Wanted to share our door one week since we started our #classroombookaday challenge started. I am SO inspired when I see it, and am loving the comments that people are giving us as they walk by and look at it. It also just makes me smile. 🙂 We have added 13 books this week! 
Category Archives: Read Aloud
#ISWAYR–Take 2
Last week I finally decided to update my reading progress after I had had actual time to sit and digest some really good books. I changed the typical meme It’s MONDAY What are You Reading to SUMMER and jumped in. My favorite picture was the one where my TBR pile was up to my knees! Remember? As of last night (when I finished a book in a half hour!), my pile is half as tall. LOVE seeing the progress.
So, to update you, this week this is what we read…
This year I have more picture books in my piles than I usually do. Partly because since I’m in primary again I need to try out some new titles for my class this fall, partly because picture books are awesome, partly because I have had many great ones recommended to me lately, and also partly because they are quick. 🙂
When I was at the Scholastic Reading Summit a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded (by Colby Sharp) of a book I had meant to read, but hadn’t yet. And since I had first been introduced to it, it had become a Caldecott winner and so there was another reason why I needed to enjoy it. It was kind of a long story, but Colby told a great story of how his class does its own Mock Caldecott unit, where they vote for their favorite, and they were SURE that this book should win. And then it did! He even shared a heartfelt video from the winning illustrator herself, Sophie Blackall. I was already sold on the book, but this just added to my interest.
And in case you don’t know, that book was Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear.
What a joy to be able to read a book with that shiny gold sticker!!
This one was instantly a hit with my kiddos, and somehow it was a story I had never heard! I guess I had never been a huge Winnie the Pooh fan, so perhaps that’s why, but whatever the reason, this was a great story to learn. And of course, the pictures were BEAUTIFUL. I think that’s possibly what I liked the best: the story and the illustrations were equally magical, making for a beloved book that we will surely return to again and again. This book was made to be reread over and over and over.
And so on today’s list of to-dos: another trip to the library to see what new treasures we can find!
What have you been reading? How tall is your TBR pile?? 🙂
It’s Summer, What are You Reading?
Yep. It’s that time again. Summertime! And of course, as a teacher, it means I have time to READ!! Ok, I am reading all the time, but this is prime sit-and-read-a-whole-book-in-one-sitting time! So, I thought I’d share what I’ve been reading with you, and then I’d love to hear from you about what you’d suggest!
What I’ve read…
What I’m reading…
In my TBR pile…
Is there anyone who ever has time to read everything in their TBR pile? I have the problem that mine keeps getting taller (from great suggestions) before it gets shorter (by me finishing something)! It is totally silly, but at this point it’s up to my knees! See?
Oh, wait–you probably want to see the spines…here’s another version (sans me!):
Bets on how long it’ll take? I’m sure there’s a great math opportunity in there somewhere, but I’ll save that for another day!
Ok, now it’s your turn! What are you reading? What do you suggest I read? 🙂
Rm. 202 Kids Take Over–Read Aloud Take 2
I am so excited with what’s happening in our room with Read Aloud lately. The level of excitement, confidence and pride that is present because of all of these super 2nd grade readers sharing their skills is definitely impressive. Some kiddos have even signed up more than once on the calendar!!
The only thing I have to say that makes me really sad is that there are couple of kiddos who only have pictures (rather than videos) because my devices were not cooperating on those days. I HATE that, because everyone of them has done a SUPER job, and you’ll miss them. Just take my word–every read aloud has been A. Maz. Ing.
Gotta share that chart that she used, too. 🙂 It needs some edits (so please look past the typos 🙂 ), but it was such a great idea that she came up with on her own. She was very prepared for her lesson. 🙂
Please take a minute to leave a comment for our brave, super talented, 2nd grade readers! Way to go, Rm. 202 kiddos!
Rm. 202 Kids Take Over–Read Aloud!
Last week I was having a reading conference with a friend, and as we were talking about TBR piles and good book recipes, another idea came to me that would help one reader, and then in turn many others: kiddos doing read aloud.
As I continued to talk to this friend about books, I suggested that he choose a book from his new TBR pile to share with the class. We talked about how he would have to prepare to do this, including practicing holding the book up so that everyone could see the pictures. It was totally picture-worthy while he was working.
And maybe the best part was when he turned to me and said, “Wow, this is hard. My arm hurts! Is it hard for you, too?” We had a great little chat about how teachers have to have strong arms. 🙂
He continued to work and was ready to present to us. Man was he excited!
