For the LOVE of Reading

To say that we love reading in our classroom would be a very large understatement.  Please insert multiple heart eyes emojis!  :D  I am often asked how I get my kids to love reading.  My goal is to write a series of blog posts on the various different components of a successful, passionate, and engaging reading program!

This first blog will be about student choice.  I can't stress enough the importance of allowing students to read what they love.  If you all have not read the life changing, inspiring book: The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, please RUN over to Amazon and get yourself a copy!  

Donalyn teaches 6th grade and while I was reading the book I kept thinking how can I take all of these gems and make it work for lower elementary??  

One of the many things that the book inspired me to do was implement more student choice.  A way to do that is through student reading surveys.  I found several on-line but none were just perfect for my class so as any good teacher would do, I cut and pasted several surveys to make one that fit the needs of my class. :D   I then had my students fill them out.  The survey asked questions about their favorite books, series, authors, genres and why they liked them.  It was very telling.  So now if I am at Half Priced Books or Goodwill or about to place another Scholastic book order, I think about those surveys and it guides what I buy for my classroom library.  And here's one more thing.  Kids are amazed that you would care enough to ask them what they think AND respond to something that they want or like!  Isn't it always the other way around, teacher-led, teacher-directed??  That is not how I want to run my classroom and my kids know it!  Their voice matters.  Period. 

Here's an example of that in action.

I have a little one that at the beginning of school would only read the Mo Willems Piggie and Gerald books.  I overheard him the first week of school tell a classmate he didn't like reading.  This little guy is below level in his reading, not a ton, but enough where it's difficult for him to keep up with most of his peers.  So,  I instantly got to work thinking of turning this little guy not just into a successful 2nd grade reader but one that would LOVE reading by the end of the year!  

One of the things I did instead of fighting, coercising and cajoling him about his one and only book series choice, was I applauded it.  I created a basket in our classroom library of every Mo Willems book I could find and whispered to my friend that he inspired me to add that basket to our already overflowing classroom library.  His face just beamed.  

Now, instead of reading just Piggie and Gerald, he has broadened out and has read everything else that Mo Willems has written.  The next Scholastic book order that rolled around, I ordered Mo's latest and told my friend that I am always thinking about my readers and wanting to get books that they like for our classroom library.  You should have seen how proud he looked as I said this in front of all of his classmates.  

Now many of you may think, gosh is he only going to read Piggie and Gerald books?  The answer is no.  As I continued to get to know him as a reader, I found out that he loved sports, particularly baseball.  Sure enough if on the next book order I found a simple biography on Jackie Robinson.  It was the next book that I saw in his hands. 

A more overall example of student choice is our 100 book challenge. Our school no longer uses Accelerated Reader (AR). Insert happy dance emojis right here folks. I'm sorry if you are a huge fan but AR is not something I was looking forward to as I moved up to 2nd grade this year. This post is not about bashing AR so I'm not going to camp out on that subject. All I'm going to say is that I was not going to buy into the whole penalizing students for not meeting their "AR goal" fiasco that often happens at schools. Talk about a way to make struggling readers hate reading. Talk about a way to not make reading meaningful to the reader! I will NEVER make reading have negative consequences. Ever. Reading is fun. Engaging. Inspiring. Takes you on a journey without ever leaving your seat. It's magical. Not to mention that the latest research shows that 90 percentage of the comprehension questions on the AR tests are on the two lowest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy : Remember and Understand. Where are the higher levels of critical thinking: Analyzing, Synesthizing, Evaluating and Creating??? Aagghh. Someone help me off the edge!!   Getting off track here. Sorry. That is another post for another day! 

