It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I love the weekly routine of heading over to Teachmentortexts.com and seeing what others are reading. Last week, I read House Held Up By Trees from a previous week recommendation. Thanks to Katherine for that one.

One of my weekend reads was A Long Walk To Water by Linda Sue Parks. It had been on my list for a while and since we are studying historical fiction, I moved it up, although it really is a biography. If you haven't read it, I completely recommend it as an engaging account of the struggles of two young people in Africa.

I don't know much about the Sudan and the struggles of the people there so I was shocked to read about the violence through the eyes of an eleven year old boy. Salva was eleven when his school was attacked by rebels and he walked from Sudan to Ethiopia. Eventually, he came to Rochester, New York where he met Linda Sue Park. She writes not only Salva's story but also intertwines it another young Sudanese girl's story.

I am definitely adding A Long Walk To Water to my chart of books as one that builds empathy and global awareness. This book may also motivate young people to take action to help others who aren't as fortunate in other parts of the world. What an important book!

One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt is a must read book! It is in my list of my top favorite books for 2012 without a doubt!  It was recently published in May and already has many great reviews written about it on blogs and on Twitter. Once I picked it up to read, I could not put it down because I needed to know what happened to thirteen year old, Carley Connors.

Carley Connors reminds me a little of Hollis in Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff.  Both Carley and Hollis are forced into the life of foster homes and social workers after a horrible home situation.  After being hurt by her new stepfather, Carley is placed in foster care while her mother recovers in the hospital from her own injuries inflicted by her new husband. 

Without giving too much of the story away, Carley is placed in the Murphy's home.  This family never had a foster child, but is a loving family who takes Carley in and treats her like one of their own, helping her heal and giving her the family she never had.  At one point in the story, Carley must make the decision whether to return home with her mother and take a chance or stay with the Murphys?  At this point in the book, a box of kleenex needs to be nearby because by now you have grown attached to Carley and feel her pain while she makes this life decision. 
One for the Murphys is a perfect book for middle grades as a read aloud, independent reading, or a book club book.   Although this book deals with serious issues around family and abuse, it is written in a completely appropriate way for middle grades. I am currently reading it aloud to my 5th grade class and they are loving it! I plan on reading it aloud again next year either during our character unit or our social issues unit.  One for the Murphys is such an important book for kids to experience. 
This book is also exciting for me because the author, Lynda Mullaly Hunt, is a local author here in CT and has been scheduling book visits at local B&N's! Thank you Lynda for bringing this beautifully written story into all of our lives! This is such an important book for kids - thank you Lynda!

If you have not had the honor of reading One for the Murphys, move it up to the top of you TBR stack and grab a box of kleenex to have nearby!  Enjoy!

Happy Reading! :)

Lessons for Teaching from Outdoor Education

Our school district offers fifth graders a outdoor education experience and we recently had the much anticipated three day and night excursion to Camp Jewell with the fifth graders. (Full disclaimer: I did not stay overnight so my experience was only partially complete.) This trip is a highlight of the educational experience for most of our students so as I spent time there and as have reflected about it, I have wondered about what we could do differently within our own classroom's walls that would tap into some of the skills and strengths that I emerged and developed in an outdoor setting.

I did have several conversations with students and thought about what we could duplicate within school. Here are some of the thoughts:

• "Writing was easier outside," one student said. As a writer, I agree with him that sometimes it is difficult to think of ideas sitting at a desk or table in a room full of people. For me, writing is a personal experience until I'm ready to share and the great outdoors certainly offers more space.
• Empathy is a skill that I have emphasized this year in my teaching and I think that this concept got through to kids more authentically at Camp Jewell. When we climbed the mountain, we talked about how different people would interpret the view. What if they were from Colorado and regularly climbed large mountains? What if they were from a city? What if they were from a desert?  How does background experience impact people's interpretations of events. The conversations at the top of Camp Jewell's relatively low peak were much richer and I would love to believe that those conversations could push their thinking in book clubs, read-alouds, and Social Studies--maybe throughout all areas of the curriculum.
• Throughout the activities, there were opportunities for collaboration and problem solving. Maybe because they were younger, or maybe because they didn't have the pressures of time and achievement, the counselors were better at letting students fail and figure out their own ways to solve problems. I know that I am guilty of helping students before they probably need help.
• The counselors who ran the program had creative ways to get children's attention whether they were in the dining hall, on a trail, in the middle of a field, or in an outdoor classroom. They used songs, chants, rhythms, and symbols and the children responded. Over the summer, I plan to create a personal repertoire of ways to get children's attentions beyond just a hand in the air.
• Ga-ga was the free-time activity of choice and if you've never played or seen it, here's a link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO73MVAkhzw. I would love to get some ga-ga set-ups for the playground as this is a game that is physical, engaging, inclusive and relatively safe.

