Book clubs in first grade?! It may seem like a stretch, but the Spring is such a great time to get your students ready and used to reading, thinking about, and discussing books with their peers instead of me, the teacher! When done right, it can be such a fun learning experience for both […]

Book Club, Johan Deckmann

@MaryEhrenworth Listen to conversation like its gold #TCRWP #bookclub

As our reading tutor training continues, we’ve learned a lot of great new ideas about how to teach the basics of reading and phonics to students of all ages, especially students that are English language learners (ELL). One of the things that we’ve done some extensive work with is the vowel circle. The vowel circle is composed of five categories designed to help students recognize vowels patterns in their spelling and in their every day speech. It starts out with the first group that is the smilers. Smilers are vowels or vowel patterns that, when said, have your mouth form a smile-like shape, such as the “ee” in cheese or the “ay” in play. Next come the open vowels. When open vowels or vowel patterns are used the mouth usually ends in an open position, such as the “aw” in saw. The round vowels are ones that usually leave your mouth in a rounded position with your lips slightly puckered, such as the “o-e” in tune or the “oa” in coat. The crazy r’s are there to remind students that r’s make vowels do crazy things that they wouldn’t do around other consonants and that –er, -ir and –ur all sound the same in a word. The sliders are an interesting category because they make your mouth slide from one position (either open, round or smiler) to another, such as the “ou” in out when your mouth slides from open to smiler. The vowel circle is a great tool to use in many elementary grade levels. It really helps students to make associations with vowels and create connections in their brains where they might not have had them before. The vowel circle enables the students to connect vowel sounds to a visual (the pictures in the circle and the actual text of the vowel pattern) to a sound, to a feel in their mouths. Students that use the vowel circle correctly and constantly in class and small group have shown a marked improvement in both their spelling and their decoding skills. If you’re working in an elementary school or simply want to work on pronunciation at home, looking at the vowel circle is a good place to start. Happy Reading!

Hello Cozy Readers! Do you belong to a book club? If not, why not get your friends together and start one! To get the discussion going, we’ve put together a list of some great questions that …

Get a first look at Angeline Boulley's debut genre-bending YA thriller 'Firekeeper's Daughter.'

Puzzle-solving genius kids form a pint-size crime-fighting Mod Squad in this month's Backseat Book Club pick. Trenton Lee Stewart, author of The Mysterious Benedict Society, takes questions from young readers about the book's twists, turns and creative conundrums.

Wanting to revamp your independent reading program? Try using a classroom book club, which is a great way to enrich, engage, and differentiate in secondary.

My literacy blocks are beginning their first book clubs. They will be reading and discussing books in a series. They were supposed to do this unit back in November, but at that time my teammates and I thought it best to go ahead with the nonfiction unit instead. The main reason was that we did not have enough books. Now we are ready to go and the students are really excited! Here are some of the pieces I have put in place to get us started...I will share more as the clubs progress. Each book club completed and signed a contract. We put them on display to remind everyone of the expectations and procedures. Book Club folders contain the following: a copy of the contract, a meeting checklist, a calendar of meeting times and page assignments, the book, sticky notes. Students use the meeting checklist as a self-assessment. Students filled out their own calendars to decide how many pages or chapters they were going to read to prepare for each meeting. Book Club Anchor Charts 

Whether your little one is a new reader or into their own chapter books, starting your own book club for kids is easy with these tips and tricks!