Back to our 100 book challenge. One way to inspire students to read was through the 100 book Challenge. It's all student choice, which I love, but it needed a few parameters. So what I did was put a few "guidelines" in place. With each page of 25, they have to read chapter books and non fiction books . It looks something like this:

First 25: 1 chapter book , 2 non-fiction

Second 25: 2 chapter books, 4 non-fiction

Third 25: 3 chapter books, 6 non-fiction

Fourth 25: 4 chapter books, 8 non-fiction

Students still have choice throughout but I want to make sure they are reading longer texts and different genres. Now here's the problem that I encountered early on, how to check comprehension. Are they just skimming through the books and logging them in or are they really understanding the text? Up front, I'm going to say that I have not figured all this out but what I have done is working (ish) for now! :D I've started to do readers response in their interactive readers notebook. I write to my students and we dialogue back and forth. It's s great way, albeit time-consuming way, to check comprehension.

As they complete each sheet of 25, I pick one or two books from that sheet and ask them comprehension questions. They absolutely LOVE this authentic, personalized correspondence between the two of us. Connecting reading and writing.  Love it, so much. I wish I could spend all day just writing back and forth but to make it meaningful it just takes time, which as busy, busy teachers we don't have.

So these are just a few ways that I focus on student choice to engage readers. What do you do in your classroom? I'd love to hear! 

Stellaluna

Who doesn't LOVE the precious story about Stellaluna?!?  Knocked from her mother’s safe embrace by an attacking owl, Stellaluna lands headfirst in a bird’s nest. This adorable baby fruit bat’s world is literally turned upside down!  Love this story and the theme of friendship.

We used the Big Book version of this text all week for Shared Reading.  
   On Monday, I read the book and we focused on new vocabulary.  As much as I can with new vocabulary, I try to get the students up and  using  their bodies to help them remember the new words.        
   On Tuesday, we read the book again and I had the students work on fluency.  The girls read the text for Stellaluna in the character's voice and the boys read the bird's part.  
   On Wednesday, since we have been studying adjectives, the students described how Stellaluna felt at the beginning, middle and end of the book.  Great way to describe how character's feelings change as the book evolves, as well.  I got the idea from this beautiful lady here.

I really love the inferencing that one little angel did with the middle part of the book.  She said Stellaluna felt small inside.  I asked her why she thought that and she said that when "Momma Bird was yelling all the time at Stellaluna that it made Stellaluna feel like she couldn't do anything right.  If I was Stellaluna, I would have felt small inside."  Wow!  

On Thursday, we talked all about finding the text evidence to support our answers.  What a fun, engaging, interactive way to get these little babies prepared for next year's STAAR test!  (I never thought I'd see the day that I was putting in a plug for the STAAR test, but there you have it!) ;P

I gathered up as many copies of Stellaluna as I could find and split the students up into collaborative groupings.  I gave each group 2 of their adjectives on a piece of paper.  They were then responsible for searching and finding the textual evidence to support their answer.  The "scribe" wrote the answers down for the team.

I really love collaborative groupings.  It is such a life long lesson to learn to work together as a team.  To learn to distribute responsibility and listen to others' ideas.  

Afterward, the group selected an "orator" and they read their findings while the rest of team showed the page where the text evidence was found.

I cut out what they had written and taped it next to their adjectives.  I love to fill my room with student work, so this will eventually make it up on the wall for the students to re-read and reference.

On Friday, we watched the Reading Rainbow version of Stellaluna and had a special snack of mangos!  Awesome learning was had by all! :D

Word

Funday Monday!

I absolutely LOVE the beautiful bright colors in this Mudpie silk sleeveless dress.  To make it work for teaching, I paired it with my favorite white blazer from Jcrew.

I know, I know, you're not supposed to wear white after Labor Day but in these parts, where it's October and still hitting the 90's, we make some fashion concessions!  ;P  

Dress: Mudpie Blazer: Jcrew Shoes: Thierry Mueller

Frida Kahlo

September 15 through October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month.  It is a month of paying tribute to the generations of Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society.  My teammie next door was conquering a Diego Rivera mural so we decided to tackle a very difficult guided drawing of his wife, the very famous Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo.  Of course, we always start off by reading a great book!  You can find it here:

Because I didn't have the best directions for the kidos to follow, like I normally do for guided drawing, we did the best we could.  