One child and I talked about what the focus of math would be if school existed within a Camp Jewell-like atmosphere. With minimal prompting from me, he listed several authentic project-based learning activities. I can't remember all of his ideas, but some were finding an estimated population of salamanders by how many existed in a small place and multiplying that number by the known similar habitats; calculating different rates of going up and down mountains; and creating graphs of the different speeds various objects and people would take to get down the long slide. Why can't we do more of these sorts of activities within our schools? We don't have salamanders but we have blades of grass and leaves on trees and ants on playgrounds.

Who knows what else we could find? What other opportunities exist for real-life applications of math and other subjects that might be so much more engaging for students? What other relevant life lessons can we keep bringing home from a few days in a camp setting with fifth graders? With summer coming, I am going to keep a notebook of learning opportunities that could align with our curriculum and the Common Core, but could also build the sense of purpose, relevance and engagement of this outdoor education experience.

Father's Day in the Classroom?

As a child growing up, I dreaded the years when we were still in school for Father's Day because I did not have a father.  As an only child, growing up with a single mother and living with my grandparents, I accepted the fact that I did not have a father in my life, but my classmates did not.  Every Father's Day, I always made my grandfather, Papa Joe, a handmade coupon book card and in my eyes he was better than any father could ever be! However, in school when my teachers dedicated class time to make gifts for Father's Day, I was teased, questioned, and talked about by my peers as I made a card for my grandfather instead of my father.  They repeatedly asked: "Why don't you have a father? Where's your father? Everyone has a father, so where is yours? Why aren't you making that for your father instead?  These questions were difficult for me to answer for many reasons: it was an emotional topic for me, I truly didn't understand why my father wasn't a part of my life, and I was hurt that my father didn't want to be a part of my life.  In my eyes and heart, my Papa Joe was my "father" but that wasn't a good enough answer for my classmates. 

When I became a teacher, I made a promise to myself and to all my future students that I will never celebrate Mother's Day or Father's Day in my classroom because we truly don't know what is going on inside our students' homes or what wounds they may carry with them about family members.  Each year, I have students who may have experienced: a parent leaving, a parent passing away, a parent losing parental rights, a parent who chooses not to be a part of their life, and many other situations that I may not even be aware of.  In my eyes, we don't have to remind students of these wounds and cause greater pain for them.  For people who have had the honor of having both parents actively supportive in their lives, this perspective may not have even crossed your minds about Mother's Day or Father's Day in the classroom.  But for someone who lived it, I know what it personally feels like. 

Each year, I teach my students that the best gift to give is a piece of writing so throughout the year they know that they can choose to give a piece of writing to a family member for a holiday, birthday, or just because they love them.  I show my students my box of letters, cards, and writing pieces I wrote for and about my Papa Joe that he saved.  This also helps show them the power writing can have on others and how they can give the gift of writing to anyone at any time. 

As Father's Day approaches this month, please consider this personal perspective as you plan your classroom lessons this year and in the future around these holidays.

                             

Thank you Papa Joe for always being there for me!

Thursday is App Day- Hungry Fish

Hungry Fish is a great free app that helps students practice mental math. Picture a fish floating around, needing to eat specific numbers or shrink and shrivel. The user must combine floating bubbles in order to make the specified sum. The free version allows the user to select low sums as well as sums up to 50. It's amazing how responsible students feel about feeding their fish! I have to admit that when I show students how to play, I become pretty sad when the fish keeps shrinking and darting around to look for "food." To increase their attachment to their fish, the program allows users to customize their fish with all different fins and colors. I have had students of all abilities really enjoy this app and improve their math skills. Without realizing it, they practice basic and more complex math facts. If I were teaching higher level math, I would definitely consider some of the upgrades since Motion Math has other applications that allow students to practice subtraction and negative integers. The high level of engagement and and free price tag make this app an easy decision! Enjoy!

