Tag Archives: Read Around

Second Grade Read Around–Part 2

I recently posted about how Mrs. Meihaus made Read Around super for second grade.  That wasn’t the whole story….:)

Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the Read Around came after the Read Around, and it looked like this:

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Isn’t that great? She saved all of our favorites from our Read Around for us until we could come back and check them out. It felt a little special that this display was right in front of the circulation desk.

Just a few more pictures that show our library fabulousness.  It’s one of our favorite places to be, and I LOVE that that’s the case.  Readers are made here. 🙂

Ok, one more.  These are new this year and can be seen all over the library (no, they’re not all pictures of me–every teacher took one LOL).

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And in true Mrs. Bearden form, I was told to choose my favorite and I couldn’t do it! There are just too many great books to choose just one! Thanks Mrs. Meihaus for letting me choose 3. 🙂

Second Grade Read Around

The Read Around is a procedure that our librarian learned about several years ago, and I have used a couple of times with my classes (in all grade levels).  This year was no different. 🙂

The big idea for the read around is that readers get a short time to preview (we use the word “peruse!”) a book, so that they can then see what they might be interested in checking out (ha ha, library pun) later.  The best part is that as long as you match the books to the readers, you can do this with anyone of any age!

So….Mrs. Meihaus set it all up and helped us get started by reminding us of the directions:

We spent the next 30 minutes or so (this part varies depending on how many “rounds” you do and how long you spend at each spot) perusing new books that might be interesting to us now that we’re 2nd graders.

Check out some of our favorites.  Mrs. Meihaus had each table choose their top 3 and place them in the middle of the table.  Then, when kiddos traded tables, that was the first place many of them started looking.

I picked out this one as a favorite. Thought we could try it for a read aloud. 🙂

Read Around Revisited

I wrote about the Read Around strategy yesterday, and how it was a great way to get new books into the hands of my kiddos.

This week at our staff meeting, our principal (Jennifer Sisul, @grrprincipal, and a FABULOUS leader) took us through the same activity with our library’s professional library.  Let me tell ya, the great ideas are always flowing around our school!  And what great timing–Spring Break is next week and we’ll all have time to read.

So, just like our kiddos did, we took time to peruse some titles (some new, some old) and I found some great ones.  While I didn’t get a chance to get to everything, here are some interesting reads I’ve added to my list:

Neurodiversity in the Classroom (Armstrong); Guy Write (Fletcher); Underresourced Learners (Payne); Rigor is Not a 4-letter-word (Blackburn); 7 Habits of Happy Kids (Covey); Checking for Understanding (Fisher/Frey)

Neurodiversity in the Classroom (Armstrong); Guy Write (Fletcher); Underresourced Learners (Payne); Rigor is Not a 4-letter-word (Blackburn); 7 Habits of Happy Kids (Covey); Checking for Understanding (Fisher/Frey)

I also have at least a nightstand-full of kid novels I still want to read, too!  Hopefully my children will let me have some time for that next week!

Your turn: What’s on your to-be-read list?  How do you find time to read when you’re a busy, working parent?

 

Read Around

A few months ago, our librarian shared a phenomenal strategy with us for exposing readers to new (and sometimes old!) books–a Read Around.   The directions were pretty basic:

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Mrs. Meihaus’ purpose was to (re)introduce older readers to books they may have missed (or overlooked because they have old covers) and encourage them to try some new things.  In the 40 minutes we spent in the activity, we were able to peruse (which was a word she taught us the meaning of and how to do) over 40 new (or old!) titles that we were previously not on our 5th grade radars!  What a gift!  It was great to hear how many kiddos found some fabulous new try-its–even the ones who only read certain titles or series.  Impressive, really.

Well…I liked the strategy so much, that I knew I had to do it in my own classroom library.  Just like in Mrs. Meihaus’ library downstairs, I have books that are FABULOUS stories, but may be a few years old, or have a worn cover.  Classics, really, that need a second chance.

So we tried it for ourselves.

Tables started out like this, with two books at each seat.

Tables started out like this, with two books at each seat.

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Learning how to peruse is a useful new skill!

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One part of perusing that many kiddos tried was reading the first few pages.

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I pulled out many unread (old and new) books for readers to try.

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I love how serious and diligent my readers are during things like this–they really dig in deep and learn well. 🙂

Have you ever done a Read Around?  How did it go?  Did you find a new book you didn’t think you’d read?  Tell us about it!