 I think for 2nd grade they turned out so beautifully.  They loved adding the extra eyebrows!

Because Frida was a painter, I wanted to for sure have the students paint her portrait.  Lo and behold I completely forgot that watercolors were not on this year's supply list.  :/ hmpf  Soooo we used our tempera paint (Prang brand-the best in my opinion) and painted away.  I did not use special paper but used plain white cardstock.  It's not the best for durability, it does tend to roll up on the edges if you live in a humid state.  Hello Texas!  ;P

Love, love, love how these beauties turned out.  What a great tribute to a very talented lady!

2015-2016 Classroom Reveal!

After being gone nearly all summer, I came back to school to find my room looking like this:

Not a pretty site and enormously , a wee bit overwhelming!  I moved classrooms this year and the custodians moved my things over the summer.  Then they took everything out again and waxed the floors.  I moved into a classroom that is smaller and with less shelving and lower ceilings.  It opens to the outdoors and is next to the janitors closet.  I knew I had to make my space into something that was "me", something that I would enjoy being in hours upon hours everyday and one that was different from my previous classroom since I looped up with the same kids from last year.  I wanted them to think they were in a 2nd grade classroom and not a first grade one.  

It all started with this beautiful thing right here:

It just made me so happy!  I loved all the bright colors and prints.  I just knew I had to incorporate it into my new space.  You see, I am a huge Meg Duerksen stalker fan.  She is fun, sassy, mega creative, loves the Lord, loves color and loves chickens.  In that order!  :D  She is MY kinda girl!

I also completely fell in love with this sunflower print.  I ordered it on a large canvas.  It was expensive but it just spoke to me.  Every time, I would see it on her blog I was mesmerized.  

And then there was this sassy thing :

I mean, seriously, look at that face!  I'm already thinking of inferencing lessons with this girl!  What do you infer that she is thinking boys and girls: "Get me outta here!", "WHO ate the last piece of pecan pie?!?"  :D  hahaha  I love chickens.  Like I said, Meg and I are BFF's.  ;P

I rounded off the Meg Duerksen extravaganza with these 2 prints and got to work pulling my room together.  

Oh, almost forgot one MORE Meg Duerksen fabulousness that inspired my classroom!  

I fell in love with the bold spring green with white furniture and black and white accents.  I had just scored an awesome sturdy bookcase at Goodwill and knew I would paint it this green color in my new space.  It turned out amazing!  

  

To start, I HAD to paint the walls in the classroom.  They were a dingy, dirty pale taupey color that made me ill!  With the help of family and friends we got to work painting everything that wasn't nailed down!  haha  We painted 3 of the walls bright white and one bright yellow.  

At first I was seriously overwhelmed with how bright the yellow was but it really works in the space. 

Here we are shopping, crafting, sewing, spray painting, hot glueing ourselves into oblivion!  

When you're a Texas girl, you have to have some metallic gold spray-painted deer horns in your classroom, right???  :P

It takes a village to revamp a space like this and of course you need the assistance of your principal!  

Oh, Hobby Lobby, you have my heart...

These photos are about 1/2 way through.  We can now see the space taking shape!  woo-hoo!

LOVE this old wooden photographer's paper my friend Angie found!  $12 a roll on Amazon!  Score!

One of my favorite spaces, ahem, for OBVIOUS reasons!

bawk-bawk  ;D

I had an extra bit of wooden paper left over so I thought, "stick it on the ugly file cabinet!"  haha.  (I need to order some more to finish the other sides.)

 

This sand and water table fit perfect for my science area.  Thank you to my old Kinder buddy for hooking me up!  xoxo

Then here we are at last!  

This is taken standing at the door looking in

This is looking across the room from my teacher's desk.  Love my chandelier, btw. ;D

This is taken from the back of the room looking toward the door.

