New Teacher + New Classroom = Excitement!

As many of us are returning to our classrooms, pulling things together, trying to come up with new ways of arranging our room to inspire our students, I had the unique opportunity to observe (and help when asked!) my son pull together his very first classroom.  Just the idea of a new job and first classroom is exciting enough, but then throw into the mix that he is going to be teaching in the elementary school he graduated from, in a classroom that he actually learned in….  Well to me, as his mom and a teacher myself, I am just so proud!  I am also amazed.  His classroom would easily have qualified for my “dream” classroom when I started teaching.  I know parents are going to walk into his room and immediately be put at ease, this is definitely a classroom where students will be engaged and motivated to learn.  You can feel the energy as you enter room. 

Students sit at tables so all class supplies are organized on the middle shelving unit.


Even though he'll be teaching math, science and social studies, he still has a great classroom library!

Garrett found the great metal racks under his chalkboard and Smart Board at Ikea.

I just love all the color in this room!














This is the back of a portable shelving unit that stores all his math manipulatives.  He decided to pull it away from the wall, extend the top, add a groove in the wood to support iPads - instant work station for students!

 

Picture Books - Mentor Texts Part 2

One aspect of summer that I just truly love is having the time to sit and enjoy picture books.  Notice I didn’t write “read” picture books.  I am not simply reading the books.  It’s so much more than that.  This summer I have happily checked out dozens of picture books from the library at a time and then reveled in being able to just sit and page through the books as I read them, marveling over their illustrations, frequently get a good chuckle, and then reflecting on how I can share them with my students.  As mentioned in an earlier post, I like to use picture books to not only share my love of reading but also as springboards into mini lessons for both reader’s and writer’s workshop.  Here are few of my recent finds:

It’s a Book by Lane Smith

     This book is about the exasperation one friend feels as he tries to describe what a book is to his friend, a donkey.  Donkey is all about high tech so he has some trouble understanding the concept of reading a book, something with no bells, whistles, cords, passwords, etc, for the shear pleasure of falling into the book.

     After reading this book (and I LOVED it) I read about the controversy over the use of a certain word in the story.  Sorry, but this book made me laugh out loud and we all need that.  If anyone finds the word offensive or questionable just say “bleep” when you come to it and let the kids use their imagination.

Mentor text:  I will be using this book at the beginning of the year to help explain/demonstrate to my students how I feel about books and reading.

Bluffton by Matt Phelan

     This is a historical fiction graphic novel of one boy’s experience when vaudeville performers came to spend summers in his town on the shore of Lake Michigan in the early 1900’s.  Henry gets to know the fun loving actors and finds a summer best friend in a young vaudevillian his own age, Buster Keaton.  The boys enjoy their summer days to the fullest, each finding aspects of the other’s life more interesting/exciting than their own.

     Historical fiction fascinates me and this book did not disappoint.  Living so close to Michigan (actually grew up on the Wisconsin of the Lake) I had never heard of Bluffton or the vaudeville summer retreat so I immediately took to Google to find out more.  Isn’t this what we hope our students will do?  I was excited to find that the author actually includes some factual historical information about the real Actors’ Colony in Bluffton and the famous people that summered there.

Mentor text:  There are so many possibilities for this book!  It would be great as a mentor text for a unit on inquiry.  Besides the historical aspect, the book brings up the issue of the problem of child labor in the 1900’s. (Is there really a Gerry Society?)  How about the contraptions that Buster designs?  Possibly a springboard into a science unit?  Finally, this book will be a wonderful mentor text for teaching inference.  As with many graphic novels, much of the story is told through the illustrations rather than the text.  Through careful examination of the pictures students will learn much more of the story and gain valuable insights to the characters.

14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy

     I first learned about this book last week when attending a Donalyn Miller seminar.  My first thought after her book talk?  Why hadn’t I ever heard of this book before?  Immediately after the seminar I went to the library and checked the book out. It left me speechless.  The story is about a remote village in Kenya and a Maasai tribe.  They learn of the 9/11 tragedy in America and they are so moved they want to do something to help.  This book touched my heart. 

Mentor text:  I will be using this book to promote discussion on 9/11 this year.  As sixth graders the majority of my students were not even alive when the attacks occurred, yet I know they will be curious and have many questions.  This book gives a new and touching perspective of how a different culture thousands of miles away reacted to the tragedy. 

Picture Book Mentor Texts Part 1

Even though I teach sixth grade, I love sharing picture books with my students.  Sixth graders love being read too and, this really should come as no surprise, they love picture books!  I’m always on the look out for picture books to use as mentor texts for reading and/or writing.  The following are two of my finds so far this summer…

Now It Is Summer by Eileen Spinelli

Now It Is Summer is a wonderful picture book about a little mouse that can’t wait for the pleasure of autumn to arrive while his mother patiently reminds him of the joys of summer.  He should take advantage of them while he can for too soon they’ll be gone.