Thinking Across Texts in Historical Fiction Unit

I love thinking across texts with my students by connecting themes, characters, lessons, symbols, and relationships.  When students are able to make connections across texts, they lift the level of their thinking and comprehension about the texts by synthesizing and interpreting information.  Students become to expect me to ask them to think across multiple texts in various ways so they begin to do it independently too.

Currently, in our Historical Fiction Unit we are connecting historical events and character actions/decisions within time periods. For example, thinking about how the time period impacted/caused the characters' actions, decisions, and conflicts during the Civil Rights time period by analyzing and connecting Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles , Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins by Weatherford, and The Other Side by Woodson.  Or by looking across The Butterfly by Polacco, The Harmonica by Johnston, Behind the Bedroom Wall by Williams, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by Boyne to connect how the World War II, internment camps, and the Nazis impacted lives, decisions, and actions of the characters  and  people living through that time period.  I am always eager to find different picture books, chapter books, and nonfiction articles we can add to our text sets that we are thinking across and connecting.

 Last week, one of my colleagues, Heather, lent me Glory Be by Augusta Scattergood to read.  As soon as I began reading it, I instantly knew that it was going to connect to Freedom Summer on many levels and was so excited to begin thinking across the two texts.  Both Freedom Summer and Glory Be are set in the 1960's during the Civil Rights time period when African Americans were not allowed to drink out of the same water fountains, eat in the same diners, or swim in the same pools as white people.  In both books, the swimming pool is a main focus and the main characters share similar feelings about the laws being unfair and that the color of your skin should not matter.  My students loved reading and talking about Freedom Summer so I am excited to share Glory Be with them this week.

Happy Reading! :)

Strengthening the Level of Book Club Conversations

In 5th grade, our students participate in book clubs in at least two of our reading units: Social Issues and Historical Fiction.  This year, I tried something a little different to heighten the level of my students' book club conversations and will definitely do it again next year. 

This year, in addition to using consistent whole class conversations and partner conversations throughout the school year to strengthen their ability to talk about books, I also formed book clubs for some of our read alouds.  For example, in between our Social Issues and Historical Fiction units, I had the book club groups practice how to prepare and have successful conversations around our read aloud, The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen.  

During this week, Melanie Meehan and I acted as a mini-book club to model how to prepare for our conversations and use our writing to have successful conversations during our reading workshop minilessons.  We modeled how to plan for our conversations about The Running Dream, using the chart paper as our reader's notebooks during Tuesday and Thursday's minilessons.  After our modeling, students had time to plan for their own book club conversation for the following day during the active engagment part of these minilessons.  Then on Wednesday and Friday of that week, Melanie Meehan and I modeled how to use our writing that we did on the previous day to have a successful conversation about The Running Dream by having a fishbowl conversation during the minilesson.  After observing our conversation and sharing what they noticed, students went off to have their own book club conversations around the read aloud by using their writing to help them.

Student Example of Preparing for Conversation

Student Example of Preparing for Conversation
(This student even referenced Growth Mindset!!)

By using a read aloud for book club conversations this week, we were able to clearly model and coach into how to strengthen our conversation skills. This indepth work of strengthening students' ability to write and talk deeply about books made a big impact on the level of their conversations and writing about their reading. 

The following week, we launched our Historical Fiction book club unit, but instead of having students begin choosing their historical fiction book club books right away, I had the book clubs focus their conversations  on our picture book read alouds for one week.  On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of that week, they focused their conversation on different historical fiction picture books that we read aloud such as: Henry's Freedom Box, Freedom Summer, and Freedom on the Menu.  During this week, I also had the book clubs create "mini-charts for the historical fiction picture book read aloud that they discussed just like I create charts for each of our read alouds.  I was so impressed by their thoughtful work and the level of their thinking on these mini-charts and in their book club conversations about these read alouds.

