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!

Book Blog Hop!

Diane from Fifth in the Middle (one of the blogs & TpT stores I follow) posted earlier about books that are being used in the beginning of the school year.  Obviously I love books and totally hopped on board with this book blog-a-thon!

I'll be using a few different picture books during the first week of school before starting our first novel, The Lightning Thief. 

Picture Books:

I use Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? to start our math conversations.  

Before we go over Number Talks and math norms, we read this and start talking about the size of things in relation to another.  I think it's a great way to subtly introduce place value without mentioning those vocabulary words. 

I read Boris Ate a Thesaurus to start our conversations about word choice.

It's a silly book and they love it.

I also use My Mouth is a Volcano to talk about classroom norms.

It ties in well with listening and speaking norms, which we establish within the first few days of school.

I also leave out copies of Ms. Nelson is Missing, First Day Jitters, Unique Monique, and Thank You, Mr. Falker  for students to read during independent reading time.  


I also start the year with Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief as our first novel.  It's great for seeing how the chapters build on one another because the author does an amazing job of foreshadowing.  Students (hopefully) were exposed to Greek Mythology in fourth grade, so it's nice to tie in with their background knowledge.

As an added bonus, the main character Percy, isn't a typical hero.  He struggles with dyslexia and ADHD (a side effect of being a demigod) and has trouble in school.  My students really get into the book and as an added bonus, there are many, many sequels!

Directly following The Lightning Thief is The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labryinth, and The Last Olympian. 

There is a Greek & Roman spin off series with The Lost Hero, the Son of Neptune, the Mark of Athena, the House of Hades, and the Blood of Olympus (which I'm finishing tonight!).  What is great about these books is the narrator flips every few chapters, so you get multiple perspectives.  This literary technique lends itself to some interesting discussions.

There is an Egyptian trio of books: The Red Pyramid, the Throne of Fire, and The Serpent's Shadow.  These also alternate narrators between Sadie and Carter Kane, two very different siblings.  Their sibling love-hate relationship is beautifully and subtly captured in the different ways the chapters are narrated.

Since Rick Riordan is determined to drain my bank account with his amazing books, I'm super excited about this new series:

It stars Annabeth's possible brother?! The last name can't be a coincidence.

What do you read with your munchkins?

Reading Week Recap

It's been a while dear readers, and for that I apologize.

Life got in the way.  

Since I last blogged, there's been a few nail parties, baby showers, and new students that have soaked up a majority of my free time.  I've begun spring tutoring and book club with my students, in addition to a teacher book study.  (I love learning and was given hot pink post-its and can write in the book, so why not?!)  Plus...it was reading week.

For those of you not in elementary school, reading week is a magical and exhausting time.  Our librarian did an amazing job of putting together various activities, including:

• daily DEAR time (drop everything and read)
• mystery readers
• book bingo (which we won, by the way!)
• assemblies
• guest readers, including members of the Air Force and from our local news stations
• door decorating contests
• a scavenger hunt
• lunch with a loved one

Oh, and the Scholastic book fair.  Oh, and every day was a spirit day.  Oh, and book club started that week, in addition to tutoring.  Oh, and the fifth graders took their panoramic picture for the year book.  Oh, and the fifth grade team was in charge of the First Friday breakfast for the teachers, so we decorated the lounge and had a plethora of yummy breakfast foods.

Oh, and we toured the local middle school, so add that field trip in there.  While on the field trip, I was confused for a middle school student, by a middle school student.  Not the best for my ego, but I'm glad I can blend in with teenagers...oh wait, no, I'm not glad.  At all!  College and high school are fine, but middle school?! 

I am exhausted.  This week, I wore crazy socks, was both Medusa and Batman, rocked Dr. Seuss stripes, and was a minion. 

My crown of snakes.

 I went to Fresh and Easy before school Friday (for last minute breakfast items) in not just a Batman tee shirt (because that would be socially acceptable), but full on boots, yellow tights, a cape, and a utility belt.  However, once I clarified with the cashier that it was reading week, she understood completely.  She has a first grader, so my ensemble made sense.  I must say, cross walk duty was interesting when dressed like this:

We did finish our novel The Lightning Thief, bringing us up to two completed novels this year.  I don't think I'll start another, but instead continue with "Teaser Tuesday" and start reading aloud novels...but stop at the intriguing parts.  Mean? Yes. But if it sparks their curiosity and makes them want to continue reading, then I've done my job.

