Monday Made It: July 11

Click here to visit the rest of the link up. 

Recently, I finished reading The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller. I really enjoyed it! I was inspired to create my own Reading Inventory for my future 3rd graders. When I sat down to create, I was immediately struck by the idea of gamify-ing it a bit by using the arrows, yes/no paths, and emojis. I hope the kids will enjoy it, and I hope you will, too! It's free in my store. Click here!

Guys, I don't know if this really counts as a made-it, but I made my favorite boxed brownies for a little Independence Day shindig! If you haven't tried Ghiradelli's Double Chocolate brownies, you simply must! So delicious.

My husband asked me if we had any left on Thursday. Um, is he crazy? Of course there aren't any extra! It's Thursday-I already ate them all!





I've probably said it before, but this is my favorite link up. I can't wait to see what everyone else has been up to! Time to get lost in blog-world!

xoxo,
Stephanie

The Important Book Inspiration

Have you ever read The Important Book? It is a lovely book by Margaret Wise Brown that I was introduced to last year. It's part poetry part word game, part opinion writing, and really, much more. I've discovered that primary students, including my end-of-the year 2nd graders, absolutely love it! This is amazing for a picture book published in 1949. 

After enjoying it together, I guided the students write their own "Important" poems using the book to provide a frame. We discussed repetition and description.  Then I got an idea...

Today I provided students with a frame to write an "Important Poem" about Family. We will send home family gifts and thank yous tomorrow, and I knew this would make a great addition. So, the students wrote, I typed, and they drew and watercolored a border. I imagine these might make it into some frames, or at least onto some refrigerators. :) 

Aren't they precious? They turned out great, and it was a really simple project!

Book Clubs

The kids were excited to start reading for their "Book Clubs" today. 

Which made ME excited, too. Excitement is exactly what I was going for!

I'm considering this a guided independent reading task, with the main focus just being to get students excited about our reading community! It's so tough to keep motivated at the end of the year, so it's nice to do something different. 

They are required to read from this book daily, with their only task being to take some notes as they read. They can record their reactions or questions or anything they think they'd like to talk about when their book club meets. 

I made them baggies filled with their book, a post it stack, and a brand spanking new mechanical pencil. 

At the end, each book club will meet with me during lunch to eat and discuss. I may bring in some dessert for us to enjoy during this time as well.  Their "ticket" to this book club is to fill out a Book Report poster I found here when they are finished reading their entire book. 

It's so tempting to print out reflections for them to do daily, questions for them to answer on each chapter, and the like. However, I know that my most favorite reading at that age was uninterrupted: allowing me a time to imagine, get lost, and enjoy the book world I was in at that moment. 

There will be time for testing review, close reads, and tiered assignments. But for today, we will just be readers. And we will get lost. And we will know that there's nothing else we'd rather be doing. 

FREEBIE Read Aloud Guides for Books Related to Poverty and Homelessness

My grade level is busy planning for our second EL Expedition of the year. We are very excited to connect our study of plant life cycles and nutrition to learning about food insecurity in our community. It's amazing to have the resources and encouragement for the teaching of social justice issues and project-based learning. Anyways, I'll be sure to blog about it when it's all done (like I did here for our first one). What I wanted to share with you are some HOT questions/Read Aloud guides for 4 of our anchor texts. We are excited to include this year's Newbery Award Winner, The Last Stop on Market Street in this group!

So grab them, print them (right click & print!), and help your students learn about those in need!

Jan Brett

Once upon a time, a close knit team of 2nd grade teachers decided to ring in Winter with a Jan Brett author study. They read books, did activities, and even hosted a Rotation Day for related crafts and snacks. Changes have happened, all for the good, and these three teachers no longer teach at the same school together...

...But THIS teacher keeps ringing in the holiday break with a Jan Brett author study. Even when she doesn't really have time for it because she is supposed to be stressed out by her Expeditionary Learning "Showcase" scheduled for the three days before the holiday break (What?! How did that happen?!)

Anyways, I wanted to share a few ideas for using Jan Brett's books in a middle elementary classroom. I think that her most famous book, The Mitten, is one often shared with younger kids for a variety of reasons, but there is so much good stuff that older kids can learn from her books as well! You might be surprised by just how excited your “grown up” students will get about reading her stories.

You should know that while many of her stories have a holiday theme, many of them do not-they just happen to be set in snowy places! This may help you if you have students of different cultural or religious backgrounds in your classroom.

FIRST OF ALL...

Let's get to the learning point. Jan Brett's books can be used to teach many of the Literature common core standards. Here are a few of my favorites:

Teach or review traditional literature by sharing The Mitten, Gingerbread Baby, and Goldilocks to name a few. Some of her pieces, like The Umbrella, or The Three Snow Bears, are traditional stories re-imagined in a new setting. 

Compare and contrast Jan Brett's traditional literature with more familiar versions. Compare and contrast The Mitten and The Umbrella or The Three Snow Bears with Goldilocks. Students could draw and build their own Venn diagrams to compare and contrast two of her books. 

Study the ways characters change and what they learn through their experiences. In The Wild Christmas Reindeer, Teeka learns to use love and patience to train Santa’s reindeer. In Home For Christmas, Rollo the troll loses his tail when he learns a lesson about being part of a family.

SECOND….

