What to do with those extra Scholastic book orders....

Don't get me wrong, I love Scholastic and their book orders.

I don't love that I always seem to have extras and feel bad just throwing them away.

So, instead we sort!

One of the first reading standards we cover (or review) is the difference between fiction and non-fiction texts.  

I make an anchor chart with the kiddos:

I grab a few books off the bookshelf and model previewing the text, thinking aloud if it is fiction or non-fiction.  I do a few, then ask for student input.  They did a really good job this year identifying if a book was fiction or NF based on the back cover, front cover, and text features. 

From there, I use some left over Scholastic book orders, glue, scissors, and construction paper to have the kids create a sort.  I use this as an opportunity to teach (or review) making a T chart:

(Image from {fellow blogger})

 

Students worked with a partner to look at the book orders (which secretly gets them excited about reading) to find five examples of F or NF books.  They cut them out, glued them to their T charts, and then explained their thinking to their neighbors.

I walked around listening to their conversations and interjecting when necessary.  

Instead of just teaching procedures of how to use the scissors or the glue sticks, I like to have them practice immediately so there is a purpose to the directions.

Thankful November, day 3: Scholastic Book Orders

Day three: Scholastic Book Orders

Today, I am thankful for Scholastic Book Orders.

These provide such a great opportunity for my students.  Most months, certain books are $1.  Yes, a buck for a book.  Last month I snagged another copy of The Lightning Thief and a collection of poems by Edgar Allen Poe for a dollar a piece.  Somehow, my nine copies of The Lightning Thief are all checked out and we just read The Raven, so this was another natural purchase.

Even the books that aren't a dollar are much more discounted than stores such as Target, Barnes and Noble, or Costco.   I appreciate the significant savings, as do my students' families.

What's even better? Every order I place earns me points which I can then use on free books to build my classroom library.

Each order also has freebies for students who order, which in turn encourages reading.  

I try to place an order each time in addition to my students' orders.  Generally a $50 order will give me $10 in free books AND points for future purchases.


Plus, sometimes there's a cool Avengers themed reading poster which obviously will be proudly displayed in my classroom.

I'm thankful for Scholastic and their book orders because they offer low cost options to get books in students' hands.

I'm also thankful that my latest scholastic order should arrive this week!

Encouraging Readers

For me, there is no greater joy than my students falling in love with reading.

Their excitement when I show off new Scholastic book orders is contagious. 

I give them the book orders, our class code for online ordering, and five minutes to look at the books.  I share with them that when they place orders, I get credit towards new books to buy.  I give them about three weeks to pay for their books before I take their orders.  (If they are doing chores to earn books, I want to make sure they've got time to do so!)

I placed our first order on Saturday and earned some free books for the classroom.  

Our books should ship within 7-10 days, so they'll have them soon. 

I also make a big production out of the books when they arrive, which inspires them to want to buy more next time.

New books always bring excitement in my classroom. 

How do you encourage reading?

Things I love about my classroom

A fellow teacher, former coworker, and adorable new mom Katie posted about her favorite things about her classroom in her blog, which inspired me to do the same.

Scholastic Book Orders

I love how excited my students get for the book orders.  I love that teachers get free coupons and reward points based on the parent orders, so I get to stock up on new books for my students.  This year I've noticed they're obsessed with the "Who was..." series, which is great!  I've read a few of these informational texts and they're very student friendly.  If you're looking for books on a specific person, I'd try here first.

Plus every few months or so, Scholastic includes coupons for the students.  If they spend $10, they get a coupon for a free book (under $5).  It's a pretty nice way to encourage reading.  Plus the prices are cheaper than local stores, which is always a bonus!

Class Competitions

We are a Reading Rangers school and use AR to gauge students' comprehension on their independent reading books.  We are in a competition within the grade level for the highest engage time and the highest percentage. 

However, this competition isn't enough for my students.  We have additional competitions within our classes and across the grade level.  Our current one is a race to 50 passing tests (85% or above) between the girls and the boys.  However, the catch for this one is that any time someone scores less than 80%, that team loses a point.  The kids are loving it!

Other successful competitions include:

-race to 100 100%s

-race to 100 points (each book is assigned a different point value depending on it's complexity and length)

-table team percentages

What competitions do you have with your students?

Class Dojo

I joined the class dojo train late this year, so I am currently only using it as a reward for reading rangers.  For each 100% students earn, they get 2 points.  85 or 90% gets 1 point, filling a badge earns 3 points, and graduating earns 10 points.   They are motivating one another to be in the top five, which is excellent.

Next year I will be using this exclusively as my classroom behavior system.  As helpful as the card system is, I'm over it.  With class dojo, I can reward specific behaviors.  More importantly, I can easily share the information with my students' families, which increases our home-school connections. 

Plus, it's free!