This book is a perfect mentor text to use for teaching poetry, compare/contrast, alliteration, repetition, onomatopoeia, and especially sensory descriptions.  The author does a fabulous job of helping the readers experience the pleasures of both autumn and summer throughout the book.  Two of my favorite descriptions include:

“Will I leap laughing into leaves

heaped high in the backyard?

Soon”  (Autumn)

and

“….but now it is summer.

Now you can tippy-toe

into the gurgling surf. “  (Summer)

Students will be able to see, hear, taste, smell and feel each season.  I envision having students practice writing their own sensory poems after sharing this book.

Someday by Eileen Spinelli

An imaginative little girl dreams about what her “someday” will be like as compared to what her “today” or “right now" are like.  She dreams and wishes of swimming with dolphins, lunching with the president, digging for dinosaur bones, and counting penguins, while she’s actually feeding her goldfish, eating with her cousin, looking for coins in the couch, and counting jellybeans.  While the illustrations are colorful and fun, author Eileen Spinelli’s story has such wonderful details and words that readers/listeners will be easily able to close their eyes and imagine the adventures of the little girl. 

After sharing this story with my students I will challenge them to write their won “Someday… Today…” poem.  I will encourage them to think about things they do everyday, then use their imagination to turn those tasks into things they wish they could someday do.

Slice of Life: Little Library

A few years ago I started noticing these strange little boxes, they actually resembled little houses, showing up here and there around the area.  Even stranger, the little houses were filled with books!  Upon closer inspection, I discovered the books were free!  Oftentimes messages such as “take a book, leave a book,” or “take a book, return a book” were written on the boxes. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would leave books just sitting out in these boxes, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.  As a reader I love books, but what did I do with the books once I was done reading them?  Sure I passed them on to others that might be interested in reading them, but I have so many books that I’ve finished reading and my kids have read.  I have shelves filled with my favorites that I can’t bear to part with, and many more end up in my classroom.  But still there are even more that I just have no room for anywhere.  I’ve often fantasized about opening my own little library with all the books I own (kind of like the library in Because of Winn Dixie).

I was filled with excitement and curiosity when my son announced one day this past spring that he had discovered a Little Library in our neighborhood, only a few blocks from our house.  He even found a book that he was interested in reading!  It was then that my idea began to grow. If I put books in the Little Library, would people want them? Would they read them?  Could I put in books for kids too?  So this summer I began my experiment. I took ten books down to the Little Library.  Really I was so excited it felt like Christmas, I just kept thinking how happy someone would be to read these books.  I even had some children’s picture books in the mix.

All week I kept thinking about the books I had put in the Little Library.  I wondered if anyone had looked at them. I wondered if anyone had picked any to read.  I hoped at least a few had found good homes.  So today I decided to take another bag of ten books down to the Little Library.  Again I was so excited, this time not only to drop off more books, but also to see if any of the first ten were gone yet.  As my husband and I approached the park, a man sitting on a bench near the Little Library looked up at us.  Suddenly nervous, I held up the bag I was carrying and said I had more books for the library.  He smiled and said, “good”.  It was then that I noticed the Little Library was completely empty!  All of the books I had brought the previous week were gone!  This may sound a little corny, but it felt so amazing to know that all of those books were being read and hopefully enjoyed.  I filled the library with my new load of books and headed home even more determined to help keep that library filled.

Class Book: Building Excitement!

Having a “class book” or teaching one book to an entire class is no longer a popular option in this age of workshop, differentiation, and personalized learning.  And while I tend agree with the current mode of thinking, there is still something so powerful about a large group of students excited and engaged as they read the same title.  In my own classroom we have fully embraced the workshop method.  Students are free to choose their own books for their individualized daily reading time, and each student has been taught how to find books at his/her independent reading level.  Students are well aware of their Lexile level, but have also been taught other methods to judge if a book is appropriate for them.

Once in a while though, a truly wonderful book comes along, that grabs a reader and then quickly spreads like wildfire as other students learn of the book and discover they simply must read it for themselves.  We’ve all seen this happen with the Percy Jackson series, the Twilight series (older students) and even Harry Potter.  In fact two of my students this year are such Percy Jackson devotees that they inspired many of their classmates to either read or reread the entire series this year. But it seems like there just hasn’t been a new book that has had the mass appeal to cause dozens of students to feel the need to read the book at the same time and discuss it.  There just hasn’t been a book that has inspired students to talk with each other about the characters as if they knew them well, as if the students were actually a part of the story itself. 