I am linking up today with two awesome Monday linkies!! First, the amazing Tara from 4th Grade Frolics is beginning her WEEKLY Monday Made-It series today for the summer! I LOVE this linky and it kept me going all summer last year on my to-do list! Although I am not on summer vacation yet and I blogged about many Made-Its here on May 13th, I have a couple Made Its to share:) Home Made It: I already posted about my 6 year-old daughter's diva birthday party (think nails done, face painting, and dancing!). All I had to do was bring the cake to the party! So stress free:) I decided to make cupcakes and found this awesome rainbow cupcake on Pinterest from CosmoCookie. Since my daughter's favorite colors are pink and purple, I decided to go with those. I followed the directions and bought a white cake mix (I do love to bake from scratch but who am I to argue when the directions say to stop overachieving and go with the box mix?). I divided the cake batter and colored half of it pink (with just a touch of red food coloring) and the other half purple (half red and half blue food coloring). I poured each color one at at time into the middle of the cupcake paper cups. I layered it pink, purple, pink, purple. Here is a picture of the first two layers. Here they are baked:) So pretty! My daughter had a fairy theme for her "diva" party and I bought fairy cupcake holders, toppers, invitations, thank-you notes, and gift bags from the Meri Meri Flower Fairies line. Isn't the pink and purple layered in the middle so fancy? I thought they turned out super cute and they were super easy and inexpensive! The moms were also so impressed and asked all about how I made cupcakes this way:) Classroom Made-It: I made a couple handouts (that counts, right?) that I wanted to share with you to accompany the Book Clubs I am doing in my ELA class right now. You can read more about their kick-off here. I purchased Laura Candler's Classroom Book Clubs and am loving this amazing resource with step-by-step how to videos! We just started Book Clubs last week and were only able to meet two days due to Memorial Day, Science State Testing, and a Field Trip. However, my students have finalized their calendars as groups for reading their books and when to complete their reading response assignments by June 11th. I made these guidelines for groups to know what is expected on full meeting days and daily quick checks. The written assignment directions are also provided. For the written assignments, I made a tic-tac-toe choice board (students LOVE choices!) of some of my favorite reading response activities from the amazing Rachel Lynette's Reading Response Worksheets for Grades 3-6. Here is a picture collage of my Tic-Tac-Toe board and snapshots of Rachel's Reading Response worksheets. Click here to download my Book Club modified directions and Tic-Tac-Toe Board in editable powerpoint (minus the cute border that needed to be removed due to copyright...but you can add your own cute border!). The font doesn't show up right unless you have that downloaded on your computer too (I used Oh{Photo}Shoot for the title font). We will be continuing Book Clubs this week and I am anxious to see how it works out! I will update and share more soon:) I would also like to share a Must-Have and link up with the wonderful Sabra from Teaching with a Touch of Twang. I apologize for another personal link up here but since it is Monday, and my Must-Have just makes Mondays super special, I have to share my guilty pleasure of the Bachelorette/Bachelor. Currently, it is the Bachelorette (with Des?) and I am THRILLED that Monday night TV over the summer will be so entertaining! Seriously, I have watched every season of Bachelor/Bachelorette and will be super sad when it doesn't continue anymore (all good things come to an end eventually, right?). Barely anyone I work with watches this show (they look at me like I am crazy when I start trying to talk about it!). I don't think they know what they are missing! Haha!! If you love this show, you have to check out Teeny Tiny Teacher's Talk About It Tuesday. She is a huge fan and her reviews of the show are hilarious:) Definitely a MUST-HAVE for me! Oh, I almost forgot to update you on the Tried It Tuesday survey for continuing over the summer! I was actually surprised by how many readers and bloggers wanted to continue the linky WEEKLY over the summer! Yay!! It wasn't unanimous though (about a 75/25 split). So, I have worked out a little plan in my mind. I would like to: Continue hosting WEEKLY FOR JUNE (Yes, check back tomorrow for reading or linking up!) Host JULY ONLY ONCE on the 2nd Tuesday of the Month (July 9th)... "TWOSDAY"...get it? :) Go back to hosting WEEKLY IN AUGUST. Thank you all for your support and I think July will be a good break since just about everyone is off this month. Of course, as always, you can link up ANYTHING you have tried (NEW or OLD) and it can be classroom or home related! I love reading about them all and have learned so much. I will need the summer to sort through all the new pins:) Thank you again for your bloggy love, whether it is by reading, commenting, or linking up!!

I just found this cute idea on Pinterest from Sweet Serendipity . What a fun treat for special days where you drop everything and read or me...

Firstly, Miss Dashwood of Yet Another Period Drama Blog had a lovely Period Drama Dress Quiz last week which was amazing good fun! My kn...

In her new memoir, 'Educated,' Tara Westover recounts how she left an isolated childhood behind to go to college and beyond. A 4-star review.