Check out the stories he shared with us:
Well…as you can imagine, this sparked interest by many other people to be able to share with us at read aloud time. And what a great idea, as I considered all of the many things kiddos learn on both sides of this opportunity.
We began to schedule read alouds in a couple of ways: I gave some friends the assignment based on books we were reading in our small group together, and some friends just began to request a spot. And since then it’s become a “have-to” for everyone. It’s just such a good idea that we (ok, probably I) decided all should participate!
Amber took the next turn, and did a super job of matching up to what my lesson would have been that day anyway–good readers use evidence from the text to support their thinking.
Then on Friday, Emily took her turn and taught us about fiction/non-fiction (as well as using some pretty great teacher moves for management!) with The Little Work Plane.
Now don’t worry if you don’t see your favorite Rm. 202 friend in this post–each will get their turn. While I had originally never intended to take this path with readers in our room, it’s a SUPER example of how organically ideas come up for us, and how kids’ ideas are often the BEST ideas! Thanks, Rm. 202 kiddos for taking chances, learning new things and then sharing that learning with the rest of us!
What Does Listening Really Look Like?
The other day I came across an interesting tweet that made me think in a new way. That’s kind of an everyday occurrence, so it didn’t really surprise me, but this one was one that really made me think about both my students and myself.
I have never officially taught the idea of “whole body listening,” nor do I have a poster like this in my room, but I probably encourage this general idea in my students. It would probably be said that in our room (and perhaps in our school?) quiet and still = listening. I know that I expect students to be looking at the speaker, having quiet ….oh wait–I just remembered something hanging on our wall. It’s a little blurry but you’ll get the idea:
Guess I do have that poster on my wall. Well, on my door….
Ok, so here’s where my thinking went after I read that tweet. I think I have always encouraged students to be still, quiet, sitting up straight (no slouching or laying down on my rug!), watching closely. In theory, this is not a bad thing. It’s worked for so many years. But after reading Dr. Rosenberg’s thoughts, I thought of myself and how I certainly don’t listen like that. I am pretty sure that I am quiet (I don’t interrupt the speaker without raising my hand!), but I am probably not still. My hands are not in my lap and I am not just sitting there. Often I am writing, many times I am tweeting (depending on where I am listening), sometimes I am doodling–I might even be doing a puzzle on an app on my iPad. If I were to just be sitting still in one spot, I would be SUPER distracted by how uncomfortable I felt that I would quickly STOP listening to the speaker and start thinking about how I needed out. My next thought was then How many students have been in that same predicament as me in all these years I’ve been teaching? How many behavior problems on our whole group rug were really just kiddos telling me they needed to listen in a different way? Man…
This tweet, along with some learning I have been doing with a counselor at our school about mindfulness and focus has caused me to rethink (and then reorganize) how my students should look and sound when they are listening. During Read Aloud, for instance, kiddos are invited to bring along paper, a notebook or their iPad so they can draw or write while they’re listening. Usually I encourage them to visualize and sketch what the movie they are making in their heads, but often kiddos just doodle other things while they listen to me read. At first I was not so sure this was working, but I can usually tell by the way they still react to events in the story as well as by talking about the text that they really are focused in with me even if they don’t look just like that “whole body listening” poster.
While I do think there is a need to teach kiddos to listen, to be respectful to others and to focus in on their learning, I’m thinking differently about telling them how this looks. I think it is ore important to get to know each kiddo personally and help them figure out what their body looks and feels like when they are listening well. It would be interesting to make another version of that poster with my class. I wonder what it would look like…
28 Days That Changed the World
Last year I found the most amazing book. Books, really. I am almost certain it as a Twitter find–since that’s where most of my teaching gems come from–but regardless, I ran out to get it and it became the basis for the conversations in our classroom during our history unit.