 

After this successful week of talking about the picture book read alouds, each book club chose their own set of 3-4 historical fiction books they will read and discuss during this book club unit.  Their conversations and writing are definitely at a higher level than they were before and as one student said it last week when their work was complimented by another teacher, "That's how we roll in here." :)

Enjoy! :)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Thanks to Jen and Kellee for inspiring me to read and write about the books every week. I love visiting teachmentortexts.com for more book recommendations each week!


I read The (Almost) True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodney Philbrick over the weekend. I don’t generally expect humor in historical fiction that has to do with the Civil War, and there were times when I had to second-guess myself when I was laughing at a young boy's mishaps. However, I loved Homer and I think that he would have wanted me to be chuckling! I loved his honesty, his determination, his lies (there are several), and his sense of humor.  I am looking forward to some of my daughters and students reading this so that we can debate what really could and could not have happened in Homer’s narrative. (I would argue that all of it was within the possibilities of reality!)

This book offers some great possibilities for learning and discussions. Homer’s adventures begin in Maine and Philbrick wove in some Underground Railroad history with a conductor who was a wealthy Quaker. History lessons continue with enlistment, Hydrogen balloons, traveling circuses, and fighting conditions and they culminate with the Battle of Gettysburg. Some of the scenes are predictably violent since Philbrick rightfully presents the brutality of the Civil War. Homer faces ethical dilemmas and decisions throughout the book, paving the way for right vs. right conversations with children—some of my favorite conversations. Homer is also an amazing model of perseverance, resilience, and commitment for readers.

As a mentor text, The (Almost) True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, would be a wonderful choice for teaching voice and humor because Homer is subtle and wonderfully funny. Vignettes throughout the book could mentor story-tellers, as well as Philbrick's development of strong characters in many different settings. Homer is definitely a character worth knowing!

It's Monday! What are You Reading?

I absolutely love Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts so I was very excited to hear that she wrote a new picture book, Happy Like Soccer!  I use Those Shoes as a read aloud, mentor text, and in my minilessons for reading and writing workshop throughout the year with my 5th graders.  So the first few times I read Happy Like Soccer, my wheels were spinning with all the ways I can refer to parts of it in my reading and writing instruction next year. 

The story is about a young girl, Sierra, who loves to play soccer, but in the same breath she hates it because her auntie can not take time off from work on Saturdays to watch her play or cheer for her on the sidelines.  When each game starts, she sees and hears families cheering for her teammates; she is the only one that doesn't have someone there.  One day, Sierra's game has to be rescheduled due to rain and she gets the idea to talk to her coach about rescheduling it on a day her auntie is off from work. 

This story has a powerful, young character who has a strong relationship with her auntie and wants to hear her name called from the sidelines.  As educators, it reminds us how important family members are to our students and we must remember this when we schedule writing celebrations, class celebrations, plays, concerts, and any other event when family members are invited.  We need to remember that not everyone has a family member that can take time off from work as easily as some others.  I look forward to reading aloud Happy Like Soccer in my classroom and referring to it as a mentor text in my reading and writing workshop minilessons.

Thursday is App Day! Dropbox

In addition to being a classroom teacher, I mentor/coach new teachers, write/revise our district reading curriculum, and lead professional development sessions so I depend on my electronic documents and files. Over the years, I used 4 different flashdrives to save and access information at school and home. Each flashdrive was dedicated to a different focus: classroom teaching, district curriculum and professional development, photos, and one for miscellaneous documents. As you can imagine, it was challenging to always make sure I had a flashdrive with me at all times for impromptu meetings and professional development sessions. 

Last year, a colleague introduced me to Dropbox and ever since that day, my electronic life has been so much easier - thank you Bryan!  By using Dropbox, I haven't had to use my flashdrives and I no longer fret about whether or not I have a flashdrive with me to save/access files.  Now I can access any file or document on my school computer, home computer, iPad, and iPhone any time I need it!  I use Dropbox every day and now my "electronic life" is now organized all in one place. 

