Read for ways to foster student-led learning, build classroom community, and create excitement around reading with books clubs.
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 […]
Years ago I was lucky enough to attend a Linda Holliman workshop. It.was.AWESOME!! She is such a hoot and her ideas are SO inspiring!!! ...
Looking for ways to make your next book club meeting pop? This collection of fun activities will make sure everyone has a great time!
We are here to help you add some tools to your teacher toolkit in order to become effective at managing Book Clubs in your classroom.
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.
Book reports and summaries are a thing of the past. Engage your middle and high school students with five book report alternatives that will leave them asking for more and, most importantly, building vital reading and analysis skills along the way. 1. Assign one pagers at the end of a novel. One pagers are engaging, allow for creativity, and lead to higher level thinking and analysis. Assigning a one pager is easy and works for any novel. Follow these simple guidelines: • Make it standards base
Wonder activities for your classroom that are "wonder" ful and effective with your Wonder novel studies or We're All Wonders Book.
Create meaningful and successful classroom book clubs in middle and high school by setting expectations and designing a practical schedule.
Little kids have a hard time expressing emotions. They often get frustrated, have an outburst or act out in a physical nature. Going to school, whether it is preschool or elementary, is sometimes hard. There are lots of new faces, expectations and skills each day. So helping them put a voice to their feelings is the best way we can prepare them to handle uncomfortable situations. We developed the perfect kit for other teachers and moms looking to teach their children about their emotions. You can purchase the kit from our Simply Sprout Store. The kit is designed to explore students emotions and feelings. Students can learn to define what their feelings are using this kit. There is a chart for your to print and laminate, just add velcro or magnets onto the back of the feeling monsters. Have students identify their own feelings and show them on the chart. Students can use one of the three pages provided to either draw, journal or record weekly feelings and emotions. For teachers there is also a bulletin board kit to display student work around the classroom. The Way I Feel Kit Contains: The Way I feel Feelings Chart 8 Feelings cards Daily Behavior tracker The Way I feel Activity sheet The Way I feel Bulletin Board Kit ( The Way We Feel Header and 8 emotion monsters with titles) The Way I feel Journal Page I Printed the kit and laminated it at my local Kinkos (I like using their small pouch laminator because the lamination film is extra durable and thick) I added small velcro dots onto the back of the monsters and to the circles on the chart. I mounted my daughters chart next to her bed. I used sticky velcro to attach a small mirror next to her chart as well as her emotions cards (which are attached together using a plastic luggage tag cord) When I introduced her new chart we talked about each of the feelings and cards and reviewed what the emotion words meant. I showed her how she needed to look in the mirror and see her expression and then find the feeling that matched what she saw. Within a few minutes she was trying out her new skills on her baby brother... After flipping through her cards, my daughter determined her brother was frustrated because he couldn't climb up on the bed on his own. So I asked her, "What could we do to help him with his feeling of frustration?" "Mommy I could help him up on the bed, and then he would be happy again!" She says ...Why yes Kaitlyn I think that's a great idea! Now our little man is back to being happy and his feeling of frustration is gone! When setting up this area in your home be sure to make it a comfortable private spot where your child can reflect and work through their emotions. Now instead of getting frustrated with my daughter when she is melting down I just send her to her bed to take a break and evaluate her emotions. With older children you can use the printables from the kit to have them write or draw about their emotions. Just copy several back to back and place in a folder or have them spiral bound at your local copy store. The sheet below help younger children to express their emotions through their drawing. Just right click and save the image below to print for your class or little ones at home. Helping your children to see that they have the power within themselves to change the way they feel will give them encouragement to discover and work through their emotions. We would love to hear how you incorporate this kit into your home or classroom please write to us at [email protected]
Free Summer Reading Pack for Kids! Perfect for Homeschool Summer Reading Programs
Plenty of stick book activities and ideas can be found in this post, based on 'Not A Stick’ by Antoinette Portis, which is a definite must-read for kids!
Looking for non-fiction book club book suggestions? Check out this list of engaging non-fiction book club books!
Get book club questions for discussion of fiction and non-fiction that apply to any book plus get a printable PDF for easy reference.