Here’s the main one, written by Charles R. Smith, Jr. :
It goes through all the days of February and gives a little story about an important figure in African-American history, working forward from the 1700s to today. The synopses are short, interesting and my favorite part is that they are not just the “big” ones taht you are used to reading about. There are women and men, as well as children, and often the moment that changed history wasn’t even a person, but a court case or event. We read through this book last year during our history unit–where our focus was on people who change the world–and loved it, as well as learned a lot we didn’t know. OH, and I didn’t tell you anything about it. Since I have this thing–well used to–where I wait until the end of a unit/project/story to tell about it. And then don’t actually do it. So here’s to telling you this time around. 🙂
Oh, just a quick mention of some other FABULOUS books I found at this same time: the I Am series by Brad Meltzer. They are along the same vein as the 28 Days book, and are little biographies about important people (not just African-Americans, though). The illustrations are SUPER cool, and make it a really interesting narrative non-fiction text to share together. The voice of the famous person comes through and kids are hooked from the first page. We’ve read almost all of them (I just got Lucille Ball and haven’t had a chance to share that one yet!):
Somehow I only took a picture of a few of them. 😦 We also have Amelia Earhart, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller and Lucille Ball. They are pretty great!
This year as we got ready to start February, I knew I wanted to incorporate this book again, but obviously in a different way than we had done it previously. I was really glad that my kids were as excited as me to reread the stories again, and it’s been great to see how they anticipate who will be highlighted each day. We really enjoy this time of our day, and I can really tell that they are learning about the people/events and their impact on our world, as they make connections between them and other things we talk about in the course of our day. This book is more than just a book for the friends in Rm. 202.
One thing I wanted to be able to do to deepen our understanding (or at least solidify our memory) was to do some writing about each day’s text. We had been doing some work with non-fiction, as well as main idea/details, so I figured it would make sense to write a summary paragraph to tell others about what we were learning (we had decided we’d hang them on our bulletin board outside our room).
We have been using the 4-Square organizer to make sure we have all of our thoughts (in read aloud, during Social Studies, in Writers’ Workshop as we write opinions about things), and so we decided they would make sense for this, as well. And ultimately, I want kiddos to learn how to use the organizer to meet their needs, not just to use it when I say to, or to see it as being just for one time or place. We wrote the first few together, discussing our topic sentence and then adding in details to explain the text for the day, like this:
After we got our thinking down on the planner, someone would “publish” it and we’d hang it outside on our board.
Last week, we had a short week with a weird schedule, which made for a little bit of a problem. We didn’t get to finish our text for Feb. 11, then we weren’t in school for February 12-15 (that’s 4 days) and so when we returned on February 16, we had 7 pages to work on!! There was NO WAY that we would have been able to sit and do all that work together as a whole group (can you say behavior problems?!), so we needed a new plan.
Well…it worked out SUPER well that we just happened to have 7 groups already in place for our culture study. Each group was in charge of planning and then writing one of the paragraphs after we all read them together. Great plan, huh?? We thought so. 🙂
Kiddos knew what to do, since we’d been using the planner already, and I was really impressed with how well they have been able to add appropriate, relevant details to the topic sentences (which I had given them already in their planner).
While I have a REALLY WONKY panoramic picture of it (the end of our bulletin board is inconveniently up a flight of stairs 😦 ), I’m really excited about how it all looks out there, and I love that there are things for us to share with our Robinson neighbors!
We still have another week or so before we’re finished with the book again, but I’ve got other plans for continuing our study far beyond the end of February. I have been doing some behind-the-scenes work with our librarian and some other teachers to find even more recent stories of Robinson personalities, or other Kirkwood figures that these friends might know. I think it is essential to teach kiddos that change-makers are not just old people, in black-and-white pictures who have been dead forever. Important figures in their lives are not just from long ago and far away, nor are they just “famous” people they read about in books. I want them to see versions of themselves in the smart, successful people I teach them about; I want them to see the possibilities for their own futures. I’m excited to finish the plan I have for this next step. And yes, I’ll be sure to share!
**UPDATE: GREAT story that happened today as we were reading about Thurgood Marshall for Day 22….I was talking about how he was a Supreme Court Justice and how often that means that a judge has been an important lawyer. I explained how the Justices are appointed by the President, which is a BIG DEAL, and how Thurgood Marshall had been part of a big deal court case that we knew about. “Do you mean Plessy vs. Ferguson?” WHAA?? Love that they could throw that one out there. “Nope, not that one.” “Are you talking about the 14th Amendment?” “No, not that one, either.” “Oh, I know!! Brown vs. the Board of Education!” Um, yeah–that one. 🙂 Isn’t it pretty great that 2nd graders can whip out those names like that? I think so. Way to go, Rm. 202 friends! Love that you’re soaking it in, and making connections, and more importantly I think you’ll make CHANGES with that knowledge someday.**
Writing About Reading
I figured out today why I have such a hard time deciding what to write on this blog: I like for things to fit nicely into categories/tags/subjects/projects, and so often, the things we do around Rm. 202 are not that way. I find that maybe I’ve gotten to that place where many of our subjects overlap–just like I’ve always hoped they would! I know, that sounds like I’m not doing it on purpose (which of course I am, as I carefully plan how and when and why), but I think sometimes when you’re in the middle of something you can’t really see the big picture (isn’t there some quote about forests and trees that would fit here? LOL).
