50 Shades of Sunshine: Summer Reading for Teachers

You may be anticipating a blog post giving some recommendations for a few professional texts to get under your belt this summer.  While I think perusing some texts and blogs is a good idea to keep current in your literacy game, I have also taken a different look on summer reading for teachers.

During the school year, every time you try to sit down to read a “for fun” book like Gone Girl (because it’s only a matter of time before that BIG SECRET is leaked out) you just can’t seem to get to it.  And if you are like me, you refuse to see the movie until you’ve read the book!  Use your summer vacation to catch up on some of the reading you enjoy.  While you are doing this, try out some of the work you ask your student’s to do during reading workshop and see how it can make you a better reading teacher next fall.

Reading Engagement

Take the book of your choice along with you to the beach or pool.  Set a timer for 20 minutes and see if you can have “eyes on text” for the entire time—no cheating or fake reading allowed!  You will begin to understand some of the difficulties with staying engaged in your book.  Notice some of the coping skills you use to tune out the distractions and note them to stick into your teacher toolbox.  You may be a bit more sympathetic come September when your students have a tough time building their reading stamina back up.

Reading Volume

Teachers of workshop have high expectations for the amount of time and number of books their students read. Set the bar high for yourself this summer.  How many books will you read?  Make time to read each day and on a calendar note how many days you actually read during that time.  We expect our students to read EVERY night at home.  In taking on this challenge, you will easily see how your dedicated reading time can fall by the wayside.  Come up with some ways to make it happen and share those with students and parents in the fall!

Some of my personal summer recommendations

Note Taking

There are many times when teachers ask their students to stop and jot notes during their independent reading time.  They have notebooks, post-its, bookmarks and all sorts of tools they use for taking good notes.  Give yourself a little note taking assignment similar to one you’d give your students. Just imagine yourself...you get the that part of Gone Girl where you learn about the BIG SECRET and before you know it you’ve read the next 3 chapters and the time you had for reading that day is gone.  You took no notes and you actually aren’t even sure where that post-it went.  These kinds of things might happen to your students too.  Practice taking some notes during reading this summer so that you can predict a few problems your students might encounter during the school year and set them up for success!

Read a Challenging Book

Often times we ask students have to choose books within a certain genre and it is possible they are not too excited by it.  This makes reading in the genre a challenge.  Sometimes students also choose books they think are “just right” but they end up being a struggle.  Choose a book this summer that is either outside your normal style or that has content you know very little about.  While you are reading it, notice and note some of the strategies you are using yourself to get through this book.  Add those strategies to your toolbox and you will have a refreshed list of conferring ideas come September!

Hopefully, you can use some of your “reading for enjoyment time” this summer to get great ideas to share with your students during the school year.  You will also get a real sense for some of the struggles your students face in the classroom.  Some of the best strategies we can teach our students are ones that we use ourselves!  What will you be reading this summer?

Book Clubs Part 2: Management

I’ll begin again by speaking of my real life book club.  To keep our book club going, we always need ideas for a new book.  Typically, someone has a suggestion and we take an informal vote.  With 10 members, we are not usually short on suggestions.  During our book club, we discuss the book and in between filling ourselves up with wine and cheese, we decide what we should read for the next meeting and plan when and where it will take place.  As adults, these are naturally simple tasks for us to do, however, for your students you are going to need to put some management in place.

By now, you have your book clubs already set up and ready to go, but now you need to figure out how this is going to go.  If you haven’t already, I suggest reading my blog on Book Clubs Part 1: The Setup, to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success here.  When you are thinking of management, there are a few things to consider.

Time

When will book clubs take place in your room?  I highly suggest setting timers so that you and your students know when transitions should happen.  You still need to allow time for students to read independently each day.  This gives them time to apply the skill or strategy you just taught in the minilesson and also gives them some time to do work for their book club.  The amount of time you can dedicate to book clubs depends on how long you are allotted for your literacy block.  

Book Club Minilessons

Even if your students have participated in book clubs before, it is probably going to be helpful if you insert a few lessons on how you’d like book clubs to look and sound in your room.  Consider conducting a “fishbowl” book club.  This is where you have a model book club meet while the others watch.  As the teacher you can voice over by saying things like, “Notice how they’re sitting in a circle.” or “See how everyone speaks at a volume so that the other book club members can all hear?” to point out some behaviors you’d like to see globally.

Give Book Clubs a Tracking System

How will your students know what to read before their next book club meeting?  Or how will they know what to come prepared with?  These are decisions that should be made by the book club members, but your students will likely need some guidance in making them.  You could use a sheet like the one pictured below to help students track their book club assignments.

If you have other management tips, please share with us!