A multiple choice quiz after reading is a quick and easy way to check student comprehension, but it doesn't allow you to assess deeper understanding and it certainly isn't fun or creative. If you are looking for more meaningful and engaging activities to use with students during literature circles or a novel unit, here's twelve ideas that are favorites in my classroom and the Common Core standards they align with.
Thank you to Diane for submitting this fun book report poster. It’s legal size (paper) worksheet and is great for lower grades (or as an easy project for upper grades). Great end of the year …
A book tasting is a totally doable room transformation your students will go crazy over! I recently decked out my classroom and turned it into 'McJondle's Café' for the first time, and let me tell you - it most definitely won't be the last. My main goal was to expose my 1st graders to different types
I want to try all of these.
Book Trailer Tuesday: How to use book trailers to expose your students to more books, generate reading interest, and grow a love for reading!
10 reasons to teach Wonder the book by R.J. Palacio to your students. It's an amazing story you'll love! Plus Wonder Book Quotes to live...
Looking for some ideas for your book club's reading discussions? This list of book club questions (for any book) will get everyone talking!
20 It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover discussion questions, food ideas, book club activities. Also free PDF of discussion prompts
Are you looking for an easy and engaging alternative to a book report? This Book in a Bag Project is perfect! Let students shine with this creative project!
Listen for the Lie is a binge-worthy thriller that would be a great read for book clubs! Here's a character list, book club questions & more.
Annotate books to fully experience each book and make it your own. Writing comments, including drawings or illustrations, and conversing with the text makes the experience of reading much more fun.
This is the most creative method I've ever seen for doing a book report! It's perfect for children because it gives very specific parameters, and it involves the enjoyable creativity that art brings. No specific skill level is required as it is easy to scale back the five to seven sentences to fewer if your student is overwhelmed with more. You might find that this is one report your student proudly keeps on display all year!
Have you ever dreamed of going on a reading retreat? Check out this post for reading retreat ideas and discover how you can participate in one! This past week was a whirlwind of excitement as I hosted my very first MomAdvice Reading Retreat. I, honestly, still can’t believe that this actually happened. The first time […] Pin It
These are the best book club dinner ideas that pair great book picks with themed dinner recipes to really get your book club party going!
Visualizing the text is such an important strategy used for building your students’ reading comprehension. It is very versatile as it can be used in different ways with students of all ages and reading levels. I
Use this free printable book report sandwich idea to recall what you read. Print in black / white or color and use with elementary age kids.
First before starting any thing I'm not an expert in books annotation, I started it recently and this is what I learnt ...
Are you wondering how to make a lap book? Then you're going to love the ideas, tips, and resources presented at this blog post. Plus a FREEBIE!
Do you want to start a speech therapy book club? Here are 7 books related to communication disorders and the clients we serve. Read on
We love connecting projects to books, and we're always inspired by the amazing group of bloggers who participate in the Virtual Book Club for Kids (you can also check the club out on Facebook) as the group comes up with some great extension activities each month. This month's author was Leo Lionni. We chose to read and do a project using a book we've really been enjoying lately, A Color of His Own. This is the sweet tale of a little chameleon who is looking for one color to stay all the time, but keeps running into that challenge that chameleons change color. In the end, he winds up finding a friend to always be with so they can at least always be the same color together. I've used this book in the past as a primary teacher. It's a great way to talk about friendship and also about what makes us each unique. My boys have been loving the simple tale and the colorful illustrations this spring. For our activity extension we decided to use cray-pas and watercolors. I love how colorful this art technique can be. I sketched several chameleon outlines onto white drawing paper using permanent marker. (I'm including a printable copy here in case you just want to print one out, or use the printable to trace onto thicker paper.) Afterwards the boys and I each colored in a chameleon using the cray-pas. Big Brother and I thought about ways to create different patterns. Little Brother focused on just coloring his in, using mostly one color. After we were done coloring, we watercolored on top of the cray-pas. The watercolor doesn't stick to the cray-pas, and fills all the white spaces around it. We all had different strategies for painting. When they were done I cut the three chameleons out and we hung them in our play room. I love how they are a set but each one unique. That's part of what can also make this project a great classroom activity, especially for the start of a school year. Or turn it into a fun family project, with each family member creating a chameleon to represent themselves. What Leo Lionni books does your family enjoy? Have you read this one yet? This post may also have been shared at some of these terrific link parties.