It's another snowy day in Michigan, which I really don't mind if I don't have anywhere far to go. I just wish I could move my computer desk right in front of the fireplace! I'm linking up a few days late for Workshop Wednesday by Ideas by Jivey. Better late than never, right? I was inspired by Jivey's Workshop Wednesday this week which is all about using historical fiction. I'm getting ready to start our first book club of the year using The Hidden Girl. It's an autobiography written by Lola Rein Kaufman, a Jewish Holocaust survivor. It's a fascinating and moving story, which makes for great book club discussions. After reading Jivey's post I was motivated to try something new. I got to school extra early Friday morning and dug out one of my favorite historical fiction books, Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti. I love this book, because it requires a great deal of inferring. The illustrations are beautiful and add a tremendous amount of meaning to the text. I created a packet to go with the story along with a PowerPoint slide show of a few of the illustrations that I wanted the students to be able to look at closely. This is one of the pictures we looked at in the PowerPoint. It's not the best picture, but you get the idea. I loved the discussion that we had throughout the book! It was interesting to hear who already had a lot of prior knowledge about the topic (one student brought up Jewish ghettos, wow!) and those who didn't have much at all (one student responded to another with, What's the Holocaust?). But they totally figured out everything in the book! They figured out it was about the Nazis in World War II, the Holocaust, the Jews in concentrations camps...all of it! And by the end of the discussion, everyone had some prior knowledge about the subject. This is the class anchor chart we started together. I'm hoping this activity will have really piqued their interest on the topic, so they will be raring to dive into The Hidden Girl next week! If you would like to try this inferring lesson with your students, you can find it at my TPT Store. You can also check out my book club unit based on The Hidden Girl by Lola Rein Kaufman. Make sure you check out other ways of using historical fiction in your classroom by stopping by Workshop Wednesday at Idea's by Jivey! Subscribe to the Forever in Fifth Grade Newsletter for the latest info on freebies, classroom tips, and special sales!

Hello darlings! How are student led conversations going in your classrooms? CCSS is really big on students having meaningful conversations about literature. While my kiddo have NO problem talking and talking and talking… they do have a problem RESPONDING to other people’s thoughts and ideas! They will just share something they read or thought and ... Read More about Accountable Talk Freebie

Here is your free menu, table craft, table topics, and family service project to compliment the book, My Father's Dragon.