I do have to make permission slips for them to watch the movie "adaptation" since it's PG.  The movie is so ridiculously different from the book, which prompted me to make this, which I'll be using with them.  I'm glad things have worked out timing wise, because I'll be showing the movie on the Friday morning before Field Day, which is the Friday before Spring Break.  I know they'll have extra short attention spans, so I might as well hook them with multimedia elements.  Plus it's directly related to the 400 page book I read to them, so it's academic.

I however, am in need of a nap.  It's barely ten am, but all my weekend grading is done (huzzah), chores are done (hoorah), and I've got a late night with friends planned.  

15 teaching days until spring break, hallelujah!

It Returns

As I previously blogged about, my giant map from my previous blog, Project Postcard NV, will be returning to my classroom this year.

I'm really excited to use it to teach the 50 states and to use with geography, land forms, US regions, and so forth.  I'm excited to use some post cards to make literary connections to our read alouds.  One of the first post cards we'll put up is the Saint Louis arch since we're reading The Lightning Thief. 

This evening, after the arduous task of finding the map and post cards, I organized by region:

I decided this year, I want to add a little more.  I want to focus on colleges from each state to promote options to my students.  I want them to start thinking about their futures and making goals.  I want them to think outside of the box and that they have options besides UNLV.

If you are willing to send a post card from your college, it would be very much appreciated!

Ms. Vice
Iverson Elementary
1575 S. Hollywood Blvd
Las Vegas, NV  89142

Teaser Tuesday

Sometimes my insomnia is beyond frustrating, but sometimes it yields exciting new classroom ideas.  I'm thankful it's the middle of winter break and I don't really have anywhere to be until around noon tomorrow because my brain simply will not shut off.

I have a million ideas bouncing around in my head for the new year.

I have my next bulletin board picked out.  They're going to write constructed responses about the themes in their latest novel.  We're going to type these responses, thus giving extra computer practice for those who need it.  

I will then take the two novels that we've read as a class (Esperanza Rising and The Lightning Thief) to model comparing and contrasting how the authors arrive at similar themes (family, loyalty, bravery) using the characters. (CCSS/NVACS RL 5.9.  Yes, we've renamed the Common Core Standards the Nevada Academic Content Standards for well, in my humble opinion, ridiculous reasons.)  

I'm excited to start using music for transitions in my classroom, especially at the end of the day.

I'm excited to start teaching more mapping skills, geography, earth science, and most importantly, the return of the map:

Oh yes, we'll build it up again from scratch.  There was a disagreement within my grade level about how to approach maps.  I understand the idea of starting with the 13 colonies, but I also stand by my approach of teaching regions.

We're going to start with what they know: Nevada.  From there, we'll do the surrounding southwestern states.  We'll talk about things these states all have in common and I'll introduce the concept of a region.  From there, we'll explore the other states in a quasi-reverse Westward Expansion kind of way.  We can also connect the map with the settings from Esperanza Rising and The Lightning Thief, which will bring in an exciting literary aspect.

But perhaps the idea I'm most excited about shall be called Teaser Tuesday.

I'll take fifteen minutes or so after lunch to read aloud the first chapter or two of a book.  Read alouds are a pretty common thing in my fifth grade classroom, but here's the new twist: It'll be a mystery.  I'll have the book cover and title hidden.  I'll read just enough to get them interested and of course, stop at a good part.  From there, I'll have them do a written reflection on whether or not they'll want to continue that novel independently.

I've already brainstormed using the following novels:

Tuck Everlasting
The Giver
Number the Stars
Hatchet
Al Capone Shines My Shoes
The Bad Beginning
Steal Away Home
The Red Pyramid

Any other ideas fellow teachers? Must read novels that are super interesting to ten year olds within the first few pages or chapters?

October, where did you come from?

