Fourteenth Book Done!

I finished reading my fourteenth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee, Athlete Vs. Mathlete by W.C. Mack.  In this story twin brothers, Russ and Owen Evans, seem to have very little in common until the new basketball coach comes to town. He orders Russ the mathlete to try out for basketball and Russ discovers that he likes it!

This was a fun, quick read.  It would make a fun read aloud for third, fourth, or fifth grade classroom. It could easily be used to teach checking for understanding, making predictions, and literary elements.

Thirteen Books Done!

I just finished reading my thirteenth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee, "Summer of the Gypsy Moths" by Sara Pennypacker. In this book Stella and Angel have two things in common. One they live with Stella's great-aunt and two they live there because they have no place else to be. The story unfolds with Stella's great-aunt dying. Read to find out how Stella and Angel deal with this and find places to belong. 

This book would work well for teaching theme or main idea and details. Check out the discussion questions provided by the author.

Twelve Books Done!

The twelfth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee that I chose to read was The PS Brothers by Maribeth Boelts.

This story would work well for teaching literary elements, cause and effect, main ideas and details, and rereading the text.  

On Maribeth Boelts web page she has a question answer section in which she talks about her writing. There is some useful information here that would teach students about the writing process. 

Interesting Find!

While browsing the web one day I stumbled upon an advertisement for the upcoming Stenhouse Summer Blogstitute 2014. I decided to e-mail myself a reminder to check it out as it did not start for a few weeks.  I found the e-mail yesterday and went to check it out.  

So far there are two different posts by authors: The first post is on the teaching of grammar which is by Aimee Buckner ( I read her book Notebook Know How this summer. If you use writer's notebooks in your classroom, you should read it!) The second post is on writing found poems by Shirley McPhillips.  I can't wait to try writing one of these myself and then have my fourth graders try to write them. Not sure what those are here's a link to further information about them:
https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/Sample/18488chap1.pdf

If you read and leave a comment on the posts you are entered for a chance to win a package of eight books that are written by the authors who are writing the posts for the blogstitute. 

Take a second or two or three and check it out!

Teaching Writing!

I have been reading Wondrous Words by Katie Wood Ray. This is a great book about teaching kids to be successful at and enjoy writing.  

Part of the process is learning to read books like a writer.  

A topic that appears to be a long ways from both these concepts is that fact that my son challenged me to read Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella.  So for those of you who aren't from Iowa and aren't baseball fans this is the book that the movie Field of Dreams was based on back in the 80's. Being from Iowa and actually having visited the Field of Dreams I decided to give the book a try.

Now I feel as if I should say this up front, I am not a fan of baseball.  I can take it or leave it!  That said I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. Not only did I enjoy the story from a reader's point of view, I also discovered some great things to share with my students from a writer's point of view.

I found many examples of how this novel could be used to help teach students about writer's craft. One type of writer's craft that Katie Wood Ray shares in her book is "Super Ellipses". Those are the three dots in a row. They can be used to show continuation, transition, or the lack of words to describe something. On page 14 in Shoeless Joe Kinsella writes: "It must of been... It must of been like..." But I can't find the words.

Writers also use a close echo effect.  This style of writing as described by Katie Wood Ray is when an author repeats words or phrases close together when it is not necessary and creates an echo effect.  On page 25 of Shoeless Joe Kinsella writes: The process is all so slow, as dreams are slow, as dreams suspend time like a balloon hung in midair. 

Now keep in mind you will only share bits and pieces as this is a novel for adults. If your students are interested in the topic here are books that I found that would be appropriate for students to read: Shoeless Joe and Me by Dan Gutman, Shoeless Joe & Black Betsy by Phil Bildner and C.F. Payne, and Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson by David L. Fleitz.

Eleven Books Done!

The eleventh Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee that I chose to read was Pie by Sarah Weeks.  In this story young Alice loves to spend time with her Aunt Polly at her pie shop.  When Aunt Polly passes away Alice's world is turned upside down.  To make matters even worse Aunt Polly left her famous pie crust recipe to her cat, Lardo! Or did she?

This book could help students work on sequencing events, using prior knowledge, cause and effect, setting, character, and theme. The author also includes some readers theaters on her website this could be used to work on many different fluency strategies including reading like the author would to convey meaning. If you are interested in doing an author study or you have a student who is, Sarah Weeks has provided some wonderful suggests on how to begin on her website.  Click on the gold circular emblem that says "Are You Doing an Author Study?" to get started!

