It's Monday! What are you Reading? 3/26/12

It's Monday! What are you Reading? From Picture books to YA is a meme hosted by Jen and Kellee at TeachMentorTexts. Hop on over to their blog to see what others are reading this week!  

Here are the books I read this week:

Here are the books I am working on:

I am reading Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu, and listening to the audiobook of The Touble with May Amelia by Jennifer L. Holm. This is Holm's follow up novel to Our Only May Amelia, which I have not yet read. However, from what I can tell, you do not necessarily need to read one before the other. Breadcrumbs would make and excellent read aloud from what I can tell. A mixture of realistic fiction and fantasy.

Both books that I am currently reading are very good so far, but I will tell you more about them when I finish!

What reading adventures did you take this past week, and which ones will you venture into next?

New Discovery: Pic Lit!

This week, my kids used a really cool site I discovered (thanks to Twitter)! The site is called Pic Lit. There, you can search a wide variety of inspirational photos and create sentences (or paragraphs) that appear right on top of the photos. What I really like is there are two ways of doing this:

1) A drag and drop with provided words for those writers who need some inspiration


OR


2) A freestyle for writing virtually anything


Since this was the first time my kids had used the site, I just had them write what came to their minds when they say the picture. Here are some of the results:

I told them not to worry about spelling or capitalization this time, so excuse our errors. I just wanted them to be inspired. As I have thought more about this site, I feel like there are TONS of possible uses in the classroom. Some of these include:

• writing a full poem with the picture as a background
• collecting favorite book quotes and writing them into pictures that match
• writing sentences using sensory and figurative language
• writing sentences about "life" and life lessons
• writing themes of books

I needed to create a log in, and then I used our class name as the "Pen Name." When the kids log in, they log in as me, but they are all able to log on simultaneously. There isn't a print feature, so you can have them email you the pictures and then copy and paste the images into word if you want to print them. I use a program called MSWSnap to take pictures of them from the site and then save them. Do what works best for you. 

How do you think you might use Pic Lit in your classroom?

Great Twitter Chat!

My teacher buddy, David Etkin, shared something marvelous on Twitter the other day: 


Reading Partnerships


I was so intrigued by the idea, that together we cooked up the idea of a Twitter chat to discuss this innovative teaching tool. We came up with the hashtag #RdgPartners and jumped right in! 


Click here to see the Google document archive of our first ever #RdgPartners chat!

It's Monday! What are you Reading?3/1912

It's Monday! What are you Reading? From Picture books to YA is a meme hosted by Jen and Kellee at TeachMentorTexts. Hop on over to their blog to see what others are reading this week!

The picture books: 

The Lion's Share: A Tale of Cake and Eating It, Too by Matthew McElligott

Memiors of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian and Illustrated by Tim Bowers

Chapter Book:

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt is a follow-up novel (or in his words "a companion novel") to The Wednesday Wars. Both books take place during the Vietnam War, but feature different main characters. (One does not necessarily have to have read one before the other, but it helps for some background on Okay for Now's main character.) In this novel, the main character is Doug Swieteck. You may remember him as Holling's ill-mannered, trouble making (can we call him a friend?) classmate. Holling makes a cameo in the beginning, but shortly thereafter Doug and his family relocate to a new town.  What I really loved about this novel was the inside view we get of Doug's home life. Let's just say it is far from desirable and, in my opinion, it really makes Holling's life seem like a walk in the park. The story moves through Doug's first year in a new town, a new school, and even a new job. As you can imagine, it is not an easy acclimation. But, by the end of chapter one, you will come over to (and stay on) Doug's team.

Where The Wednesday Wars made references to Shakespeare, Okay for Now revolves around several paintings by John James Audubon. I have to admit, I think I liked it more than its predecessor. Schmidt tugs at your heartstrings (and your funny bone) throughout the novel. I think students will enjoy this as a read aloud, although it may be more appropriate for grades six and up.

Watch this video to hear Gary D. Schmidt talking more about Okay for Now: 

Update and Pinterest Finds

Hello bloggy world! My grad class just got a whole lot more involved, so... much of my free time has been devoted to that. I will still post as often as I can, but it may only be about once a week. I've been doing a lot of reading in addition to a LOT of school work, so stay tuned for a post about that tomorrow.


I want to say a big thank you to all of my new followers! I am so excited to be inching close to 100, and flattered that you all think enough of my blog to join!


In the meantime, I thought I would share some fun things I found on Pinterest that you all might enjoy!

 This site has writing prompts grouped by month. There is one for each day of each month, so you never run out! I already use these in my room and I like them a lot. I give the kids a choice of using the prompt or writing a free-write. 

 

This is a great homework idea from the author of "Conferring: The Keystone to Reader's Workshop." I am going to suggest this to my reading/writing counterparts next year. 

 

This is a great management idea from the Lesson Plan Diva. Use this touch light when you are working with small groups or having reading/writing conferences to let students know you don't want to be disturbed. Definitely implementing this ASAP!

 

A great (and more organized ) to keep a reader's notebook (or in my case, a response journal) from Word from the Corner's blog. Next year, we are going to set these up at the very beginning. I may tweak it a bit, adding my own creations to them. 

And finally....

 

This is a fluency study that Life in 4B did with her fourth graders. I love the idea of teaching fluency this way to intermediate students. It's not just about reading fast! I proposed the idea of doing the "Interpretive Reading Contest" at our school, with the winner for the whole school reading aloud on our morning announcement for World Read Aloud Day next year. I can't wait!

There you have it! I hope you like these ideas as much as I do! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!