I had to change my classroom calendar.

It's October. Monday starts week 8 of school.  I don't know where the days have gone!

Oh wait, yes I do.  Devoted to learning.  Devoted to place value, powers of ten, rounding, and comparing decimals.  Devoted to reading the Lightning Thief.  Devoted to their Native American Indian research projects and writing extension projects.  Devoted to maintaining a positive classroom culture and celebrating successes.  

It's been a busy start to the year!

While B is out having a boys night, I'm enjoying a lazy evening with the DRV, playing with the kittens, crafting, and a tiny bit of grading.  I'm such a list maker, so let's make some October goals!

Professionally:

-Implementing another game day for my students to allow them to play with decimals and multiplication, allowing me time to reteach in a smaller group setting.

-Continue to have students be excited about The Lightning Thief. They are so invested in the story and keep trying to sneak the sequel, The Sea of Monsters off the shelf.  Sneaky wanna-be half-bloods!

-Continue to build positive relationships with my coworkers, admin, and parents.  

My assistant principal popped in today to share that a third grade teacher was struggling with math games and that she recommended he come see me.  She wanted to make sure that her suggestion was okay, and obviously it's fine! I'm excited that she sees me as a go-to person on making the classroom environment fun while still standards-based.

I've had some really positive conversations with parents lately and I hope it continues.  I had one mom come in after school to learn about the math organizer we're using in math.  We had a 20 minute conversation and afterward, both mom and daughter felt better. I sent them home with math games (because that's a way that the student will actually want to practice) and she had her retest today.  Guess what? She got a B. Progress!

-Stay ahead of my grading and math planning!  

-Add a few more products on TpT.  I have a few students that are finishing up novels that I've read, but haven't made chronological order sorts for.  When they skip  the sort, they tend to get around 80% on their AR tests...which doesn't count for badges.  However, when they do the sort, they earn 100%.  For me, it's worth a few extra hours to help them be successful.

-Continue to network for Jamberry.  I just got my business cards and am excited to pass out pretty samples to friends and family.  I love having pretty nails :)

Personally: 

-Finish the wreath I started for our front door.  Right now it's a styrafoam circle wrapped in burlap. I want to add some embellishments, but I'm not quite sure what.  Our door is navy, so perhaps something white or maroon.  

-Continue to organize books to take into my classroom...and get a handle on the guest bedroom.

-Finish Christmas shopping.  I've got my brother's girlfriend totally done and my mom mostly done...so baby steps!

-Be better at blogging!

-Finish The House of Hades.

What are your October goals?

October

I'm a firm believer that school, especially elementary school, should be a fun and welcoming learning environment.  Since moving over to my new school, this mindset has grown because it's supported building-wide.

I checked with my students and since all celebrate Halloween, I put up a banner on the board.  I gave them new class jobs and the assignment sheet is orange.  The librarian is buying each classroom a pumpkin for us to decorate as a class with a book character.  Since we're reading The Lightning Thief as our class read aloud (and loving it), I'm hoping to steer them toward a Camp Half-Blood pumpkin. 

Our lounge was decorated with the most adorable Halloween signs and there was a feast of treats Friday morning.  I keep forgetting that the first Friday of every month is a brunch, so it's a pleasant surprise to find an assortment of homemade goodies awaiting me in the morning.  Our grade level is responsible for March's surprise, so we've got some time to think of a theme.  Although I'm seeing lots of shamrocks and green things on our table!

We are about half way through our math unit on decimals (NBT 3, 4) where we are focusing on rounding, reading, and ordering decimal place values to the thousandths.  I decided to take a day to do math games while I pulled small groups for reteaching.  I set the timer for 15 minutes for each game, went over the materials and expectations for each center, and allowed the table teams to pick.  For our first time, they did an awesome job treating my centers with respect and cleaning up after themselves.  I was very pleased with their respectful attitudes and how excited they were to talk about math.

For privacy concerns, I won't share the pictures because my students' faces are in them.  However, they had an amazing time playing.  I walked around and listened to their math conversations and they did such a great job coaching one another.  Many groups, without prompting, were explaining their thinking to each other.  Sometimes they can explain concepts in a way that makes sense to each other and as long as my kiddos understand the math, I don't care who they learned it from.  Plus, when they can explain their thinking, it shows me that they've truly mastered the content.