My Wonderings About "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio

I recently read the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  There are a few crafty types of things I absolutely loved about this book that I’ll get out of the way by talking about them first.  The, what I call, “mini-chapters” are awesome.  When I was a kid, my reading stamina was pretty much nonexistent and a long chapter inside a book would often times lead me right to abandonment.  I’d never finish the book because I just got to a 43 page chapter I couldn’t sustain.  I also loved how Wonder was told from so many different perspectives.  Stories that are told from multiple perspectives make them seem so real.  As a reader you also get so much more out of the plot line.  From a writer’s perspective, I have the utmost respect for the talent it takes to craft a story when more than one character’s perspective is shared, no mind six!

So now the story...it is one of a young boy entering fifth grade and about to go to school for the first time ever.  He’s been home schooled his entire life due to some medical conditions, predominantly being a severely deformed face, for lack of a better word.  While I was reading this book, my emotions were on a roller coaster ride and so many thoughts and wonderings went flying through my head.  Poor, poor, August!  It literally killed me at times when he’d refer to his own face as “disgusting”.  It actually brought tears to my eyes and so did a lot of other parts of the book.  Without including any spoilers, I can think of at least 4 times right now that I cried during this book.  

In this story we get to also hear from his sister, Via, his friend, Summer, his friend, Jack, Via’s boyfriend, Justin, and Via’s friend, Miranda.  When hearing their perspectives along with August’s, I started to wonder how I would’ve reacted to being around him.  August often talks about this “look” people give him.  It’s this sort of double take where you aren’t sure if you should keep looking or not so you end up kind of looking a few times real quick.  He notices it and he knows why people do it.  And the saddest part to me, was that I knew exactly what he was talking about...let’s be real we have all done it in one circumstance or another.  A lot of the fifth graders in Wonder turn out to be saints in my book because of their understanding, bravery and friendship.

Ok, so this book is also extremely quotable.  Go to the quotes section on Goodreads and you’ll get plenty of ideas for some motivational posters for your classroom.  The themes and ideas in this book made me do a lot of self-reflecting and I wondered if my students would, too.  I thought about how I would’ve treated August and reacted to him if I were in his class.  I know I would’ve had a hard time understanding a boy like him when I was 11.  I would hope that our students reading this book would spend some time in self-reflection mode as well.  I got to a part of the book where the principal spoke about being “kinder than is necessary”. That really seemed to strike a chord with me because I know I am not always that.  However, I thought about how much those three words could really change things for a kid like August and how they could also really change things for kids in your classrooms, too.

If you are a teacher in grades 4-8 you should totally read this book to your students.  Start some good conversations, have them write, and talk in small groups.  Learning how to understand people’s differences is so critical for kids that age and this book can put a lot of that on the table for you.  And if you are not a teacher, you should read this book anyway, and tell all of your friends to read it too!

7 Teacher Time Saving Tips: Getting the most of Every Minute

“So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.” - Willy Wonka

I am in the midst of 3 weddings in an 8 day stretch (one of those being in Phoenix while I am from New Jersey).  With only one day off from work, I would not say time is of the essence.  However, I make it work and during this time I was inspired to share my tips with all of you about how to get the biggest bang for your buck with every minute you have each day!  

1. Lock your classroom door.

Your little prep period is precious.  You likely have an ongoing, never ending to do list you’d like to cross a few items off of during that time.  Just as you are about to attack that list, one of your teacher friends moseys into your room and all of a sudden you guys are chatting about all of the weddings you just went to (ha ha!) and sharing your photos. Locking your door will let your colleagues know you are a busy lady or gentleman and allow you to put your mind to the tasks you need to complete with no distractions.

2. Make a friend (or a few).

“I’ll type up the Unit 5 Math plans and you type up the reading plans and we can swap!”  Make a friend on your grade level or your department and share your work!  Lesson planning is one example of work you can share because you are teaching the same curriculum.  All you need to do it cut and paste into your schedule.  Depending on how particular your administration is, you may need to tweak a few things, but in general sharing work is a big time saver and it’s fun!

3. Save everything!

When you are sharing all of these plans with your colleagues, copy them all into a safe and organized place.  Your first year in teaching, or first year in a new grade is naturally going to be this hectic whirlwind of a time.  However, if you put in that extra time up front, it will save you in years to come.  If you’re making a game, take the extra time to laminate it and print it on cardstock so you’ll have it for years to come.  You’ll be happy with yourself the next year when you realize how much you can reuse.

4. Get organized!

In an unorganized classroom you see little piles of “stuff” all around the room.  You could spend your entire prep period cleaning up all of those little piles instead of making moves with that to do list.  Use baskets, organizer drawers, color code and label until EVERYTHING has a place.  And then make it a rule that you and the students cannot put anything down unless it is in that place.  I promise this will not just save you time, but it will alleviate a bunch of stress.

5. Delegate!

As you are going through your typical school day, make a few mental notes about the things you are spending time doing that your students are capable of doing for you.  Setting up the calendar, putting books back into the classroom library, getting the board ready for the next day, and filing papers are just a few examples of things that the kids should be doing for you.  And let’s be real, we all know they absolutely love doing “teacher jobs”!

