Books to Celebrate Earth Day! (& Linky Party!)

As you all know, Earth Day is Sunday, April 22.  I am preparing a pinterest-inspired bulletin board through this week.  It was mostly inspired by this from the Suesstastic blog.  More to come on that later.  This blog post is dedicated to books that I will be sharing with my students this week in celebration of Earth Day.  

The Lorax is my all time favorite Dr. Seuss book.  It is also perfect for discussing plot, theme, setting (and change of setting), point-of-view, etc.  It is also the perfect book to talk about why we should take care of our environment.  

P.S., Yes, I have seen the movie and I loved it!

I pulled The Giving Tree off of my personal at-home bookshelf this year to share with my students.  I don't know why I've never thought to bring it in to school before.  I'm sure everyone is familiar with the story, but it is about a tree who gives and gives and gives to the same boy-turned-man throughout the story, until it can give no more.  The love the tree has for this boy is endless, regardless of the fact that the boy gives nothing in return.  

The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs was introduced to me at the Dublin Literacy Conference by Donalyn Miller, the Book Whisperer herself!  It is an informative book, but also a real-life mystery that your students will enjoy.  The golden frog, a national symbol in Panama are mysteriously dying at a very rapid pace.  Scientists race to discover what is causing the frogs to die and make an attempt to save them before they become extinct.  If nothing else, check this book out for the pictures alone!  

 This book is new to me.  I've had it on my Good Reads list for some time, and I finally decided to check it out for Earth week.  It is amazing!  Can We Save the Tiger tells the story of various animals that are on the brink of extinction.  It's not all depressing though, it also tells about animals that were once on the brink but were brought back and are now thriving.  A lot of connections can be made between Can We Save the Tiger and The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs.  The vanishing frogs were even featured in this book!  This is also a great book for teaching the questioning strategy.  

Who says alphabet books are for preschoolers?  This is middle-grade ABC book combines poetry, informational text, and awesome illustrations to explain the many wonders of our wonderful Earth.  

I thought it would be fun to see what everyone is doing to celebrate Earth Day in their classrooms.  Grab my button and link back here!  Don't forget to connect the actual link of your Earth Day post, not just your blog url.   

Class Dojo

I posted a few days ago about the troubles I have had with my class this year.  It seems no matter what I do, rewards or consequences, nothing works!  You know it's bad when I asked my students to raise their hands if they have made it to every behavior reward party this year and a student asks, "What's that?"  Funny, but sooo not funny!  Someone named Kriss commented that they have started using a site called Class Dojo.  I had never heard of it, so I decided to look into it a bit.  Please keep in mind I am writing about this completely blind.  I have not used this in the classroom yet, but I am planning to after break.  Basically, you set up your class (or in my case, classes).  Yes, I do get a little break in the afternoon when I get a new crop of students for reading class!  After setting up your classes, you decide what positive and/or negative behaviors you want to track.  The beautiful thing is that it can be displayed on the SmartBoard and you can work it from your iPad or Smart Phone.  If a student is participating or helping out a classmate, or just doing what they are supposed to be doing, you can reward them points.  If a student is being disrespectful or out of their seat, or not doing what they are supposed to be doing, you can take away points.  I think I might start out focusing on the positive.  But with this particular group of students, I might need to eventually do both.  In my grade level, we use a checklist behavior management system, which I posted about here last year.  The great thing about it is that it is portable and can move with my students to other classes.  The downfall is that when students get checkmarks, it is not a visual reminder of their behavior (like the card system).  Displaying Class Dojo on the SmartBoard would serve as a visual reminder to students.  


Picture this:  I'm sitting in small group during Daily 5 time.  I have my iPad next to me.  I notice two students reading the entire Daily 5 choice time.  I can quickly award them points.  A student I'm in group with has an interesting insight, I can award her a point.  Another student decides to get up and start walking around the room.  I take away a point from him.  He sees on the SmartBoard that he has just lost a point.  It quickly corrects his behavior and my group is not interrupted because I am doing everything from my iPad.  Can you picture it?  I can!  I just hope it works the way I'm visualizing!  


I am interested to see if anyone else has used or is currently using Class Dojo in their classrooms?  If so, what do you like or dislike about it and what advice can you give?  

April-Poetry Month

Happy Easter everyone!  


All of my teacher buddies probably know that April is Poetry Month.  In an effort to find new poetry books to share with my students, I just read a book called Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word.  It is so cool!  It is a mix between poetry, word play, and a puzzle.  The words in each poem contain only the letters found in the title.  

Warning to all:  It will make you want to write your own!  

Here's mine:

Get it?  

reading

grin 

and

read

dear

This would be such a neat poetry writing assignment!

Back in December, I posted about writing Found Poetry.  We did another Found Poetry assignment last week.  I challenged some of my higher students to write their Found Poems displaying character traits for the main character in their chosen books.  One student wrote an AWESOME Found Poem inspired by the book Moses.  I didn't bring the poem home with me, but when I get back from break I will be posting it for you all to read.  It is amazing!  When sharing on Thursday, another student commented, "Wow!  That gave me chills!"  If you haven't tried Found Poetry in your classrooms and would like to, please contact me if you have any questions!  The students really enjoy it and it is a nice change from the common acrostics and cinquains!  

A Much Needed (Spring) Break!

It's official.  