Some of the activities I made, but some I found on TpT.  The next two freebies were awesome and these hard working educators deserve a virtual high five! Thanks for making great activities to help students learn.

Here were some of the centers we played:

Spooky Sort, made by Jennifer Findley.

They sorted by the underlined place value, then put the cards in order from greatest to least.  If they had time left over (we used a timer), they played war with the cards.

Decimals to the Thousandths, made by Allison Harig.

They had some awesome discussions about math.  I love that one table had two students really struggling with comparing, so they chose to do this activity twice during the rotation time to make sure their classmates understood the concept.  

What's even more exciting is I found more cute standards-based games for the next math topic!  My fifth graders, while they might not admit it, are loving these festive fun learning activities.  Who says kinder should have all the fun?

Anchoring Our Learning

It's time for an anchor chart update!

My walls have quickly been overtaken by colorful anchor charts to guide our class discussions.  This year I'm trying something new and color coding my charts.  My math ones are pink, my reading ones are blue, my reading foundation skills (fluency, phonics) are yellow, and our read aloud mentor text ones (for The Lightning Thief) are white.

Our close read poster:

They're doing a really good job with this skill this year!

Marathon Days

With the third week of school steadily approaching in a few hours, I finally feel like I've had a moment to breathe.

The first week of school is always jammed packed with teaching procedures, establishing classroom culture, setting up notebooks, and integrating fun activities.  I think I did a pretty good job of that this year, but man was I tired!

Luckily we had a three day weekend (Labor Day) followed by a staff development day.  

However, I think my grade level (myself included) tried to plan a week's worth of instruction into three days.  It didn't go very well.

We overplanned, which was far better than the alternative.  We had a conversation about clarifying our expectations and I think this week will go better.  There were two 12 hour days, one of them due to my date with the copy machine and the other due to open house.  By Friday afternoon, a rather unpleasant migraine hit and I was beat.

My students must have been feeling it too.

I had a low turn out to open house, but I appreciate those families that did come.  One wanted to have a conference, which we held after school on Friday.  Because the open house was shortly after school ended, our administration bought us dinner so we wouldn't be hangry.  (Side note, hangry = hunger plus anger. I suffer from this affliction frequently) The fact that dinner was Olive Garden was a delightful bonus!  We had three rotations and a fake announcement about a staff meeting was made at the end to get the parents to clear out so we could go home on time.  It's so nice to be at a school where I feel administration has my back.  I got home and was most definitely asleep by 7:30 that Thursday night.

Friday, 4 of my students were absent. Two more went home in the afternoon from being sick and a third left for early dismissal.  GATE kids were gone and there was an announcement about turning off the technology because the server was getting too hot.

So, with a third of my class being gone, I made a judgment call not to teach the writing plans.  Yes, it puts me behind. But it didn't make sense to me to teach new material without my students.  I am more than happy to teach if a few are gone (obviously, we do this daily) but when I have ten students out of the room for various reasons...that'd be a lot of reteaching.

So instead, we built up our reading stamina with an extended silent reading time.  I got through all my conferences for Reading Rangers and my students all set up their data folders.  

With the remaining time, I started reading aloud The Lightning Thief. I had my class split up into 4 categories and keep track of character details while I read.  They did a pretty good job of listening for information about Grover, Mr. Brunner, Percy, and Mrs. Dodds.  I haven't explicitly taught this standard, nor did I have them make a graphic organizer.  I just wanted to see how they'd do and I was pleasantly surprised.

My weekend was spent looking over their pre math tests, which confirmed what I saw in classroom observations.  I had a rather long math training Saturday morning, but lunch with my mentee made it better.  I texted frantically with another teacher as we tag-teamed the math lesson plans for the week, which was a lot of prep work.  I'm pleased with the end result because I think it's broken down enough the students will grasp the material.  Add in some laundry, some football, and some napping and that was my weekend!