Ten Books Done!

The tenth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee that I chose to read was The Underdogs by Mike Lupica.  The Underdogs is a story of a struggling small town and how in order to save money they are going to discontinue little league football.  Will, a boy with a passion and talent for football, works to save his season.  

There are so many positive themes you could highlight out of this book.  It would also work well for teaching making predictions, character and setting.  

It could be used as a model during a lesson on persuasive writing! Will writes from the heart and well you will have to read to find out what it gets him!

Nine Books Done!

The ninth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee that I chose to read was Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur. This story addresses the age old theme of growing up.  Specifically that time period of leaving elementary school behind and entering middle school.  In the book it addresses it from Elise's point of view. Elise is a 12 year old girl who is being raised by her aunt and uncle, because her parents are deceased.  She struggles with school, friendship, bullies, and her identity.  Sometimes you want to shake her, sometimes you want to hug her!

This book would be good for teaching character, setting, theme, problem/solution, and using prior knowledge to connect with the text.  

Make sure you check out Suzanne LaFleur's website.  She shares some interesting insight into her writing process, which is so important for writers to see!

Eight Books Done!

I am making progress with my goal of reading all the 2014-2015 Iowa Children's Choice award nominees.  Eight down and nine to go!  

The eighth book I read was The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng.  Make sure you checkout the common core activities created by the author for this book. You can also check out the illustrator, Abigail Halpin's website. In this story Anna, an American Born Chinese girls struggles with fitting in, friendship, and her Chinese heritage.  

This book would work well for teaching summarizing, check for understanding, and back up and reread.  It would also lend itself well to teaching theme.  

I could see this book sparking some interest in China and the Chinese culture.  It might lead students to further research and learning about the Chinese culture.  

Seven Books Done!

The seventh Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee I chose to read was Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai. Inside Out & Back Again is a story of a young girl who left her home in Saigon when the Vietnam War reached her home and moved to Alabama with her family. 

This story would be great to teach students how to create a mental image or picture.  This book contains many interesting words in , so it would be a good text for tuning into interesting words.  

Six Books Done!

The sixth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee that I chose to read was Little Dog, Lost by Marion Dane Bauer. In this story one little boy has a dog and has to give it up, one little boy desperately wants a dog, and one little dog needs a boy.  Read on to find out how the story unfolds.

This story would work well to teach making and adjusting predictions using the text to confirm, cause and effect, problem/ resolution, and theme.  It could also be used to introduce the use of similes.  That said Marion Dane Bauer has created a nice discussion guide and a readers theater script to use with the book.  

Part 2 of Classroom Library Reorganization!

 Now to discuss the checkout process in my library.  I had a sign out sheet on a clipboard.  Students remembered to checkout the books, when I reminded them otherwise not so much.  So first solution for that is mini lesson on classroom library prodigal. Here's how I am considering handling this.  My students will have color coded reading response journals.  Their journals will be do on certain days of the week.  The day your journal is due will be your book shopping day.  This will cut down on the number of students in the classroom library and at the checkout computers at any given time. Students will be able to check out 2 books from my classroom library at a time for a 2 week period for their book baskets.  Other books will come from our school library.

 Computers, you say? That is the next mini lesson I will be teaching.  I found this website called Booksource.  They offer a free classroom organizer. When I found the site a year or so ago they offered an app for Apple only. This app scans the bar codes on your books and puts them into a database. You can use that database for your students to check out books via your classroom computers and do a short review upon returning them.  The database will display guided reading level or AR level just to name a few.  This display is customizable by you.  

 Upon revisiting the site on Thursday I was elated to see that they now have an app for Android.  I have began bringing my books home from school, 1 box at a time, to scan them.  My goal is to have them all scanned, so that my database is up and running on the first day of school.  Wish me luck!

