Mini-Lesson Makeover: Giving your Connection a POP!

Mini Lessons at this point in the run the risk of being a little....dull if we aren't careful! One thing I've been trying to do is raise the level of interest in my connection! Generally, most mini lessons start with the old...
"Yesterday readers, we..." or "We've been learning how to..." and we state the prior day's teaching point to review. And that is great. Normally. But I thought if I could actually make a "connection" in my connection, make the kiddos will stick with me a little longer??

Below I share some connections that I've been using lately...



* One time my family was driving out of town. We were going to see my friend. We’d never been there before but we looked online at the map to sort of get an idea where we were going. As we were driving, we were talking about all sorts of things. We weren’t really paying attention to the directions like we should have been. I started to look around and I just sort of knew something wasn’t right. The signs on the highway weren’t saying what I expected them to say. We had to finally admit that we were LOST. Sometimes the same thing can happen in our reading! You might be reading along and you sort of stop paying attention. Then you realize that you might be LOST in your book...

*My best friend in college was a runner. Every morning she got up early to go for a run. I noticed that she always got dressed, put on her tennis shoes and instead of leaving right after that, she always took a few minutes to stretch and warm up. She told me that she needed her body to wake up so she would have a better run. Today I'll show you how reading can be the exact same way! ...

*One time I got an email from a friend. We had plans to meet up over the weekend but there was supposed to be a big snowstorm. I emailed her to say that I didn’t think I’d make it because of the snow. She understood but in her email, she mentioned that she didn’t think the snow would be that bad and she told me that she cancelled all of her other plans. I had some inferring to do. Using the evidence that she gave me in her email, I was able to realize that she was really disappointed. She didn’t come right out and say that she was disappointed but I could tell because she made sure to tell me that she cancelled her other plans. Readers can do the same thing. Sometimes you will have to infer how a character feels by thinking about how they feel based on the words they say...

The really cool thing is- now that I've started to make my connections a little more personal- the kiddos are hooked in so much more quickly. They also started catching on to how my real-life examples apply to reading. Halfway through my story about getting lost and needing to stop for directions, I had some kiddos say, "that's can happen when you are reading!"

Happy end of the year push!

Book Clubbin' Away

Book clubs are giving us life in our classroom. We are pushing...crawling to make it to Spring Break and it hasn't been easy. But.

*book clubs.*

Today, we were chatting away in the Jigsaw Jones book club. We were sharing snacks and lounging on the floor chatting about the characters in our books. Sharon mentions that Jigsaw has a character named Joey that she met. She shows her character sketch and sharing some of the notes she took about him. Olivia proceeds to pull out her chapter chunks and character sketches and the neatest thing happened: the character sketches looked really similar! It was so clear that they had been studying the same character. The traits that they had jotted down across two different texts made total sense.

Another cool thing: I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted these sheets to be scaffolds so that when they get a reader's notebook, they can do these things naturally. Well, a student asked to take their club folder home for homework (yessss!) and he told me that he ran out of chapter chunk worksheets so he made his own. He was so proud! I was too.

I've been modeling book club skills using Horrible Harry. It's been great to really dig deep into these characters. When a character does something, it's fun to hear the kiddos remark things like, "she just tattled on Harry again. That's so 'Mary'" This makes the transfer to independent book clubs so much easier- especially since I can't meet with every group everyday. 

If you want to pick up the book club scaffold sheets, click the photo below!! 

Wanna donate to my kiddos? Visit our Donor's Choose Page HERE! 

Book Clubs- Week ONE!

SO fun. Seriously. Like I mentioned before, sometimes reading workshop can get stale. The kiddos robotically move from independent reading to partner reading and you can see the spirals in their eyeballs as they recite their partner prompts: “What did you read today?  What was the problem? What was the solution?” Blah. It was such a joy to hear them back in November- but we need a revival. We need something new and fresh. We need book clubs!  They have been super refreshing. I wanted them to feel like a real book club so I allow them to bring in snacks from home and a water bottle. They have been asking to form their own book clubs, which makes me feel like the most amazing teacher in America. So proud.

 We spent the last session chatting about getting prepped for book club success. You can read about that here. Now I’d love to share what I’ve been doing during the first week. I’ve included the scripting for my mini lessons. I usually type them out like that in my lessons so I thought I’d share! We are in a CHAPTER BOOK SERIES book club cycle this time.  For a lot of kiddos, this is the first time I’ve officially taught how to navigate through a chapter book.

Click here for thefully scripted lessons. (For Free).  Feel free to use them or tweak them!

The major teaching points for this 3 week cycle are:

Day 1-  Readers consider the order of books in a series.  How do we read them?

Day 2-  Chapter book readers use a different kind of book log.