You absolutely must watch some of Jan Brett’s videos where she gives lessons on how to draw some of her characters. Not only can students follow along, learning to draw in Brett’s style, but they learn about her process, inspiration, and craft as she describes her work. My favorites are How to Draw a Hedgie, Gingerbread Baby, and A Baby Polar Bear. You can access her videos by clicking here.

I suggest that you stay close to the computer to pause the video as students are following along. Jan can move rather fast. I also suggest letting students use dry erase boards for their first go round. If you have time, they can transfer their work on paper after that. If you have a lot of time, they can also use watercolor and sharpies to make their picture look great! In How To Draw a Gingerbread Baby, Jan gives instruction on watercolor which may give new ideas for students to try.

FINALLY…

Throw a Jan Brett winter party! Many school districts are moving away from the traditional Christmas party, and I promise you that if you throw a Jan Brett party, your kids will not miss the Christmas theme!

 

Serve mitten cookies, make a Swedish heart ornament, do a Hedgie craft, eat Gingerbread, and more! The possibilities are really endless and so much fun.

I hope you enjoyed my ideas. I tried to keep things simple this year because we were preparing for a showcase. My main goal is to enjoy the books, learn from the author/illustrator, and keep those kiddos excited to be at school with me!

The Leprechaun Is NOT Visiting My Classroom. Here's What We'll Do Instead.

Today, as my school let out early for a Snow Day, I reminisced about growing up outside of Savannah, Georgia. We never got out for snow, but we did get out for a hurricane once or twice. And, you may or may not believe this (depending on your St. Patty's parade and celebration knowledge), but by the time I was in Middle School, we also got a day off of school for St. Patrick's Day! This has nothing to do with any sort of seriousness about the holiday and everything to do with the fact that, inevitably, no one showed up for school because they headed downtown to the big parade instead.

Unless you were in my family. If the doors were open, my sister and I were at school. Even if there was a hurricane a comin' and you and maybe three other people got sent home on a bus a few hours later. 

Now, since I teach in a different part of the state, St. Patty's is just a regular old school day. But I can't help making a big deal about it. I know it is still the end of February, but I should remind you that St. Patrick's Day is just a few weeks away! I have Spring Break between now and then, too, so I have to be on my planning "game" to get all of our activities in.

Do you have a very naughty leprechaun that visits your room, makes a mess, and leaves behind some gold coin candy? I don't. Despite my love for celebrating St. Patrick's Day, I just cannot bring myself to willingly make a mess in my beautifully organized room and cause general chaos. I just can't. Besides, my newest student wrote me a love note recently where he stated he loves me in spite of the fact that I'm picky and strict. Actually, I think he said he loves me because I'm picky and strict. So that is working for me right now. And furthermore, I can use those gold coins as leverage for getting my kids to do what I want for reinforcing my kids for their great efforts and accomplishments.

But I do love fun and silliness, I PROMISE! So I've created a few products to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day in an Instructional way. Today and tomorrow (wait, I think the tomorrow part was supposed to be a secret for now), TPT is throwing a big sale, and this includes my store! So check out these products and consider adding them to your cart today. If you visit my store, you will also see one March item for FREE! It is appropriate for 2-4 grade.

 March Friends Writing

My students will be creating these stories next week so we can post them in the hall during St. Patty's Week! Some of them spied my sample today, and got very excited to have some fun with this project.

ELA & Math Centers

I'll be using these in my ELT centers for March! I think they are cute and will give the kids good practice on some review standards so that I can give my attention to my intervention groups during that time. I've differentiated these for 1 & 2 grades.

I hope you find a great TPT deal today! Happy Snow Day! Have fun teaching!

Product Spotlight: Book BINGO

The Book BINGO idea was born when I needed a way to provide direction and inspiration to students during their free choice reading at the end of the year. It was May, and pretty much all of my soon to be 3rd graders had lost their focus, stamina, and ability to choose "Good Fit" books.

Enter book BINGO. I created a book BINGO board for them to use during their free choice reading during our ELA block and challenged them to fill in at least 15 squares. It worked! It breathed life back into their work as readers and it was just FUN.

Although it is not the size of a regular BINGO board (this was on purpose as I felt that 25 was not a realistic number of tasks now that I've designed them as monthly reading homework), the idea is the same. Students can choose different reading tasks and challenge themselves to fill up a whole row or column or even the whole board! Here is my example for March:

Many 2nd graders get very attached to specific series or genres, which is wonderful! As an elementary student, I was very devoted to Baby Sitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins, and the American Girl series. Similarly, I had one student a few years ago who would only check out presidential biographies. This isn't a bad thing. This student knew what he wanted to read and how to find it. He gained familiarity with the structure and vocabulary used in these books. However, as teachers, I know we all want to expose our students to a variety of texts. Book BINGO was a simple way for me to do this.

I now use this Book BINGO as monthly reading homework. It replaces the traditional reading log that I used to assign my class. The kids do not have to fill in a square every night, because as 2nd graders I want them to read longer books and I also want them to have the freedom to choose something not listed on the BINGO board at times. At the end of the month, if students get 15 or more squares filled in, they earn a trip to the prize box.

My 2nd Grade Book BINGO for March is up on my TPT for free. See the TPT product here. 

My Book BINGOs for the whole year for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades are also up on my TPT site for a small price. The 1st and 3rd grade boards are new additions for me and I cannot wait to use them to differentiate for my 2nd graders! See the 2nd grade product here. 

I hope you'll try Book BINGO out and let me know what you think!