talking about the types of books you read for pleasure.  I always discover something new.  Different emotions get involved.  New meaning to aspects of my life come about.  At times, I love it or I can't stand it!  I'm obviously in a relationship with the book.  

Summers are usually the time of year I have the chance to re-read some of the books that make me feel refreshed. This year the list includes: 

•  Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell (review of book here)
•  Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr (review of book here)
• part of the Harry Potter series (what would appear to be my love letter to the series...no joke, I just re-read the post and teased myself, "heeeeey, love letter")
• whatever else suits my fancy

What are your favorite books to re-read?

Image courtesy of Sicha Pongjivanich / freedigitalphotos.net

It's My 100th Blog Post! Book Battle Edition

I'm really happy I decided to make blogging a resolution for this year.  2 blog posts a week is my requirement (I've only faltered twice...during my Disney Princess half marathon weekend and the week before spring break...see, good excuses).  If I keep the good work up, I get to reward myself with a blog template makeover this summer!  Yay!  

Last week, I decided to try my hand at introducing book battles to my students.  The approach I went for was fairy tale style battles.  That way my students would be familiar with the stories, but be able to apply that knowledge to a new format.  The grades I tried it with, really got into it!

I introduced this idea to 2nd, 4th, and 5th grade by displaying a tournament bracket á la March Madness with the title "Battle of the Books."  The rules were that each team table was choosing a selection of like fairy tale books and they would browse/read through them to choose the one they thought was the best.  They would present as a group their book to the class and explain why they thought everyone should vote for their title.  The book was entered on a bracket to compete with another title.

The fairy tale stories pulled from the shelves were the original and the fractured versions of:

• Jack and the Beanstalk
• The Little Red Hen
• Goldilocks and the Three Bears
• Cinderella
• The Three Little Pigs
• The Princess and the Pea
• Little Red Riding Hood

If you would like a list of the titles my students read, just comment on this post and I would be happy to provide you with the list!

Let me tell you... My students were workin' it!  And this is only the beginning.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net

Special Spring Break Edition: RtI Spring Break Packs

I wish I had thought of making folder packs before.  This year, for my RtI students in 1st and 2nd grade, I made them little spring break packs.  All the work included would be considered light, so they could have fun learning during break.  

Their folders included the following:

• a list of sight words/high frequency words
• an "I Spy" sheet of sight words
• magazines geared towards a younger audience, Chirp and chickaDEE
• two of them had a laminated manila folder with alphabet post-its to build sight words

During their last RtI session before break, I introduced them to the pack so they would be familiar with it and could take ownership in showing a parent.  They would be able to use their list of sight words in multiple ways--from just reading off the list to using the list to look through the magazines for words they know.  The "I Spy" sheets are literally just a white sheet of paper with 20-25 sight words written in all directions all over the paper.

My students seemed very excited to be taking these packs home with them.  I hope to hear that they put them to some use when we come back from break.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net

Author Study of Peter Brown

I happened to luck out and land the author, Peter Brown, for my Preschool-2nd graders.  What a great chance to start one of my pet projects for this school year--multi-grade author studies.  Why not start with Peter Brown?!  Armed with the books You Will Be My Friend! and the Bookflix versions of Children Make Terrible Pets and The Curious Garden I began.  Using some Pinterst inspiration, I created a folder featuring a mini-bio on Brown, pictures of his books, and a section for students to fill in similarities between his books.

My lesson geared toward kindergarten involved them hearing a very brief bio of Peter Brown and then over a 3 week period, I read aloud You Will Be My Friend!, Children Make Terrible Pets, and Mr. Tiger Goes Wild!  I posted the story map elements I wanted them to answer: title, author, characters, and what the characters looked like.  Because the studnets LOVED learning about Peter Brown, I can now refer back to this study to remind them about authors and characters.

First grade had a similar study, but I added setting, problem and solution to their story map.  One of my 1st graders is never satisfied with her checkout choices, so now she constantly asks me for a Peter Brown book (and who am I to deny a student who asks for a book by the author).

In second grade we only covered one book in class, which was The Curious Garden.  For their story map, I added in theme.  With my help, I guided the students to think about the theme of the book.  The main focus was on big words they learned from Brown's books. We started with gathering words from The Curious Garden, which we figured out the words by using context clues.  Then they continued the search in other Peter Brown books and wrote down words they discovered on chart paper.

Overall, this was a good experience just getting into author studies.  I've already made tweaks to make the next better.