Ok, just because I've been gone from 'blogging land' doesn't mean we haven't been working hard in 4B. I've definitely been documenting a lot of what we've been doing! To start, it was clear to me that our old way of peer conferencing just wasn't working. Kids seemed to be goofing around, not really helping each other, and it was a waste of everyone's time. It frustrated me when most of my one-on-one conference time was spent managing unruly PEER conferences. I knew something had to change. I decided to revamp our workshop so that our peer conferences would hold both the author and the peer more accountable AND work on our 6-traits language. I introduced our 'new' method for peer conferencing using this anchor chart to document our process. After students finish drafting, they are to grab a 6-traits peer conferencing sheet and assess themselves by circling all the descriptors for each trait that they feel match their own writing. Mind you, we did a lot of whole-class practice with scoring writing based on the 6-traits criteria so students would feel comfortable doing this process on their own (and being HONEST!). Through our mini-lessons we've learned that it's possible to have high scores in some traits but lower scores in others. That's how we grow! Here you see Devin circling where he thinks his writing falls on our 6-traits rubric. (Note: The link to the 6-traits peer conferencing sheet above will bring you to an even more updated version than the one shown in this blog posting! Just FYI!) Here's another student assessing her own writing after she's drafted. This student has finished assessing her writing using our rubric. She decides on a final number score and circles it to the left of the descriptors. Then it's time to meet with a peer. (We have a peer conference sign-up sheet in our room which helps students know which other students in the room are also ready to peer conference.) Here you see this author reading his story to his peer. After he's done reading, he will explain to his peer the scores he gave himself and why. It's important for the peer to listen carefully to the author because it will soon be her turn to assign a score to this author for each trait . On the lines on the rubric, she will write to explain the scores she gives him. The peer needs to follow the following sentence stems in his/her scoring response: * I give this a writer a ___ because... * This writer needs to work on ... This process requires peers to truly work together, hold each other accountable, and it gets the kids using our 6-traits language a lot more. The second sentence stem helps the writer establish a goal for what to work on when revising! To see more of this peer conferencing process, watch a clip of us practicing this stage! Our focus lately has been on the trait of organization. We've been looking thoroughly at different beginnings and endings of both student and published writing. Here is our anchor chart documenting what we noticed! In other Writer's Workshop news, these are a few additional anchor charts we have in our room to help keep our writing organized. This anchor chart reminds us of powerful words to use to spice up 'said'! In reading we have been working hard on purposeful talk.This is so very important to the social construction of knowledge in any classroom! It's essential to teach students purposeful talk behaviors before even considering literature discussion groups (LDGs). The majority of kids talk like...well, KIDS! So, if we expect kids to talk like mature young people about different texts they read, we need to explicitly teach them how! Talking about Text by Maria Nichols is a great place to start if you're interesting in learning more about purposeful talk behaviors. I taught each of the behaviors individually through two separate mini-lessons - one day to explain 'hearing all voices' in a concrete way (without text), and a second day to practice 'hearing all voices' using text. Then I taught 'saying something meaningful' in a concrete way without using text, and the next day we practiced 'saying something meaningful' using text , and so on. Eventually all of the purposeful talk behaviors kind of blended together and kids started to discover that we often need to use all of these things at the same time in order to truly talk purposefully about anything! We did a lot of practicing, and I've been taping students in this process. Here is a clip of students practicing their behaviors while they talk about their families. (We had read a few books about different kinds of families to foster a safe environment to celebrate the fact that we all have different kinds of families!) We also had students practice their purposeful talk behaviors while discussing their best or worst memory in school (which helped warm up their brains for a timed writing activity we did during writer's workshop). Here is a clip! As a class, we watched these video clips to analyze our body language and other purposeful talk behaviors. I think taping and analyzing is a very effective way for students to learn how they should look and sound in an LDG. 'Keeping the lines of thinking alive' is a tough concept for many youngsters. Sometimes what happens is that students take turns talking, but they don't really build on what the person before them said. In other words, they don't really DISCUSS, they just share and listen. We applauded the first group in this clip because they had good body language and were respectful as listeners, but we discovered their conversation needed to be more 'alive' by asking questions and making connections to each other's ideas and thoughts. Mrs. Pierce and I taped ourselves doing a weak LDG and a strong LDG. As we watched each example, we used dots and lines to 'map out' our conversations (see chart below). In the weak LDG, we discovered Mrs. Pierce and I shared a lot of individual thoughts. The thought started, and then it stopped. There was really no discussion about anything we said; and Mrs. Pierce wasn't even looking at me during part of our time together! How rude! ;) In the strong LDG example, we mapped out a lot of dots and lines that were connected because we took each other's ideas and built on them. We truly discussed the text to dig deeper. We introduced several conversational moves for students to use to help get their voice heard in a conversation. Students also have these conversational moves on a bookmark that they keep in their LDG books. After we learned the respectful ways to speak and act when discussing with others, it was time to teach our kids how to flag their thinking. This is a crucial step to holding a successful literature discussion group because it allows the kids to track their important thoughts while reading so they have ideas for discussion the next day. Here are the 'codes' we use to track our thinking on post-its. We encourage students to use one of our codes to categorize the kind of thought they have and then write a few words to trigger their thought. This helps them when they get into a discussion group; they'll actually have pinpointed ideas to discuss! Students kept a chart in their Thoughtful Logs with all of our codes on it for easy reference. Here's a clip of our students as they practice flagging their thinking for the first time. The next day, students put all their new learning to the test. We put them in small groups to discuss the text "Slower Than the Rest" which is a short realistic fiction story out of Cynthia Rylant's book Every Living Thing. On another day, we used a high-interest two-page non-fiction text about leeches to continue practicing flagging our thoughts. Here's a clip of our kids flagging their thinking just after we modeled it during our mini-lesson. Below are some pictures of the kids' flagged thoughts. In addition to purposeful talk, we've also been studying the historical fiction genre. We've read several mentor texts, including Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner and Dandelions by Eve Bunting. Our first round of literature discussion books are all within the historical fiction genre. Here are a few of our historical fiction LDGs hard at work: Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail Scraps of Time: Abby Takes a Stand The River and the Trace (I think I put my finger over the microphone at minute 2:00!) Oftentimes, historical fiction books will have a flashback in them. One group's book, called A Scrap of Time: Abby Takes a Stand by Patricia McKissick, has a flashback that occurs towards the beginning of the story. I photocopied some of the pages to try to explain this technique during a whole class mini-lesson. In the first section of the book, three grandkids are spending time with their grandma in her attic. They find an old menu and ask their grandma why she saved it. Chapters 1 through 12 flash back to 1960, where 'grandma' is just 10-years-old, living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time of a lot of civil rights protests. The menu is from a restaurant where a lot of sit-ins took place. Through the flashback a reader learns all about life during the 1960s. In the final section of the book, a reader finds him/herself back in the present - in grandma's attic, where the three grandkids ask their grandma some questions about her life during the sixties. There was also another flashback in the story Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner. We also read The Wreck of the Zephyr by Chris VanAllsburg as an example of a flashback in a fantasy book! In other reading news, here is a picture of the anchor chart that stored all the non-fiction text features we've learned. In social studies, we've been studying the economy of the five U.S. regions. Students have been reading small sections of non-fiction leveled readers to summarize a product or industry that is important to each region's economy. Students are typing up their summaries and we're calling those summaries 'articles' as they each create a magazine of our economy. Through this project, students have learned to: * Summarize main ideas * Center and left-justify their cursor * Use the tab key to indent * Change font size, color, and style * Bold, underline, and italicize * Safe image searches * Copy and paste * Cite their picture resources Here is the inside of one student's magazine. Next week we will be using this site to create magazine covers! Lastly, we had a chance to meet with our second-grade buddies earlier this month. We split the buddies up into two groups and one group stayed with Mrs. Adams to play holiday bingo. The other group was with me in the computer lab. Buddies used this site to play a variety of math and English games. One of the most popular games to play was called 'Story Plant' where students could click on different leaves to create the beginning to a unique story. Depending on what leaves were clicked, you would get a different combination of characters, settings, problems, etc. The computer generates a beginning to a story that the kids can print off and finish during writer's workshop! Have a wonderful weekend!