Week three brings a counseling lesson, the start of Aimsweb, hopefully getting at least my teacher iPad (for Aimsweb), modeling fluency and buddy coaching with Reading A-Z passages, place value, our Native American reading/writing unit, and possibly a schedule change for rainy weather.

Sigh.  I've had some marathon days.  I'm ready for things to calm down and me to be more on a schedule.  I've been getting to work early and staying late. I'd prefer to do only one of those!

Bring it on week 3!

Happy birthday to me! (day 4)

Day 4

I really didn't get much done before school because people kept popping into my room to wish me happy birthday, which I thought was very sweet.  My new grade level brought me balloons and cupcakes, along with decorating my room.  Wasn't expecting that from a team I've worked with for basically a week, but it's great to feel so welcomed.

In math, we talked more about persevering through problems, did our number talk, then I introduced them to one of my favorite math games 20 wins.  Basically they are placing digits (0-9) into boxes and trying to make a square equal 20 with any operations.  For the first day, I modeled with me against them before letting them try with a partner.

 

We came back together and talked about strategies that were used:

While they played, I walked around making observations.  For the most part, my class seemed very comfortable with addition strategies.  A few groups tried multiplication to make 20.  They'll play again tomorrow and their weekend homework will be to play with a family member.  I don't think I'll have much trouble getting them to want to play math games.

What they don't realize is how much math they're doing.  Yes, they're adding for the most part. But they're also thinking strategically and looking for patterns with numbers.  They're having to predict what their partners might do and prevent that from happening.  They're using multiple operations, practicing order of operations, and often times trying several different strategies until they can make 20.  I love tricking them into learning!

After that math fun, we went over phrasing with fluency.  I had them do a sort with their table teams to pre-assess them and for the most part, they know what fluency is so I'm not starting instruction from the beginning.  Of the four components of fluency (rate, expression, accuracy, and phrasing) I decided to model one.  If I modeled all 4 in one day, they'd be bored and probably confuse the components.  I'd rather go a little slower to make sure they've all got it.

I modeled several different times (incorrectly) and had them give me feedback.  They did a really good job with picking out the errors.  We made a chart together in our notebooks before moving to the carpet for today's skill lesson.

I modeled metacognition, which is thinking while reading, using The Lightning Thief.  The first time I read, I modeled great fluency.  Afterward, I asked them how I did to which they responded great!  Then I let them in on a secret: it's not enough to just read the words.  You've got to think about what you're reading.

I modeled again, this time tapping to the book whenever I was "in the text" and tapping to my head, modeling a think-aloud, whenever I was practicing metacognition.  I had two students keep score:

We talked about how we have to think while reading.  Some of them got it, some didn't.  That's okay, it's day 4.  We've got time. 

We also went over what it means to be a good reader, which was part of their homework:

I'm trying to color code my anchor charts (reading being teal) to help my students.  We'll see how long I can keep up this goal!  I had them brainstorm independently, talk as a table team, then add their thoughts on post-its.

In writing, they're continuing to work on their letters to self.  In science, they're having a great time with the mystery bags.  I also had them draw pictures of what a scientist is:

Then we had the conversation that women can be scientists too, since many drew men.  I talked about how I am a scientist whenever I step into the kitchen.  I am a chemist, hoping my ingredients combine the way they're supposed to.  I have to be accurate in my measurements and ensure my oven is preheated to the proper temperatures.  I test my experiments by eating them :)  I also shared that of the real chemists I know, the highest ranking ones are women.  This was very surprising for them but part of my job is to destroy their gender stereotypes about scientists.

All in all, it was a great day.  My biggest concern so far is I've had to move one student's desk twice already, but I think that's just an adjustment back to school and realizing my expectations of listening to instructions the first time they're given.  

Four days down!

Happy Birthday Percy!

August 18th is Percy Jackson's birthday and that calls for a celebration!  So bust out some blue cupcakes and head on over to my TpT store for 15% off all Percy (and co) products.  Teacher guides, sorts, and chronological order sorts are included for The Lightning Thief, the Sea of Monsters, the Titan's Curse, the Battle of the Labryinth, the Last Olympian, the Lost Hero, the Son of Neptune, the Mark of Athena, the Red Pyramid, the Throne of Fire, and The Serpent's Shadow!