So as I think about how to describe what we’ve been doing in Writing lately, it’s hard to explain just the writing part, because it includes reading (which is perfect, as those two subjects go hand-in-hand anyway, right?). We have been working on writing opinion letters, with most of our topics being about the series books we’re reading in our book clubs. Luckily, though, there are lots of other things to have opinions about, so we’ve been trying out that structure with other topics, too.
We’ve gone through many versions, with me teaching mini-lessons and kiddos then trying out the big ideas. We’ve talking about format of a letter; stating opinions; adding reasons as well as details and support for those reasons; using transition words like one reason is, another reason is, last but not least (which many kiddos were doing already just based on learning them last year!); as well as just using interesting words and making our letter match our audience. The procedure became that they would write a letter, but then rather than actually delivering it to that person, they’d give it to me, and I’d note what they did right and what they could work on for next time.
We wrote about books, 100th Day of school suggestions, ideas about why their weekends were good, as well as many other things about which you could have an opinion. I was noticing, though, that over the last few weeks our letters had been getting shorter and less detailed (which was obviously not the goal!). We had a class meeting and Millie suggested that the reason this was happening was because they had written so many letters that actually they were getting really sick of it and weren’t trying their best anymore. While this was sad, I totally saw how that could be, and as impressed by her insight. Others agreed and so I made a plan that we would work our hardest to create our best final letters (to Mrs. Meihaus, our librarian, about our vote for the Show-Me Reader Award) over the next 3 days and then be done.
So as I thought about what we would do for those next 3 days, I knew I needed to give another model to my writers about what that letter should look and sound like. And since I wanted them to write about books, I did, too. My letter was about my favorite read-aloud choice, Fig Pudding by Ralph Fletcher. It looked like this:
I had hung the letter up there before the day started, and it was one of the first things (thankfully) that kiddos noticed when they came in. Yeah, the first response was “Wow, that’s long!” Later on, I had them look at it, studying it to answer this question: How do I write a STRONG Show-Me letter? Not surprisingly, they were able to notice a whole page full of things that I had in my letter that they needed to put in theirs.
As they made their list, I marked their ideas on the actual letter (notice the different colors and the things we boxed in) so we could reference it later. I was impressed to see that they had been paying attention, and that they could come up with that all on their own!
After this, I gave kiddos a graphic organizer to use to plan their letter and we got busy. We’re almost done, so I’ll share our progress in the next few days. It’s pretty good stuff!
Series Reading Groups
We have been working with series of books in Readers’ Workshop lately. Our newest unit, which has a focus on patterns, characters and changes, is asking students to look at a series of books (one per group) to find similarities and differences. Each kiddo in the group is reading a different book (which is something I’ve never done before) and when they meet, the team is responsible for talking about what they’ve each found in their books individually.
We’ve worked on looking at what is always the same (patterns in the series), what we can learn about characters, asking ourselves why certain things are important, marking the text with post-its so we don’t forget what we’ve noticed, talking “long and strong” about our post-it notes, making sure we understand what our partners are saying by asking clarifying questions, and using a Venn diagram to model what we notice between the books in our groups.
We’ve chosen books series that match each level of reader in my classroom: Horrible Harry, Roscoe Riley Rules, Berenstain Bears, Clifford, Mercy Watson and Little House on the Prairie.
It’s been really exciting to see what they’ve been able to do with this study. For many it’s the first time they have really read a chapter book. While each group has different conversations based on the members and the books, each works with diligence and purpose as they discuss what they are learning about their texts. They are really thinking deeply about their books, having fun with literacy and their reading conversations are leaking over into other parts of our day. The other thing I’ve seen is that many have been positively pressured to higher levels of thinking and participating because of what they see their friends doing. Love that kind of friendly competition!
I know this kind of thing would be best explained with videos, but all I have is pictures. Imagine that you can hear quiet murmurs of engaging conversations around books that kids love and it would sound just about right!