Liven up your next Socratic Seminar with these fun games and strategies to get students talking about ANY text!

Fluency is such an important component of reading. Low fluency rate may not always be detected until late elementary or early middle school. Suddenly, a student is expected to read more curriculum in a short period of time, and is not able to keep up with his or her studies. This is one area of reading that I wanted to tweak so my students would be well prepared. I realize that in order to increase a student's fluency rate, he or she needs to practice reading. I reflected back to my personal experience of joining a book club. My book club read a different genre each month . . . i.e. we didn't read chick lit. each month. I thought this must be what it's like for my students. You know, reading a book that's not really your personal taste. Whenever the genre wasn't my taste, it took me all month to read it. Most months I would have a cram session a couple of days before my book club met to finish the book. UGH! This must be what my students feel like! I decided to do something a little different to help my students. On Wednesdays, students are encouraged to bring a book of their choice to school. It can be a book they checked out of the library or one of their personal books. If they don't have one, they may check a book from my class library. I give them 20 minutes of time to read in class. Then we meet in book club groups. Students are grouped differently each week. Sometimes we meet according to the genre of the book. Other time I will have students meet in groups of 3 and do a book talk, mini-commercial about their book. Each student has a Book Club folder. I attached the assignment sheets (below) in the 3 prongs in the folder. I made each student a Book Club booklet. I cut construction paper in half, put copier paper in it, and stapled it together. The assignments are numbered. Each week, students complete an assignment about the chapter they read at school. Some weeks I assign a specific assignment, other weeks I let students choose their assignment. I found these assignments from different websites, but I'm sorry I can't remember which one or I would give him or her credit for the great ideas. Please let me know if you know the source. Book club is making a difference! I'm sure the key factor is CHOICE! Choice of book and some weeks they have choice of assignment. Below are the forms I use:

Creative Writing Worksheet – Expressing Emotions (PDF) Emotions dictate our actions more than we would like to admit, and for the writer, they’re an integral part of creating character motivation. Of course, they’re also very important for hooking the reader, and while you can certainly play it by ear, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised…

"Julius Caesar’s assassination was the last time everyone in a group project did their part."

The wonders of books are endless – they can eliminate your stress, increase your happiness, and boost your intelligence. Whether you’ve crossed out some

Looking for some ideas on Book Club Names? Here you will find listed a good list to help you start thinking about your own Book Club Name.

Check out these fun activities from Award Winning Author/Illustrator Jarett Lerner to do at home or in the classsroom. Includes comics, drawing, and more.

One of the best things about reading realistic fiction is that you don't have to always experience something to experience it. In other words, you can experience poverty, death, heartbreak, loneliness through the characters. In fact, it creates empathy to have experienced these things in literature. It creates compassion.