Reorganizing My Classroom Library

  Confession time:  My classroom library has always been an entity in my classroom, make that an unused entity in my classroom. After reading The Daily 5 by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser, I decided it was past time for this to change. The million dollar question was were to begin?  So I visited The Daily Cafe where I found a video about organizing your classroom library.  It clicked, made total sense.  
  At that time my library was a sad attempt at organizing books according to AR levels.  This organization or lack thereof lead to major frustration on my part, because the books where never were they were supposed to be.  Since no one including myself knew where they were supposed to be, this was not a surprising issue.
 I began making the change by visiting my local dollar store and purchasing plastic baskets.  Then I spent 4 hours sorting out my books by author, topic, or genre and created categories. Some sample categories that I created are Magic Treehouse, Sports, and Beverly Cleary.  I labeled the baskets and matching books with a number and sorted them into their proper place.  
 This all done, my goal is for my library to be the focus entity in my classroom not the unused entity.

Five Books Done!

  The fifth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee that I chose to read was The Fast and the Furriest by Andy Behrens. Kevin and his dog Cromwell are classic couch potatoes until Cromwell sees a dog agility contest on TV.  Read on to find out how life changes for Kevin, Cromwell, and their family!
  This book would work well for practicing  identifying cause and effect, summarizing, and identifying main ideas and supporting details.  Students could also compare and contrast beginning of the book Kevin and Cromwell to ending of the book Kevin and Cromwell.  

Four Books Done!

   The fourth Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee that I chose to read was Hiss-s-s-s! by Eric A. Kimmel. Omar wants a snake, but his mom is less than thrilled.  Read to find out how the adventure unfolds and how Omar and mom grow and change from their adventure. 
  Scattered throughout this book are some examples of onomatopoeia.  Other skills you could teach using this book might be make a picture or mental image.  The descriptions of certain events in the book are well written and certainly help the reader create a mental image.  
  I am considering using this as a read aloud in my class.  Our basal has an excerpt from the story Dear Mr. Winston by Ken Roberts and an informational text piece about snakes. I am thinking that I will read this to my class shortly before we get to that story and then we will compare and contrast the two fiction stories and use the nonfiction along with those to look at author's purpose. 

Three Books Down

  The third Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee I chose to read was Waiting for the Magic by Patricia MacLachlan. William and Elinor's father left for "a while".  Their mom decides to cope by adopting four dogs and a cat.  Their new "family" members help them see how important they are to each other.
  This story would be a good fit for many skills off the CAFE menu. The fact that it contains some illustrations makes is work for the skill cross checking.  It would also work for students working on summarizing, identifying literary elements, and voracious reading.

Two Books Down

  The second Iowa Children's Choice Award nominee I chose to read was The Ghost of Graylock by Dan Poblocki. Neil and Bree are spending the summer with their aunts, who just happen to live by an abandoned, haunted state hospital named Graylock. Being typical kids Neil and Bree go explore Graylock. This is when the spooky twists and turns of the book begin to appear. 
  This story would be a good fit for students working on any number of skills of the CAFE menu.  Here are a few I thought would work well with it:  making predictions, inferring, asking questions as you read, and identifying literary elements.  

One Book Down!

  I began working on my goal of reading the Iowa Children's Choice Award nominees with the book Hold Fast by Blue Balliet.
       This is a fast, moving mystery about a father who disappears and his family who ends up living in a homeless shelter.  The story unfolds as Early Pearl, the daughter of the missing man,works to solve the mystery and bring her father home. 
  Shortly into the book, I decided to use it as my first chapter book read aloud in August. Upon making this decision I consulted my copy of the Iowa Core, the Daily 5 and The CAFE Book to see what skills I could use this book to teach.
  First off this book is filled with the love of words. Each chapter begins with a highlighted word or two which the author shares the origin and definition of the highlighted words with the reader. This makes it a great way to introduce your class word collector and the skill tune into interesting words.  
  To go along with this I am thinking about doing Wonderful Word Wednesday. Each Wednesday we would begin our day sharing in our community circle any wonderful words we have found in our reading during the prior week. This idea is not completely original, I saw a similar idea but can not recall where I saw it!
  There are any number of spots in this story where you could use the check for understanding and backup and reread skills. This book could also be used to teach using prior knowledge. You could read the inside of the front cover and discuss the genre. Then have students share what they know about the mystery genre. You could discuss what you and your students know about the author. For information about the author check out her website "Blue Balliet"  After reading page 5, you could have students share with an elbow partner what experience they have had with family pictures.  These are just a few ideas for teaching skills using Hold Fast.  If you have others chime in!