This pic is from the back of the room looking to the front of the classroom.

Here is part of my calendar area and shelving for sharpened pencils, fluency and word work baskets.

I LOVE how this turned out!  The wooden table was gifted to me by my old team mate from Kindergarten.  It has a hole in the center for an umbrella.  I covered it with cute Mary Englebreit fabric and cut a hole in the middle so ALL the obnoxious computer cords would fit through.  LOVE it!  

Part of my math area.  LOVE that my students know that literacy happens all throughout my room.  Not just in the classroom library!

I scored this cutie polka dot rug at Goodwill.  I absolutely LOVE my classroom library.  It is still in the revamping stage coming from 1st grade, but we are on our way!

Love my READ bookends I got from Scholastic Teacher Resources!  

Besides my classroom library, there was another space that I knew was "non-negotiable" for me and that was my science area.  Kids LOVE science.  They love how hands on it is.  How engaging it is.  They get to explore, investigate and observe using their 5 senses.  Who wouldn't love that!  And of course, my students will find another space that incorporates literacy.

We will be having a special delivery very soon with our newest little classmates joining us!  

cheep-cheep!  We are SO excited!!!

This is where I house most of my science and social studies items.  I also am obsessed with anchor charts and never throwing anything away!  haha  So, I just taped some ribbon to hold all my anchor charts.  I'm not crazy about it but right now it's working.  I have serious space issues in this room!  uuuggghhhh

There were SO many things that I wanted to change for my students as they moved up to 2nd grade.  My behavior chart was one of them.  I found this Dr. Seuss quote that I had never heard of before!  "Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered."  Wow!  Beautiful and so perfect right next to my Behavior Chart.

Right behind my rocking chair is my "no kid zone" teacher area.  I had to give up my BIG teacher desk that I had in my old room.  It was just so large and I couldn't see wasting student space with my big ol' hunkin' desk so my sweet friend Angie found a corner desk (no drawers-ugh) at a garage sale.  Size-wise, it's perfect in the space.  I've learned how to make it work even though it is itty-bitty!  

Well this is were my Meg Duerksen prints have made their home.  I bought cute cheap frames and painted them using Valspar paint for $2.50 a pint.  Wow!  The colors are SO rich and the coverage was perfect with one coat.  Love how this space turned out.  I'd like to make a sink skirt in the near future.  All my extra Kleenex boxes are under there right now.

I call this the "brown bear basket" even though it is not a basket.  haha  I think when I taught Kindergarten it actually was a basket and the name just stuck.  Plus I like the alliteration!  ;D   This is where my babies turn in their completed work.  Love my old metal file. 

This is my favorite teaching space: My guided reading area.   LOVE, LOVE, LOVE guided reading and the work that goes on at this little table! 

This is kind of a catch all space right by my door.  It houses our headphones, nurses basket, treasure box, giant hand sanitizer etc.  LOVE the color that we painted this old bookshelf!  

It's SO hard to pick one favorite area in my room!  There are SO many!  But... I must say that the following pics have got to be my fav's:

I'm completely in love with my fabric skirts that hide all of my evil crap precious teacher must haves.  LOVE, love, love them SO much!

To make the space seem larger and more open, I knew I had to have the blinds up.  BUT our classroom looks out over the playground!  20 classes going out to recess everyday can be a bit of a distraction for young learners so... After buying a bazillion yards of various fabrics, we made rag cafe curtains.  LOVE how they turned out and they were so EASY, albeit time consuming to make.  

This vignette is right above my desk.  It has everything that I love in one spot!  

And of course on the other side of my desk is my beautiful Sunflower print from Meg Duerksen. 

 L-O-V-E.

All of this fabulousness would not have been possible without the help of my beautiful, creative, inspirational friend Angie Moline!  You should be a professional decorator sister-girlfriend!  xoxoxo