Our Anchor Charts

I haven't done the best job at posting pictures of all our anchor charts (there are a lot!) but I am proud of them.  I make them with the students and they have mini-versions in their notebooks for reference.  This year I stepped it up and have them color-coded.

Teal: reading

Yellow: foundational skills (fluency, phonics, word parts)

pink: math

white: novels

I love that my students have internalized that these are a resource designed to help them learn.  They often ask to go up and look at the charts for clarification (success!).

I ended up just stapling them on top of one another since we're out of space.  I don't have any cutesy inspirational posters up, but still ran out of wall space!  

Classroom Library 

For the first time in my teaching career, I had to level my library.  I used the reading rangers program to level my library (school mandate) but I went beyond that. I grouped my library by genre in adorable book buckets:

I've had a little bit of backlash because it's not organized by fiction/informational text or by point value.  For me, it's more authentic for readers to pick a book a book based on the topic instead of the length.

The Map

I love the map.  I love the postcards.  But more importantly, the map is getting my students so excited about geography and the other 49 states.  We are able to make connections with literature and informational text by linking the postcards with the locations named in books.  They are getting excited about colleges and starting to think about their options for their future. 

What are your favorite parts about your classroom?

New Teacher Guide

I really enjoyed Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda when I read it last year for the Battle of the Books. 

I utilized Scholastic's book orders to snag myself the sequels at a very discounted rate.  The books will make their way into my classroom library as soon as I'm done reading them :)

The first book I found while organizing my library was The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee so I tackled this one first. 

However, a few pages in I realized I was reading the series out of chronological order, which is a huge literary faux pas.  However since I can't find Darth Paper Strikes Back, I am coping with my literary betrayal (sorry Tom Angleberger!).  

This was a quick read at under two hundred pages.  My 24 page teacher guide and chronological order sort for this novel are available now on TpT.  Once I've finished Darth Paper Strikes Back, The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet, and Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue I will create a character sort center as well.  I just don't feel I know these characters well enough to make a quality sort for my fifth graders. 

Happy reading and may the Force be with you!

New Guide

Rick Riordan is my new favorite author.  I just finished reading The Son of Neptune and absolutely loved this book.  Rick Riordan's writing is drenched with sassy commentary from the characters and provokes many literal laughing out loud moments.

My boyfriend made the mistake of asking what the book was about...he got a fifteen minute synopsis of the Rick Riordan universe instead of a brief retelling.  Sorry babe...but don't ask about a book if you don't want a long explanation!

My teacher guide is available here and corresponding centers will be up soon!

Lucky for me, there are sequels:

Even luckier?  They were buy one, get one free at our Scholastic book fair this week!

Even though summer break is days away, I will still be reading books and prepping materials for my students next year.  I love that I get time to read :)

Tech Tip: Scholastic Book Wizard

I some how made it three years into my teaching profession without being told about Scholastic's Book Wizard.  Before that, I was just kind of guessing about novel levels and hoping I was using "just right" leveled books.  (Not to worry, I was!)  However, Scholastic eliminates the guessing game with their book wizard tool:

This free online gem lets you figure out grade levels, DRA levels, lexile levels and recommends similar books.  Scholastic also has some great free resources for books, many of which I've used as supplemental materials for my small literature circles.

Enjoy and happy reading!

Novel Guide: Maniac Magee!

I'm pleased to announce I've posted another teacher guide on TpT! It's my 105th product :)

The most recent is for Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee, which I'm currently reading with two different small groups.  

This novel does a great job at exploring race relations and will lend itself well to Black History month.  Scholastic has some great free resources that compliment my twenty four page novel guide!

I have included pre and post reading questions, extension activities, suggested vocabulary, comprehension questions with answers for each chapter and suggested homework questions.  Snag yours here!

Happy reading!

New Product: Tiger Rising Novel Study

I stumbled upon Kate DiCamillo's The Tiger Rising when taking a professional development course on literacy, novels and the Common Core for my district.  I had high expectations for this course since it seemed to combine all my favorite things.  

There were four people in the class, including myself and my co-teacher.

Most of the class was geared toward making sure teachers knew that not all students needed the same things or read at the same level, thus the point of small groups.  Not quite what I signed up for.

Nevertheless, we were assigned this book to read as homework.  Technically, just the first 8 chapters but I don't like starting books and not finishing them.  I wouldn't read this with my highest readers but it's a good book for my slightly below grade level readers because:

1. It is a chapter book and that makes them feel grown upl

2. It's about animals and a mystery, which intrigues them.

3. There are social issues of bullying and feeling like an outsider that they (unfortunately) can relate to.

Scholastic has some decent free resources, but I didn't feel it was enough for my small groups.  So I made my own teacher unit, which you can snag here.  I included pre and post reading questions, homework, comprehension questions for each chapter (with answers), vocabulary and more!

Happy reading!