That is until this year.  Over the winter break one of my students discovered the book Hollow Earth by Carole and John Barrowman.  I had set up a class Twiducate account so the students could Tweet with each other about their reading over the holidays.  The student’s urgent (and frequent) Tweets piqued my curiosity.  I downloaded the book on my e-reader and began to read.  The story was captivating.  A fantasy set in Scotland; there were all the makings of a student blockbuster.  Two twelve-year-old twins discover that have supernatural abilities, one of which allows them to animate pictures that they have drawn. (How cool is that?)  Their father mysteriously disappeared years ago and now some evil force is after the twins. The book is fairly long, but the chapters are short and so action packed that it’s hard to put the book down.

After vacation, I shared what I was reading with the students.  Hollow Earth became the class “Red Hot Read”.    Soon I had so many students begging to read the book that I was putting in a bulk order for students that couldn’t wait for the library to order a copy.  Within two weeks I had ordered over 40 copies.  Since I have book clubs in my classroom as well as workshop, we quickly decided to have fantasy be the genre for our next book club rotation.  Four groups choose Hollow Earth as their title.  Now I should mention that when forming book clubs, the groups are formed based on the books the students want to read.  Within each group there may be students at different ability levels, but I found this not to be an issue.  The groups are merely an avenue for the students to discuss their books, share ideas, clear up any confusions, and work on any comprehension strategies/skills taught in workshop.

It has been almost magical watching the evolution of Hollow Earth, as it becomes the infamous “class book” for the year.  The students are now at the point where they are finishing the book. The conclusion of the story leaves the reader with questions, as book two is due out this summer in the United States.  We are having many discussions about the future of Matt, Em and Zach, the three main characters of the story.  Hollow Earth, as our “unofficial class book”, has lit the fire of excitement and engagement in reading for many of our sixth grade students this year.

Students Book "Shop"!

It is so important that students learn how to choose their own books for reader’s workshop.  Too often I think we assume that once children reach the upper elementary grades they are knowledge when it comes to picking out books. Unfortunately this is too frequently not the case.  Students, especially “non-readers”, appeared mystified when faced with the daunting task of picking out a book that they will not only read from beginning to end, but will also enjoy!  Yesterday and today my sixth graders and I worked on the skill of choosing books.  In the process we made some interesting discoveries.  We came up with the following list of how “good readers” choose their books:

Look at front cover

Read inside jacket

Read back cover

A book in a series

Author we like

Genre we like

Interesting title

Books that are movies

Recommendations from friends,

   teachers, and critics

New/popular book

Sequel to a favorite book

Book trailers

We then discussed how to determine if a book would be  “easy”, “just right”, or “challenging” for us to read.  The students were full of ideas:

Try the beginning

Read some of the middle

5 Finger Test

Lexile level

Next I modeled how to choose a great book.  This I think was the key.  The students were completely engaged as I demonstrated how to preview a book.  I read the title, looked at the cover, read the first page.  I thought out loud about the character on the cover, the setting and what connections I could make to other books or the author.  Then I read the back of the book.  Again, I thought out loud, answered some of my previous questions, came up with more.  Finally, after I decided I was interested in the book, I did a five-finger test to make sure the book wouldn’t be too challenging.

Then it was time for the students to choose their own books.  Success!  As I quietly circulated around the room, helping where needed, it was wonderful to see students get excited about books as they new previewed the baskets of books at their tables.  I knew we had made progress when students began filling our their “Books I Need To Read!” lists!

Stress Relief!

It’s Friday night and I’m tired.  I’ve put in another 5 hours at school today.  My classroom is beginning to shape up.  The boxes are all unpacked, my desk and the front of the room is ready to go.  The back of the room, the classroom library, well let’s just say it’s not quite ready for prime time.  Then there are bulletin boards to get up, lesson plans to write, oh and did someone mention interventions?  Yikes!  I’ve already spent over 15 hours working at school and teachers aren’t officially back to work until next week Wednesday.  Stress level rising……

So after my day my husband suggested we go downtown and enjoy our town’s “Friday Night Live” music festival.  I agreed even though I really just wanted to curl up and fall asleep. And what happened?   We had fun! And I discovered a new method of stress relief that is guaranteed to make anyone forget their problems, laugh and have fun.  What’s the secret?  Polka music!  Yep, that’s right, polka music. As my husband and I were walking through the downtown, we heard an unfamiliar band playing.  We turned down the street, and low and behold, a polka band.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been a polka fanatic, but for some reason, after a stressful day, all I wanted to do, was dance to this polka music.  Everything else was forgotten.  Before I knew it we were laughing and hopping along with everyone else!

So how does this help stress relief at school?  Here’s my idea, polka music in the classroom.  It’s not so far fetched.  Currently I play classical music to relax and help me think.  Why not polka music to unwind and distress?  Just download the music on the iPod, turn up the volume, and go!  I’ve already started the download….