Dropbox is free and you just need to download it onto the computers you use (work, home) by going to www.dropbox.com and download the Dropbox app on your iPad/iPhone through itunes. Then you will be all set to save documents, create folders, and access them on any device.  For example, if I am working on a document at school, I save it in my Dropbox folder and then when I get home, I can continue to work on the same document by opening it in my Dropbox folder on my home laptop, iPad, or iPhone - it's amazing and so efficient!  When I am at a meeting and want to share documents with my colleagues, they are just a click away by opening up my Dropbox files on any device or computer.So even if I don't have a personal device with me, I can access my files by logging into my Dropbox account on http://www.dropbox.com/.  The days of feeling regret or a sense of panic that I forgot my flashdrive at home or in my other bag are long gone thanks to the ease of Dropbox.  If you have not downloaded it or used it yet, don't put it off any longer - trust me, you will love it!

Dropbox files on my laptop

Dropbox files on my iPad/iPhone

Enjoy! :)

Progress Monitoring for Writing

As a Special Education teacher, an important part of my job is progress monitoring. While I like my assessment systems for reading and math, I have struggled with how to progress monitor writing. My colleagues have been using a system that involves giving students prompts and then assessing how many words they produce in a three minute time period. For some students with fluency or production issues, this is meaningful. However, many of my students struggle with executive processing and they need specialized instruction to develop focus, organization, and their abilities to respond to questions. Therefore, asking them to write as much as possible to a prompt is not really measuring the skills that will help them become more successful and independent within regular education.

This year, I set up writing binders for my  5th and 6th graders, scaffolding the writing process for them. Fifth and sixth graders have been working on essay writing and when students first learn about essays, we teach them the basic structure of the five paragraph essay. Therefore, I set them up with tabbed sections for:

• Developing a topic. All they have to do is state a thesis and three supporting details.
• Expanding the topic. They have to do the above, but add anecdotal stories, facts, or evidence that support the details.
• A scaffolded introduction. I give them the written prompts for a hook, their thesis statement, and a sentence containing their three reasons.
• An unscaffolded introduction. They have to write the introduction without my support.
• A scaffolded developmental paragraph. I worked out templates for them to follow to maintain their essay's organization and include the details from their expanded topic.
• An unscaffolded developmental paragraph.

My experience with this indicated that once students could work through all of these steps, I did not need to include the conclusion, because they were independently able to summarize their work if they got that far.

The benefits of using this system was that I knew exactly where individual students struggled in the writing process. For example, one of my students couldn't think of ideas but once he did, could move through the steps. Another student required significant instruction to write an introduction. Therefore, he stayed in the scaffolded introduction section for several lessons. For all of my students with writing goals and objectives, I know exactly where they are sequentially in the steps of writing essays and, more importantly, they know where they are! Essays are overwhelming for students who have struggled with writing so I found that laying it out for them with specific steps to master was empowering to students.

For next year, I will continue to set up binders and I may try some color-coding to help some of my visual learners. One of my colleagues has added a place for students to organize and self-assess whether they have included elaboration strategies such as quotes, facts, anecdotes, statistics and descriptions. I may work on including this step within my binder, as well--thank you, Heather. In the meantime, benchmark assessments are underway and so far, I am pleased with the growth I have seen in most of my students for written expression.

Classroom Book Awards

Last week, I read a post by Colby Sharp about Classroom Book Awards on his blog and I loved the idea! It is a perfect way to reflect on all the great books we read and enjoyed during the school year.  At the end of each school year,  I always have students reflect on our class read alouds by choosing which read alouds were their favorite, sparked the best conversations, had the strongest characters, and taught them important life lessons.  However, I never thought about opening the reflection up to include more categories and to give out book awards, which seems more official and exciting for the kids.  So yesterday, I created a nomination form that lists the award categories with a space for students to write down the titles they want to nominate to win the award. 

Nomination Form for Classroom Book Awards

Today I am going to introduce the Classroom Book Awards idea and the nomination form.  First, I will ask students if they want to change or add different award categories to the form to get their input (this form is just a brainstorm and a starting point). Then I am going to have students complete the nomination forms independently before voting.  Once we have identified our winners, students will create an award label for each category that we can place on the winning book covers in our classroom library to make it even more official.  I will keep you posted about the award winners in another post so stay tuned!  Thank you Colby Sharp for sharing this wonderful idea!

Happy Reading! :)