What series do you enjoy reading? We’d love some recommendations for our next choices! 🙂
It’s the 100th Day–HOORAY!
In case you’ve missed our 100th Day journey, be sure to catch up on our previous conversations here. And then stay tuned to read about what actually happened–spoiler alert: it was AMAZING!!
We began the day much like we normally do, with our regular routine of washing our hands and then working on the math apps we use every day: Front Row and Dreambox. I got together some supplies, Tyrin took our pizza orders for lunch, and then we all got together to start our 100th Day of School.
We had narrowed down our choices to the ones that most closely matched our purpose for the day (reflecting upon or thinking about learning), but still we would not have been able to do all of those things in just the time we’re together on a normal school day, so I had to whittle it down even further. Also, since we had come up with the SUPER list from our Little Red Riding Hood book as well, we actually had a new (and pretty big) job that we had added.
And since I can’t leave well enough alone, I gave them one more reminder about how this wasn’t truly our “100th” day, so we did a little bit of math: 176 + 176 + 100=452, meaning we were actually celebrating the 452nd day we had been in school! WOW! Too bad we couldn’t have had a whole list of activities related to that number!
First, I gave them a framework for book that we had decided to write together about our 100 days of 2nd grade and how much we had learned. There were stems on each page that kiddos were supposed to fill in, and since we were doing it on our iPads, they could use pictures from their camera roll, drawings (that would then be added by taking a picture), typing or writing on the pages. We use a Learning Management System called eBackpack to give and receive work, so they were to work on their pages (each kiddo was given 5) and then send them back to me.
Once they got started working, I began to call small groups over to start making muffins (based on our super smart ideas from Little Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Prairie Tale by Lisa Campbell Ernst) to share with our 2nd grade friends. There are conveniently (if you’re connecting to the number 100) 101 kiddos in our grade, so we had a lot of baking to do; we had figured out through some HARD work the day before that we needed to make 9 batches in order to have enough. Wow.
Well, thankfully, my friend (who typically comes to help us during Math on Thursdays anyway) was free in the morning today, because looking back now there is NO WAY we could have made 100 muffins with 21 kiddos with just me. Thanks, Mary Beth! She took one table and I manned another one and we measured and poured, stirred and scooped and ultimately took all of our muffin tins to the Robinson kitchen to be baked. Again, if not for Ms. Denise in the kitchen who took charge of the ovens, we wouldn’t have had any muffins. She was a lifesaver today.
Although I would have love to add pictures of the many trips we took to the kitchen and back, and share a picture of Ms. Denise, as well as how beautiful our muffins were while they were baking, I was carrying muffin tins and opening doors and having to be a teacher (hee hee), so you’ll just have to imagine that part. I also wish there was smell-o-vision so I could share how wonderful our muffins smelled while they were baking (believe me, I was told my multiple people that they could smell them all over the school!), but alas, not this time. Just imagine the most amazing aroma ever and that’s what it was like. 🙂 Ultimately we only ended up making 8 dozen (not sure what happened there), so we had to do some quick math about our shortage (which was a great lesson in scarcity!) and figure out how we could best share with our friends as well as have some muffins for ourselves.
After we figured out how many muffins we had:
we made some plans for how we’d get them to our friends. We agreed (ok, well they did after I convinced them) that it was the right thing to do to give muffins to the other 2nd graders before we served ourselves and so we go together in groups and created little pitches to share with them about what we did and how we wanted to give so to them.
We had a little bit of time after both muffins and our book (but more about that in another post–we have some revising and editing to do there before we’re ready to share), so kiddos had a choice of a board game, reading, or writing. I always love to see what they do when they are in charge:
Because our day was filled with two other special events (roller skating in PE and a farewell assembly for a beloved custodian), we only had time for one more thing, and we decided it should be puzzles. After that conversation the other day and the question from Ja’Mia, we knew it would be fun, hard work and would definitely allow us to use all of the grit, patience and teamwork we’ve been building lately. Look at what we were able to do!
For all the thought (perhaps OVER-thought) that I put into this day, I am pleased with what happened. It was all that we wanted it to be (which was to focus on learning and growing) and we had fun along the way. I think that they things we chose to participate in match up with what we are about everyday (engagement, choice, thinking, teamwork). I enjoyed the day, and I’m pretty sure they did, too. The last thing I heard before we left for the day was “This was the best 100th Day EVER!” I agree, friend, I agree! 🙂
20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher 