Daily Archives: February 3, 2019

#WRAD2019: We are READERS in Rm. 111!

What an AMAZING time we had this year on World Read Aloud Day!  As I mentioned in the beginning of my post about Word Collector, it was at the end of a really weird week at school. We were out on Wednesday and Thursday, but thankfully Friday was a fresh (and much warmer!) day back and we were ready for a great day of reading!

First of all, it was a SCHOOL-WIDE PAJAMA DAY!!  Coming to school without getting dressed?  Super day for sure, am I right??

We got there and started with our regular choice time, but also with a question to Rm. 111 friends about a title they might like to read for WRAD.  We got lots of good suggestions, and so then started our official day with one they had asked for, The Gingerbread Man Loose in the Zoo!

It was a fun one, like the rest in the series.  It was a great one for kiddos to join in to read with me!

After this start to our day, I shared the WRAD Bingo Card we’d be working to fill up during the day.

Screenshot 2019-02-03 16.40.47

We got right to it and were able to cross LOTS of things off very quickly!  PErhaps our favorites were READ WITH A SIBLING, READ UNDER A BLANKET and READ WITH A FLASHLIGHT!  You don’t ever get to do those things at school!

Next we went to the library to attend an author Skype that had been set up by Mrs. Davis and Skype Classroom.  Her name was Ellen Fischer and we found out she used to live in St. Louis!  She shared her thoughts about writing, and then read us a book she had written, If an Armadillo Went to a Restaurant.

We liked the story, which was about animals and what they eat.  I especially liked when she told us that the idea for the story came when she was in a restaurant with her grandson and was waiting FORVER for their food.  She got out the menu out and started talking to him about what different animals might order dinner.  Genius, right?  I LOVE it when “real” authors tell stories that kiddos can relate to, and she definitely emphasized the idea that ideas for writing can be found EVERYWHERE!

After the book, she let us ask her questions, which is always the best part of a Skype.  We learned that she didn’t like to read when she was a kid, but when she was in college she came to Washington University and got an opportunity to work with kids and was hooked!  She told us about other books she’s written and Makhi got to make a request that she write her next book about football. 🙂

After lunch, we were blessed with our first guest reader!  Zach’s mom came to join us and brought along two books we had never read!  One of them, The Seven Silly Eaters, was by both an author I know, and an illustrator I love.  I’m so glad to be introduced to good stories!

After she finished this one, we realized we only had one square left before BINGO, so we asked her for a favor.  Because Mrs. Vanderbunt is a good sport, she let us take her outside to read the next one.  This one was The Underpants Zoo, which was also new, and was just plain silly!

So you know what that meant?

We headed to the library to visit Mrs. Davis and she let us choose a new book for our class.  We didn’t get to read it yet (Friday was a little busy! hee hee), but Hailey and Makhi chose a Toy Story book for us to read together. 🙂

Ok…next we had an opportunity for all of first grade to listen to a story from a mystery reader!  Kiddos were given a choice of 9 different titles (without knowing who would read it!), and they got to go to whichever one sounded interesting.  In addition to our first grade team, our first grade assistant Ms. Pachan, our REACH teacher Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Sisul (our principal), and Isaac and Jonah’s mom–Mrs. Rappaport–had a story to share!  Check out the choices:

This was a great time for students to spend time with another caring adult, who may not be their own teacher.  It was important for kiddos to see that all the adults in our school (and in their lives!) are READERS!!  Oh, and not surprisingly, most kiddos chose Elephant and Piggie. 😉

Even though we’d been busy reading all day already, we were NOT FINISHED YET!  After specials, our very own Lucy read us a book she’d written about how to get ready for school, and we got another bingo on our card!

THEN we went to the library again for ANOTHER author Skype, this time with Julie Fortenberry (who was new to all of us!).  She read us TWO BOOKS!

We ended our day with some quiet time (because man, we were TIRED!) with a birthday treat for our friend Will.  We’d missed his birthday on one of our days off and he brought Oreos!

That sweet smile!  The second one is a little blurry, but it’s from when we were singing to him (and no, I didn’t get a video–boo!), and he LOVED it!  Happy Birthday, buddy!

Ok, one more collage.  I just shared the books that we read in our class.  Check out all the reading from ALL of first grade.  WOOHOO for BOOKS!!

Alright.  That’s it.  HA!  I mean, goodness–we were BUSY and had a FULL day of READING and FUN!

Did you celebrate World Read Aloud Day?  What did you read?  What did you do? Leave us a comment and tell us about it! 🙂

 

We are WORD COLLECTORS!

Whew!  This week was crazy!  Besides it being World Read Aloud Day on Friday, we had TWO “it’s-too-cold-to-go-outside-today” days off of school!  It was a nice refreshing mid-week break, but definitely made for a week where NO ONE knew what day it was. LOL

So…remember how last week I mentioned a super project that was sparked from another Peter H. Reynolds book we read?  Well, I finally have enough of it up and photographed that I can share it!

Last week as one of our read aloud we enjoyed hearing The Word Collector.   Basically, in the story, Jerome collects words that he hears and likes–short words, long words, funny words, nice words, you get the idea.  Eventually he ends up have a GINORMOUS bag of words on little slips of paper that he drops and they get all spread around, then being shared with the rest of the world!

We decided that as super readers and word-lovers ourselves, we could also collect words!  It really only took a quick mention of the idea for first grade readers and writers to be IN and start finding great words all over the place!  We “officially” worked on it for one reading/writing time, but I know they literally could have done it all. day. long.  I love how Sam and Jaxon, who were working together, said they collected pages and pages of words for 20 or 30 minutes but said, “I think we could do this for 20 or 30 more HOURS!”

Now, when something like this happens, I can’t ever decide if the best part is what happens in our room, or what happens when someone decides we should share the idea with other kids.  In this case, it may have been both.

I went ahead and covered the door in blue paper, which was supposed to look like the cover of the book. See?

fullsizeoutput_1069

Then as a class (well our class and Ms. Turken’s kiddos, too), we decided what we might do to share our work with our school on our doors.  We agreed that we should have a picture of Jerome, telling our Robinson friends about our inspiration and the word collecting we began to do.

We decided rock-paper-scissors would be the best way to decide who would create Jerome, and so after many, many games, Makhi, Wyatt and Isaac became our illustrators.     They made a most-handsome version of Jerome, and also a word bubble that we added words to together.

IMG_6757

Beckett helped add some words to our speech bubble, using interactive writing and his best first grade letters!

One of the best things that happened as we talked about what our speech bubble should say, was when Hailey suggested we invite other Robinson friends to collect words WITH US!?  I usually have an idea of what I think the words could say, but it’s generally up to kiddos to decide what they will say. Hailey had the great idea that we should invite the rest of Robinson to collect words WITH US, which I had not even considered.

On Friday we finally had time to get our lists and lists of collected words onto our slips and finish our Jerome and words.  We still have to add the pocket that will house the slips, tape, and sharpie for other people to use, but it’s up and it’s FABULOUS!  Don’t you agree?  I LOVE LOVE LOVE that these kiddos are already learning to pay attention to how words sound and think about the power they have!

IMG_6782

What words would you add to our display?  Please leave your suggestions in the comments and we’ll put them up for you!  Can’t wait to hear what you say and from how far away our words will come!  So in addition to your words, please tell us where you live!