6. Get to school early.

You may already do this, but if you are, see tip #1 and do it!  We are the freshest in the morning (even if you’re not a morning person) and you can get a lot done.  You are also under a time constraint because like it or not, the kids are coming!  

7. If you are going to stay after school, set a time you promise you’ll leave by.

This will help you keep your eye of the prize of getting stuff done.  You have a personal life that is important, too, so get out and enjoy that.  Be efficient and set goals for what you want to finish in that time constraint.

If you notice, none of the tips I gave involve taking work home.  In all reality, there are going to be times you need to do that (tests, report cards, scoring writing, etc.), but these tips will help you get more work done during the actual school day.  Teaching is your job and that is important, but so is your life outside of work.  We have a lot going on there, too!  If you have more time saving tips you’ve discovered throughout your teaching journey, please comment and share them because we are all in this together!

The Great Poetry Race

Poetry is a genre of reading and writing that the kids seems to love.  Teachers don’t seem to love teaching it, but the kids go crazy for it.  Especially for the funny poems of poets like Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein. Gigglepoetry.com and poetry4kids.com are great places to print some poems from for your students.  Poetry is a fun way for your students to practice their fluency.  It provides an opportunity to teach into phrasing, punctuation and expression.  

In honor of April being Poetry month, hold The Great Poetry Race with your students!  Here’s how it works. Your students pick their poem of choice, or you as the teacher can assign students a poem.  Your students’ goal is to read their poem as many times as they can that week (or however many days you decide the “race” will last).  This works way better if not everyone in your class has the same poem for two reasons.  The first is because I am willing to bet your classroom is full of different reading levels and so not everyone will read the same poem well.  The second reason is that it is likely that during the race your students will want to read their poems to their classmates.

While your students are racing all around that week reading their poem to anyone and everyone they can, they are also collecting signatures as proof that they read their poem to the people they say the did. In the form I created, I also left a space for the listeners to make a comment about the reading or the poem.  This is a sneaky way for you student to get some feedback on their fluency.  Mostly, they will get compliments on things they are doing well, but hey, a little positive reinforcement helps learning and self-esteem all at once!

My students absolutely loved the competition aspect of the race and got them amped up to read and share poetry.  I awarded my students for the most signatures, most compliments, best expression and other categories as well.  We did it all throughout the month of April with different poems each week and even competed against another class.  My kids were sad on May 1 when I said this was over.  Get your kids excited and motivated to read with this fun and exciting activity!

Download everything you need for The Great Poetry Race here.

Book Clubs Part 1: The Setup

Every week I look forward to my book club meeting with all of my friends.  My book club has been going strong for almost two years and has grown to 10 solid members.  I love the conversations we have about the books and all of the different perspectives everyone brings to the table.  The other girls say things I never would have thought of on my own.  Sometimes I love a character so much and feel like I could see myself being friends with her only to be surprised that one of my real life friends hates that same character.  It’s these conversations that keep our book club interesting and strong.  It also keeps me accountable as an adult to continue my own reading.

Book clubs can have the same effect on your students when they are run properly.  In my first installment about book clubs we are going to go over setup.  If your kids have never participated in book clubs before, you may want to consider running a “practice book club” with a whole class short text.  This can be a quick trial run to show kids what the room will look and sounds like and how to talk back and forth in a group setting before moving on to Step 1.

Step 1: Choose Book Sets

Depending on your class size you will most likely have 4-5 kids in each book club, so you need sets of titles.  Most of the times we teach book clubs, the students are reading inside a specific genre.  Choose a variety of books in that genre for your students to be able to choose from.

Step 2: Book Talks

As the teacher you will do a book talk on each title you have chosen.  Think of this as a commercial for the book.  It should be short, exciting and “sell” the book to your students.  Some of our more tech savvy friends can make book trailer videos for their students to watch!

Step 3: Student Choice

We want students to be able to have some choice as to which book club they are a part of.  This follows suit with how workshop is run in that students get to choose what they read.  You may be thinking right now, “Well how can I let them choose?  They’re likely to choose a book that is way too hard.”  There are few considerations to make here.  After the book talks, make the students write down a first, second and third choice.  This way you can do a little behind the scenes work in pairing students up with more suitable texts they are interested in and you can do a little work in creating groups you know will be productive together.  A small justification to the kids like “We can’t all be in the same group.” or “Not everyone is going to be able to get their first choice.” will get them ready to read any of the books on their list.

Step 4: Set Book Club Time

While book clubs are running, the independent work time of workshop may look a little different.  You want to be sure you still allow time for independent reading everyday.  This allows the kids to get their book club reading done.  You will need to set time for book clubs to meet and discuss.  Explaining these routines to students and making them predictable will help book clubs get off to a good start and run smoothly.

Once your kids are in their groups they are ready to get together and have some awesome conversations.  While book clubs are going on you will want to do a lot of teaching and modeling about how to have conversations in groups. Look out for my next installment for more information about book clubs! To get all of the materials you need to run book clubs and scripted lesson plans visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store and get The Complete Book Club Unit.