Share the Love of a Good Book!

Last week, my class focused on the important skill of summarizing a text. A few of my students were struggling with this and I wanted to find a way for them to gain extra practice without making them feel like I was just giving them extra work. Since I couldn't find anything that seemed to fit on TeachersPayTeachers, I decided to create it myself.

http://bit.ly/1Px5QSO

I have written off and on in journals for years, but have found that I am much more engaged and consistent now that I have a blog. Having an audience makes all the difference. Of course, at this point the audience of my blog may only consist of my co-teacher and my best friend. I think even my husband only skims it.  Still it is an audience. My students needed an audience for their summaries.

My students have been fired up about reading since we returned to school in January. They share books and recommend books to each other from our classroom library. With the book fair at our school this week, everyone was talking about books and I needed to capitalize on that. I could have had them write simple book reports and read these out loud to the class, but I knew our week didn't allow enough time for that. What gives information about a book, but is far shorter than a book report? A book review!

Using the format of Somebody, Wanted, But, Then, So, I created a form for students to fill out about a book they had recently read from our classroom library. I added a second form to include more information about the book. The students needed a little help filling out these forms. I sat at my kidney shaped table with six students and provided support as they each chose a book and completed the forms. Once the forms were completed, the students simply filled in the blanks to write a book review. It was necessary to read back over their writing and add a few words here and there, but for the most part I was impressed with their results.

It was time for an authentic audience. Potential readers typically read book reviews, so my students visited http://goqr.me, typed in their review, and downloaded a qr code link. They added this qr code to a Google Doc along with the title and their name. Once it was printed, I taped the qr code to the back of the book from our classroom library. Now anyone considering reading each book, can scan the qr code and read the student's review.

Although I initially created this for my students that needed extra summarizing practice, by the second day every student in my class was asking to write one. I found my stronger readers needed very little help with the format. We use Google Classroom, so many of them were surprised how easy it was to create the qr code and insert it into the Google Doc. Students have asked if they may write one every time they read a book from our classroom library. Students asking to write more? Nothing warms my heart more! As a Valentine's gift to my dear readers, I've put my QR Code Book Review product on TpT on sale from February 14th to February 17th. Show your students how much you care by giving them an opportunity to write for an authentic audience.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am fortunate to spend this Thanksgiving at my in-laws home. Waking up to their beautiful view of the lake is always a treat. Those close to me know that my life has not always been easy, but I have always tried to have an attitude of thankfulness despite my circumstances. Some days it is harder than others. Today it is easy.

As I reflect on the people in my life, I am truly grateful for the most amazing co-teacher. Cathy is one of the most intelligent people I know. She cares deeply for her students and works so hard to make sure she is reaching each one. Cathy keeps me grounded, while giving me the support to fly into any crazy, new idea I may have. I know that seems impossible that one person could do both things, but that is just how incredible she is. Without her wisdom and support, I wouldn't be half the teacher I am.

In an effort to be more efficient with instructional time and increase student engagement, Cathy and I try to design our reading lessons around novel studies. We choose novels that tie into our social studies and science curriculum. For instance, during our study of Ancient Rome in social studies our students learn about Simple Machines in science. We discuss how the Ancient Greeks invented catapults, but the Romans used levers and wheels to improve on the design. The students read either The Time Warp Trio: See You Later, Gladiator, I Survived The Destruction of Pompeii, or Moving Target by Christina Diaz Gonzalez. 

It is difficult to manage three different novel studies at one time. We usually rotate back and forth between a whole class novel study and differentiated groups. After the break, we will all read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is so much easier for the teacher to have the whole class reading the same book. It just isn't always best practice for us. Every year, we seem to have a big gap between our readers' abilities. This gap generally closes to some extent by the end of the year. I had an incoming third grader's mother tell me she read the entire Harry Potter series and the Hobbit over the summer. She took the Accelerated Reader test on all of them at the beginning of the year and passed. I can't have that child reading Magic Tree House books all year! 

So Cathy and I are always trying to find a way to differentiate our reading in a way that we can manage. The novel studies offered on TeachersPayTeachers have been a huge help. For more popular books, there are many different ones to choose from. Unfortunately, I fell in love with Moving Target before I realized it was a recently released book.  There were no novel studies available, so I created one for us to use. It is available on TeachersPayTeachers. 

How do you differentiate your novel studies? Has someone figured out a manageable way? Please share! Cathy and I are always looking for a better and more efficient way to reach our rowdy kids.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and are able to take a few moments to reflect on the wonderful people in your life who help you be your best. 

Happy Thanksgiving!