As of 3:00 yesterday, I am on Spring Break.  I celebrated with a Skinny Girl Margarita and a movie.  Well, the movie was Superman:  Brainiac Attacks.  Obviously, the toddler's choice.  Actually, he calls it "How Superman Gets Brainiac."  Cute, right?  Either way, it was celebrating because we don't watch TV on weeknights.  


I have a very rough class this year.  Positive behavior rewards aren't working, behavior charts aren't working, consequences and loss of recess aren't working.  I'm out of ideas.  I'm hoping what will work is a break.  For me and for them.  


When we get back to school, we have one week until the dreaded OAA.  Actually, I'm not dreading it so much this year.  I feel my students are as prepared as they can be.  But those darned test makers like to switch it up on us every year, so you never know.  I didn't focus so much on test prep this year.  We probably really hammered down in small groups over the last month and a half or so.  Prior to that, we were just doing a lot of guided reading and skills groups.  One thing we have been doing for the last five weeks are daily extended response and short answer practice.  My coteachers and I took turns taking short reading passages and creating OAA-style short answer and extended response questions on a variety of skills-cause and effect, sequencing & timelines, predictions, character traits, etc.  I think this has been a very valuable practice.  My students always have a very difficult time answering these types of questions and those are the ones worth the most points!  It is not uncommon to have a student get all of his/her multiple choice questions correct and miss ER/SA questions, which cause them to not pass a practice test.  We have created these ourselves because I have yet to find a reproducible that features these types of questions.  I would love to be in contact with a publisher to fill this missing niche!  I just have no idea how to even get started.  Any ideas?  


I hope everyone has a great Easter!  I'm super-excited for my Pinterest-inspired Easter Baskets this year!  Stay-tuned for an upcoming book recommendation post.  I've been very busy reading!

My Book Reviews

BookSpeak!: Poems About Books by Laura Purdie Salas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A book that gives books the voice! Books beg readers to open them, characters asking to be liberated, what it feels like to have a reader fall asleep on you, and a book's biggest fear: the feeling of wet! These poems can be used throughout the year to teach voice, point of view, metaphor, story elements, etc.


Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Interesting story about the creator and evolution of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The illustrations are amazing. This book is definitely getting added to my personal library!

View all my reviews

Awesome Literacy Conference!

On Saturday, I attended the Dublin Literacy Conference (#dublit12 on Twitter if you want to read the feeds).  It was AMAZING!  I went once, five years ago, when I was a first year teacher.  I didn't really know what it was all about and I have to say I was not impressed then.  I had heard all these great things about it, but nothing really stuck with me that year.  Maybe it was just an off-year.  When I heard that Donalyn Miller (for those teachers in a hole-I'm talking about The Book Whisperer here!) was the keynote speaker this year, I knew I HAD to go.  I got my registration in early and made sure to sign up for the last session of the day that she was holding called Bring on the Books.  I was super excited!  And it was everything-I mean EVERYTHING it was cracked up to be!  Check out my GoodReads shelf for suggestions I got from Donalyn herself.  When I got home Friday night, I realized I had left my copy of The Book Whisperer at school, so I dragged my behind back in there at 8 pm just so I could have it autographed!  One of the first thing Donalyn said in her keynote was regarding her students reading without the use of AR.  I loved this, and made sure to tell her that I was thrilled my school got rid of AR this year and my students are still reading-actually moreso than they have in the past.  She signed my book:  "Celebrate Reading Freedom!"  How awesome is that?!  


The afternoon keynote was Sharon Draper.  She was just as amazing!  Sorry, I just don't have any other words!  I was not really familiar with Sharon Draper.  I knew she wrote a lot of books with multi-cultural protagonists.  I also knew she wrote a lot for high school kids.  She was actually a very funny and interesting speaker.  She is also a former teacher.  She wrote her first trilogy while she was still teaching!


The morning opened with a reading and song from Eric Litwin and James Dean, the author and creator of Pete the Cat.  Since I don't teach primary, I was not familiar with them either, but they are two groovy dudes!  I heard their breakout sessions were fantastic.  I bought my son Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes and we've probably read it and sang the song at least 20 times since yesterday afternoon.  In November, they are releasing a Pete the Cat Christmas book.  I already know one item on my son's list!  


If you live in Ohio, you definitely need to add the Dublin Literacy Conference to your to-do list for next year!

Author Study Unit!

I have been very busy the last few days working on an author study unit.  Since February is Black History Month, I am doing an author study of African American authors.  The authors we are focusing on are Angela Johnson and Faith Ringgold.  There were so many to choose from, but I decided on Angela Johnson because of her African American & family themes, plus she is an Ohioan!  Faith Ringgold was a given for me because I am just in love with her books and illustrations!  I have posted my first Angela Johnson author study in my Teacher's Notebook shop.  The first is a week-long unit using the books The Leaving Morning, When I Am Old With You, and Tell Me A Story, Mama.  I will be posting another unit soon using some of Angela Johnson's historical fiction books.  Lastly, I will post my Faith Ringgold unit.  The Ringgold unit will be available in two weeks.  


This is the first author study that I will be doing in my classroom.  I did a mini-author study on Eve Bunting last year, but not to the extend that I am doing with my African American author study.  With the first Johnson author study, we are going to focus on common themes, making connections, point of view, and author's craft.  I love how this unit has shaped up and I am excited to begin on Monday.  If you are interested in purchasing this unit, please visit my Teacher's Notebook shop!  


What author studies have you done in the past?  I am excited to create more units in the future!