Chronological Order Sorts!

I'm pleased to announce some new chronological order sorts are available on TpT!  (I now have 120 posted products, all of which have been classroom tested with my own group of fifth graders.)

Since I just finished some new novels with my small groups, I decided to make them chronological order sorts as a quick check for their comprehension.  By placing the events from the novels back into chronological order, they are examining how these events and chapters build upon one another.  (CCSS RL 5.5).  

I have created new sorts for the following novels:

Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero
Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid
Gennifer Choldenko's Al Capone Does My Shirts
Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be At This Hour?
Pam Pollack and Meg Beviso's Who Was Steve Jobs?
Suzanne Collin's Mockingjay
Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

These products are available here and great for small groups!

Reflections on Mockingjay (spoiler alert)

If you haven't read Suzanne Collin's Mockingjay, I'd advise you to stop reading this post and start reading that novel!  (That is, of course, if you've read Hunger Games and Catching Fire already. I'd never advise someone to pick up a book out of sequential order!)

My students just finished Mockingjay and were doing a quick write response.  I had them write a letter to a character and express their feelings.  I didn't realize they had such angry words to say to Gale:

At least they're passionate about their reading.

We had long conversations about the choices that were made in the book and how those aren't necessarily the choices we would make in real life.  We also talked about how sometimes book characters have to do things they don't want to do in order to survive.  Not to worry, we also talked about how killing book characters is not acceptable.

This group is now getting ready to tackle the Series of Unfortunate Events!

Happy reading :)

Small Groups

Small group reading is my favorite part of my day because I love watching my young scholars get so excited about their novels!

I really like researching about new strategies and trying them with my small groups.  This week we used the stop and jot strategy with post-its:

I had my Number the Stars group focus in on the Nazi soldiers' midnight visit.  They recorded their thinking while reading and then used their recordings to guide their own discussions.

Homework:

I wish I had time to meet with them daily but I simply have too many groups to make that possible.  So we meet every 3 days and they have independent reading and homework in between:

I give them four or five questions to respond to and use evidence from the text to support their answers.  I love when they do such a great job with details!

They also are taking more ownership and creating charts about their novels:

Which we store in a magnetic bin at the front of the room.

I used a regular plastic bin and hot glued on magnets to make it work for my classroom.

I like how my students are so open to new ideas and strategies as well!  It's wonderful to keep learning together :)

New products

I posted some new literacy centers on TpT: 

Hunger Games quote sort & Mockingjay quote sort

(Catching Fire was already available!)

Hope your students enjoy!  If you like the product, please leave feedback.  If you have a suggestion on how this center can be improved to increase effectiveness or rigor, please let me know! I appreciate helpful, constructive, (polite) feedback :)

Happy reading and may the odds be ever in your favor :)

-Ms. Vice

New Product: Teacher Guide for Mockingjay

I've expressed my love for Suzanne Collin's trilogy more than once.

I have already posted a teacher's guide for Hunger Games on TpT and I'm pleased to announce that as of about five minutes ago, there is one for Mockingjay as well!  Like all the others, there are lots of good things in this teacher bundle :)

I'm fully aware that Catching Fire is between these books and I am in no way advocating doing a book study with students while ignoring chronological order.  I just am still working on my teacher guide for Catching Fire because I want to update it with comparisons between the book chapter and the movie trailer.  My hope is to have this up by the end of the month, so stay tuned!

Happy reading and may the odds be ever in your favor,

Ms. Vice