Day 3- Partners decide if they will read the same titles or separate titles.

Day 4- Readers keep track of the characters that are introduced.

Day 5- Reading clubs reflect on their work as a group.

Day 6- Readers keep track of the story by using chapter chunks.

Day 7- Readers keep track of words and phrases that confuse them.

Day 8- Chapter book readers know when they’ve lost their way.

Day 9- Chapter book readers need to warm up when they read continuously.

Day 10- Readers keep track of their characters as they change over time.

Day 11- Readers focus on dialogue. It can get tricky. Follow closely.

Day 12- Readers infer how a character feels and uses text evidence to support those inferences.

Day 13- Noticing patterns within a series. Is there a rhythm to your book series?

Day 14 We notice the big ideas of a series. What does the author tend to write about?

Day 15- Readers are moved to take action. What would you like to do?

Reflections on book club so far:

I love them. I wish I had about 15 minutes a day to meet with each club to help scaffold their conversations and book talks but I don’t. At best, I see two clubs a day. I felt bad until I realized that I really only saw two guided reading groups during regular workshop. The most interesting thing is that I am so used to spending all of my time with my lowest readers to work on decoding strategies- and I still am...but I’m finding that my HIGHER readers need me the most in club! Listen in on this conversation that I scripted between three Magic Tree House Readers and myself:

Me: So guys, I have to be honest, I’ve never read a Magic Tree House book so I’m really hoping to learn a lot from you guys. Tell me what’s going on!

Student 1: Well, they____ and _____ are fighting a dragon.

Me: Wow so your characters names’ are __ and A___ - do those characters show up in any of your books?

Students 2 and 3- yes. We sketched them on our Meet the Cast sheets and noticed the same traits. This character is adventurous.

Me: So are they just good friends then?

Student one: no- they are brother and sister.

Student 2: (crazy look on her face like, “huh?!”

Me: Student 2, you look surprised- what are you thinking?

Student 2:  I thought they were just friends. I didn’t think they were brother and sister. I never noticed that they were siblings.

Student 1: Well, on this page (feverishly turning pages) they are talking to their dad and they go to bed in the same house. I was just inferring.

Me: Wow! This sounds like an excellent conversation. I love how Student One shared thoughts and used text evidence. That shows you are really paying attention. And student two- I was impressed at your learning. I noticed how you noticed that you were a little confused on your face and you didn’t just ignore it. You took the time to wonder and question. That’s what a good reader would do.

I might be alone here, but I cringe when I see kids with big chapter books and I know I haven’t had a chance to really work with them on the skills that you need to truly understand them.  Conversations like the one about give me joy because I know they are digging deeper and not surface reading.

I've just added these documents to my TpT store if you are interested. These are meant to be scaffolds. I don’t want them going to the 4^th grade and asking for their character sketch sheet. I want them just instinctively start sketching and tracking characters and words that they don’t know in their reader’s notebook. Hopefully with enough exposure, they will make this second nature and dig deeper into their books!

Click the photo below to purchase!

Oh and Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Wanna donate to my kiddos? Visit our Donor's Choose Page HERE! 

Book Clubs- Prepping and Getting Started

{Book Clubs in a nutshell: A basket of books that go together in some way combined with kids reading, writing, and talking about their texts. Fits inside the reading workshop after mini lesson/independent reading and in lieu of partner reading. Lasts anywhere from 1-3 weeks.} -Adapted from Collins, Reading For Real. 

I decided that I would take the whole class on a journey though a chapter book in a series. I, of course have kids reading in chapter books anyway- but I have not had the chance to teach them how to navigate through one.The nice thing is that even my lowest readers can participate in this cycle because they are reading the likes of Henry and Mudge, Frog and Toad, Mr. Putter and Tabby, and Young Cam Jansen series books.

Series books. SO MUCH to consider! Using Kathy Collin's book, Growing Readers, I came up with a road map for this unit. I spent two weeks before this cycle beefing up and refreshing my students on how to work with partners, how to hold a conversation that goes back and forth, and how to share about books. We've covered all of that, but as workshops do- it got routine and stale. That usually means behavior problems- ammirite??

you know, #readingpartnerdrama

I also took those two weeks before I launched this to do sample readings from all of the series that I had selected. That would allow the students to be exposed to them before we just let them loose with it. This was also a great time to gather materials for club: baskets for the series books, sticky notes, work folders, etc... I selected the following series for this round of book clubs: (6-8 titles each)

Junie B. Jones

Henry and Mudge
Young Cam Jansen
Frog and Toad
Nate the Great
Magic Tree House
Jigsaw Jones

Day One: Meeting your book club and signing contracts.

Mini-Lesson Scripting:  

Connection: Readers, we've been working on making sure our partnerships are strong so that we have really amazing conversations and connections when we move into book clubs! 