All Peter Brown books can be pruchased through his website via IndieBound.

Prepping for #NEAReads

I am so nervous and excited for this coming Friday, March 1st. It is of course Read Across America or Dr. Seuss's birthday. A day to celebrate reading. A day for my students to see all the positive there is related to being literate and bookish.

This is my second year facilitating a day long event for my school. I worked a lot to make sure it would be unique and meaningful. 

Last year, I started by inviting people from the community to come and read. Our school had local firefighters and police officers, SIUE basketball players, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra members, and so on. Basically, I become a networker for my students because I believe 110% that they are worth it. They deserve to see strong role models in their community.

This year, I'll let you know what guests I invited in a post next weekend. It's a pretty sweet list if I do say so myself.

Main point of this post is talking about how I get my students involved in this day. Three weeks ahead of the event, my students start creating decorations to hang up throughout the school. This year, I wanted to incorporate some curriculum aligned decorations. My second graders wrote letters to either The Cat in the Hat or Thing 1 and Thing 2 based off this awesome teacher's templates, missmernagh.com. This template scaffolded the letter writing process for them by giving short fill in the blank prompts for the body.

Some of my younger students need a bit of a reality check when it comes to understanding who Dr. Seuss is as a person. An overwhelming amount think he is The Cat in the Hat. The first graders are shown a picture of Dr. Seuss from World Book Online. one of my 1st grade classes is ahead of the others because of holidays and now snow days, so they made birthday cards for Dr. Seuss.

The third graders read a short biography on Dr. Seuss and answered comprehension questions. Then, they wrote a letter to Dr. Seuss without using the prompt paper. I am also having the third grade and 4th grade creating banners to hang. All it takes is butcher paper (acts as tracing paper), crayons, blue painters tape, and a Promethean board.

5th grade is working on pollution research papers a la The Lorax. They have just started, but the beginning research has been going pretty well. More on this in a later post.

Here's to a spectacular Read Across America event!

An eReader a Day

Within the last two weeks, I have introduced my 4th and 5th graders to NookColors. They went from learning the basics to requesting more books be put on the Nooks. It was shockingly quiet in the library during their class times, especially with it being so close to winter break. I'm not going to lie, I planned it that way. But, I never imagined the complete captivation these eReaders would cause.

One of the best parts about their use of the Nooks, is that they have to partner up to share them. There was very minimal complaining because they didn't want to risk losing any time with the Nooks. Some students who don't usually work well with others, were willing or even volunteering to partner up with other classmates (good confidence builder). Students were reinforcing the skills they've learned by reminding each other how to complete a function or what not to do with the eReader.

The most popular titles I purchased for the Nooks so far, are The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney and Pete the Cat: Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin. Yes, my 4th and 5th graders loved hearing Pete the Cat being read to them. A lot of them wanted to know what other books could be read to them, with the 'read to me' feature I mentioned last post.

I've decided to let them have time with the Nooks during checkout days by making an eReader center. This way it allows continual exposure to the eReader, encourages reading, and responsibility.

“You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild…”

I decided my school would celebrate NEA’s Read Across America in style this year.  I figured out a list of community guest readers who would matter to my students.  I wanted them to see that no matter who you are, reading is important.  I was also hoping they might be inspired by the readers who came. 

It was a lot of work, but I’m very proud of my final list of guests.  We had SIUE basketball players, Symphony Orchestra members, an actor from The Black Rep, local authors, firefighters, police officers, the superintendent of the school district, and many others.  The students signed wearable ‘Cat in the Hat’ hats for their visiting guests.  Each guest received a certificate of appreciation (made available on NEA’s website) and a Dr. Seuss bookmark, too. 

Students created banners welcoming the guests to our school, thanking them for coming to read, and of course, one of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes (I even own a t-shirt with this): “The more that you read, the more things you will know.”  I created a flipchart on ActivInspire with the wording for the banners and projected it onto the Promethean Board and then put up butcher paper to cover the board.  Students took crayons and traced, then colored in the words.  It looked really good and they LOVED being able to work with the board in that manner.

            Anyway, I was only able to witness the end of the last visit because I had classes to teach that day.  I heard from both the students and teachers that they all really enjoyed the event; several of the guests even emailed me to let me know they had a wonderful visit. 

The BEST result of them all... I have had a hard time keeping Dr. Seuss books on the shelves in the library!

Seuss, D. (1978). I can read with my eyes shut. New York, NY: Beginner Books.

Hazelwood School District's Website