Metacognition

One of the new strategies I tried this year was modeling metacognition for my students.  In layman's terms, metacognition is being aware while reading or thinking while reading.

We've had a lot of talks that reading isn't a passive activity and your brain should be actively processing and thinking about what the words on the text mean.

Our very first reading lesson was using 2 bowls to show what was occurring in the text and in my head as I read aloud.

As a teacher, I'm quite used to modeling my thinking for my students.  Granted, the first times I felt a little strange having a conversation with myself but I got over that very quickly.

I modeled reading the back cover of The Lightning Thief since that was our first grade level read aloud.  I pointed to the back of the book when I was reading the text and to my head when I was thinking about what I read.

I had my students keep track of the number of times I pointed to the text and to my head with different colored markers.  Not only did it keep them on task and engaged in the lesson, but it let my wiggly students have a purpose for moving their hands around.

At the end of the lesson, they had way more green "thinking" markers then red "text" ones.  

We talked about how as readers, it's more than looking at the words on the page.  We have to actively process and think about what the words mean.  This lesson spanned a few days and we refer back to our anchor chart often, but I'm really pleased with my decision to start the year off with this type of lesson (since I'd never tried it before).

I'm way more excited that my students not only understand the definition and purpose of metacognition, but actively practice it as well.  When combined with annotating their thinking with stop and jot strategies, they are reading rock stars!  

Writing Choices

This week our must do in small group reading is a writing extension.  

Their choices:

1) Silently read & write questions for others (Battle of the Books)

2) Rewrite your favorite part of the novel from another character's perspective.

3) Create a reader's theater script of your favorite part.

Here's one student example for her favorite part in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

One of my students took the idea of reader's theater and ran with it:

She made it her own by combining characters from two novels!  

She used Rob and Sistene from The Tiger Rising and Percy and Annabeth from The Lightning Thief.

I love watching them interact with their material in new and exciting ways.  It's wonderful when they make connections with and between texts!

Happy reading!

Please just...don't.

Clearly, I love books.  I'm an avid fan of movies too, but I get frustrated when the films don't do the movies justice.  The Hunger Games and Catching Fire films were close, some of the Harry Potter films were spot-on and well, we don't need to talk about what happened with the Lightning Thief. 

So when I heard that a film adaptation of The Giver was going to be released this upcoming August, I winced.  I don't have high hopes for this as a film adaptation.

I read the novel myself in elementary school and again as a junior in high school, clearly with different levels of understanding.  I have read this novel with many different small groups, but only if they're mature enough to handle the content...specifically the part with the twins.  That's rough, especially when I had a set of twins in the same small group.  I did not enjoy the tears at that discussion.

So I'm hesitant about this movie...

Then I saw that Taylor Swift was cast in the film.  I'm love her as a musical artist but as Rosemary...I'm not so sure.  At least Meryl Streep has a large role.

I just don't want to see another great book ruined by a sub par movie.  So please, movie industry, don't ruin this classic.

Important Conversations

I had a very important conversation with one of my small groups this week.

It's one of my higher groups (DRA 60) and they're in the middle of Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games.  They're mature enough for it and they picked it because it sounded interesting.

At our first discussion, they set up their notebooks to keep track of characters, settings, vocabulary words, etc.  They were excited.

But slowly over the course of our next few meetings, their enthusiasm for the book changed.  They could answer the comprehension questions, analyze characters and were fully participating...but they weren't enjoying it.

So we had the conversation about how we were truly feeling about the book.  I gave them each a post-it to respond on and sent them away from one another.  I stressed the importance of honestly giving feedback about the book.

When I collected back the post its, three of them didn't want to read it anymore because they simply weren't enjoying it.  One still wanted to finish the novel.

So I pulled them back together and we had the important conversation: it's okay not to love every book you read.  It's also okay not to finish every book you start.