Teaching Point: Today, you will be meeting with your book club for the first time. [I chose to put my students in certain books clubs based on reading level and comprehension skills. Other book club cycles might allow them to pick their own club.] Workshop will look the same as far as my mini-lesson and your independent reading. What will change is instead of going to your partner to read and think together, you'll meet with your club. I'll show you TONS of ways to track your understanding while reading your chapter books over the next few days. Today, you will be simply going to your book club basket and browsing through your series. You will also talk about the things that you think might make your club run smoothly. You'll agree on some norms and you'll sign your club contracts. 

Active Engagement: Turn to your neighbor and discuss your hopes and thoughts about book club. What do you hope to get out of it? How are you planning to grow as a reader? 

Link: I'm so exited about these clubs. As I listened in I heard students setting goals for their reading and thinking work- and I heard something really cool: "I hope to have fun with books!" That was my favorite one because we must always remember to fall in love with our books. You'll go off to read alone with your just right books. When the timer goes off, you will find your new book club and follow the directions on your club contract sheet. You may also get your snack to enjoy at that time, but not before. Off you go! 

Reflections: 

I think assigning the clubs was helpful. Less drama. The transition was really smooth. They were really excited to start and their contracts were filled with good ideas. I worry about my two lower reading groups- which are of course, my behavior issues groups. I generally give almost ALL of my time to them so behavior isn't a problem- but I so badly want to meet with my higher readers more during this unit. I need to figure out how that will work. There is so much thinking work that I want to do with my high decoder-low comprehension kiddos. I am also concerned with my speed-readers. I can hear them already claiming to be done but not taking the time to track characters and new words and phrases. Lots to consider- but I feel like we're off to a great start! 

now-ish

I'd like to be more reflective. I have a lot of thoughts about my teaching and forgot that I could use this blog as an outlet and some online PD. Blogging started off so strong and I think I stopped mainly because I didn't have a shiny new product to put at the end of a post.  I thought I'd take the pressure off of myself and just do some blogging for the art of it.

Reading. Writing. Words. Math. My goodness. To attempt to be masterful in each of these areas is a LOT. The things on my mind when I'm thinking about planning in the four areas...
What is the best practice?
What does the research say?
What is the most effective method?
Is there an ideal scope and sequence?
Is it rigorous? (has anyone else come to loathe the word rigorous lately?)
What if my team has a different set of beliefs? Planning gets tough...
How many books could I possibly read on each of those subjects?
What are the best books to start with?
Will this instruction equip them to pass the test become lifelong learners?

The battle. TESTING vs what we know is best for them.

{sigh.}

Currently, I am teaching:

Reading: My first round of real book clubs using Kathy Collins' book, Reading For Real. We're doing baskets of books that are in a series. They also happen to be chapter books- this is the first time my whole class is going to be navigating through a chapter book. It has sort of revitalized my workshop. I allow snacks and we are all reading different chapter books while I am able to teach the same lessons and strategies for all readers. It's been fun so far!

Words: I am still trying to figure out when I want to do here (Yes, I am aware that is is March) but I've never been happy with it. I started out doing a very close version to the famous Beth Newingham blog post on word study. I quickly found that I couldn't manage it. She had a smaller class AND another teacher to help her. It's just me and 25 babies so I had to adjust.  Words are hard because I go back and forth fundamentally. I know spelling tests aren't the best but then part of me wants the accountability that you can send home to parents. So, imagine the frustration I feel after grading a test where all of the spelling list words are spelled correctly but not a SINGLE transfer word is. Back to square one...never should haven gone with tests. But- for now, I'm using them. I need to read more on that...

Writing: I'm excited about writing! I am a total Katie Wood Ray fan and believe in her method wholeheartedly. If you're not familiar, she just believes that you can give children a stack of texts that are like the ones you want them to write. You study them and notice what it takes to make that sort of writing. Then, you make them! So simple but the work gets SUPER complex. Right now, we are studying persuasion books, reviews, letters, speeches, etc... This is the first unit that I've been able to make a packet of texts and pass them out for my kids to highlight and mark up with notes. Then, we notice the things that they all tend to have in common and we make sure we add that in our writing. They are having so much fun with this.

Math: I think I have a math block that I can live with, finally. It has taken me all year to get here but I feel good about it. I was fortunate enough to have an expert from a local college observe and give me some excellent feedback on my math workshop.  There is still so much to consider! We had a conversation today about the math version of a running record and what you can do with the data. I'll get into that a little later, though. For now, I am going to work on giving children the same problem with multiple access points so that all levels of children are being reached. I think that will save me and the children a lot of frustration!

Ok. I feel better! Thanks for listening to me do a little reflecting and clarifying.