They looked at me completely bewildered.  I went on to explain that sometimes there will be books that you have to read the whole text, even if you don't like it. I went on to explain that our small groups were different.  I wanted them to enjoy reading and to interact with literature.  I wanted them to fall so in love with these characters that when we were done, they would miss them like old friends.  I wanted them to become entranced with the author's word choice, to be so absorbed in their books that they simply don't hear the timer when it goes off and it's time to clean up. I want them to love reading and want to discuss literature.

For that to happen, they have to be making connections with the book they're reading.

As an adult, if I'm not feeling strongly with a book and I'm over half way through, I'll stop because I'm just not that into it.  I wanted my students to know that it's okay to do the same.

I told them they gave it an honest effort (13 chapters).  I told the one who wanted to finish that he would keep it until he was done and let him know what students would love to discuss the ending with him.

We are meeting again on Monday for our final conversation about the differences in the tributes' attitudes toward the Games and what it means before we switch to our new novel:

As a grade level, we ran out of time with reading The Lightning Thief.  So I'm going to start my group toward the end of the novel.  That will be a tad strange for me, jumping right into the end of the book but I think they'll be okay.

From there, we'll continue on through the rest of Rick Riordian's mythological series.  

I haven't done the Percy Jackson with a small group yet and I'm excited for this new opportunity! I know they loved reading it out loud, so I'm hoping we have the same great conversations in our small groups :)

After our conversation, the look on their faces was priceless: relief.  I told them I wish they would have addressed their concerns earlier because I don't want them to struggle to like a book they simply don't.  That's not my goal for small groups.

I want them to love reading. I want to mold them into life long readers.

New Sort! RL 5.7

So we read 90% of The Lightning Thief before winter break and watched the film adaptation on the last day of school for the calendar year.  In a perfect world, we would have finished the novel first but...that didn't happen.  

It was my first time seeing the movie and I must say, I wasn't too impressed. 

Yes, the film was cute but didn't really follow the book.  There were lots of differences and I'm glad my students picked up on these differences.  Comparing & contrasting a film with the text is a great, critical thinking skill to have!

(Plus it corresponds with RL 5.7 in the Common Core State Standards)

So I decided to make this into a sort where students can independently or collaboratively sort the descriptions into the following categories:

1. Just the book

2. Both the book and the film

3. Just the film adaptation

There are over sixty different task cards to sort and an answer key is included!

I'm excited to have my students try this center after winter break!  

You can download a copy here on TpT!

Oh Percy!

We are almost done with The Lightning Thief as a grade level, which means my small groups will be starting The Sea of Monsters in January!  I'm so excited to get to continue discussing Greek mythology and watching my students fall in love with Percy's adventures.

We just got some of these great books at our school:

I'm using them as rewards for students who turn in their reading logs :)  They get to check them out for the week!

I've also posted chronological order sorts for the Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse on my TpT store!  My students love the other chronological order sorts and will need to finish the novels before playing these ones :)

Snag yours here!

More sorts!

I'm pleased to announce that two more centers have joined my classroom and TpT store!

Both are chronological order sorts, one based on Lois Lowry's The Giver and the other based on our current read aloud, Rick Riordian's The Lightning Thief.  My students have a lot of fun with these challenging centers and yours can too!

Answer keys are included and I recommend laminating the centers for durability.  As a spoiler alert, the centers do include events that happen at the end of the novels, so I'd use this as a comprehension activity when they're done reading the book.  Grab yours now!

Pinky promises

On more than one occasion this year, I've had my students pinky-promise not to read ahead on novels or see the movie before we're done with the book.

Since we're doing The Lightning Thief as a read aloud, many students have promised not to see the movie (or its sequel) until we are done.

We will be viewing the movie in May (after standardized testing) so students can compare & contrast the film adaptation with the book.  I love how excited they are about Greek mythology!

I also just started Catching Fire with a group and they also pinky promised not to see the movie until we're done (hopefully by winter break).  I love how excited they are about reading :)

Percy Jackson sort

We are in the middle of the Lightning Thief, so I had my students complete one of our sorts:

They aren't done with the novel so they weren't able to fully complete the sort (since it was made for all 5 books) but they still loved the challenge!

Your students can too, grab yours here :)

(It's also on sale for Black Friday!)