A NOVEL IDEA

As always, reading was really my main focus with my class this year because some of them were struggling with decoding and comprehension while others just had no interest whatsoever in reading. We spent an hour every day reading together in our reading workshop and each child improved tremendously this year. In fact, by the end of the year, I could not get them to stop reading!

 To emphasize the importance of reading and to show the students how much fun reading can be, I required the students to read a book each month and to do some sort of book report to show what they learned. Here's what we did each month!

The first one we did for September was a mini book book report. The kids got to make their own little books sharing what they remembered from the book and rating it too. I loved their adorable drawings and and their cute little handwriting!

October's book report was a pumpkin book report where I stretched their summary writing skills a bit. The students had to write what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the book. These turned out super cute and are available for purchase at my store.

Our next bookreport for November was a turkey book report. The students had to color, cut out, and assemble an adorable turkey and write book information on turkey feathers.

For December, since there are not as many school days, instead of doing a book report we did a project called "The 12 Books of Christmas." The goal for each student was to read 12 books in the month of December and make Christmas ornaments with the names of the books written on them to decorate a reading Christmas tree. In our end of the year recap, this was one of the kids' favorite projects!

January/ February's report was much more extensive and was more of a research paper than a book report. My family always teases me for assigning research reports for 2nd graders, but you have to start somewhere, right?! The ability to communicate through writing is a skill so few adults possess and I want every child that I work with to have a solid foundation in writing. I will kindly step off my soap-box now and get back to on topic.
In honor of President's Day, the students were required at the beginning of January to choose a president that they wanted to read a book about and write a report about. The students were required to write a 2 page report giving interesting information about the president (or president' relative) they studied and they share ideas for what they would do if they were president... in front of the class! Public speaking is another skill that few people are comfortable with... Start 'em young, I say! The students had the option to either dress up as the president or make a poster with pictures of the president but I did have some students who did both. Some of them really had some great ideas about what they would do if they were president and some were completely hilarious! The kids worked SO hard on their reports and did such an awesome job! I was so proud and impressed!

In March, I introduced the students to the mystery genre of books and we made book report sandwiches. I found the template for this in a book called The Creative Teacher that my best friend bought for me last year. It is available for purchase here and is full of fun teaching ideas. Several of my boys really got "on board" with reading this month because of discovering how fun mystery books can be! The kids loved being able to read their reports to the class!

In the past our final book report for April/ May was a Boxcar Children poster report. The students had to read a Boxcar Children book and then make a giant poster telling what the book was about. Many of the students typed their own reports and came up with some awesome ideas for decoration.
This year, though, I changed up the April/ May bookreport and had the students choose a book that had been made into a movie (like Peter Pan or Because of Winn Dixie). They had to read the book and then (like the Boxcar Children reports) had to make a poster advertising their book, including a star rating.
I hung all the posters in our hallway to show off all the kids' hard work!

Hmmm... make things enjoyable and students want to do it more?? What a novel idea!
{pun intended.}

Stay inspired!

Read Alouds and a Freebie

This past year in one of our morning staff meetings, I had to present an education related article to share and discuss with my fellow teachers. Having taken so many speech classes and also being an elementary teacher, of course, I had to come up with an engaging intro before letting the group read the article I brought for them to read. Since the article that I shared was all about reading and specifically reading strategies, I decided to poll the group and see what their own personal feelings were on reading. This group consisted of administrators, high school, elementary, and preschool teachers and I was quite surprised with the results. About half of the teachers shared that they did not enjoy reading! (GASP!!!) A few of them told the group they read only when they have to because they are not very strong readers and others said that they only like to read books on specific topics  like sports, for example. This got me thinking, how many of the kids in our classrooms actually like reading? And… how can we get them to like reading?

Since I began teaching 3 years ago, I feel like my biggest aim or goal as a teacher is to “make” my kids love to learn and to enjoy reading and so here are a couple of ideas that I have used (some I’ve come up with, others I learned about in school or have “borrowed” from others) that have had some success. I jokingly tell parents that I try to “trick” kids into thinking that all we do at school is play, when really, they are discovering and learning just in “un-traditional” ways. Sometime I’ll share some of the games we do that my kiddos have enjoyed but for now, I’ll address a few ways that I use (to attempt) to get kids to enjoy reading.

1.    1.   Let the kids read books they enjoy. In 2^nd grade we do monthly book reports and I always let the kids choose what book they want to read. I give them a minimum page requirement and sometimes I give them a specific genre that I want them to read, but other than that, the kids (and parents, too) get to read what they want to read. I’ll share in another post some ideas about how I attempt to make book reports more fun for the kids, too.

2.     2.  Make in class reading time fun and enjoyable. I think reading groups/ reading circles/ guided reading time in smaller groups (or whatever you want to call it!) can be a very fun way to do reading class. Each group chooses the name of the group—this year we had the Boston Bruins, the Jaguars, and the D-Backs—and we gather on the rug with pillows and carpet squares and get comfy and read together. This relaxed environment definitely takes away some of the pressure of reading orally in front of others, gets kids out of their seats, and is just fun! I try to choose stories that they’ll like and have discussions that engage the kids and let them share personal experiences that go along with the story. I also like to have candy or stickers for rewards for good reading, good behavior during reading time, and good answers to comprehension questions. While I’m meeting with groups one at a time, I give the students seatwork to do which involves silent reading, a phonics practice page, and then some sort of fun academic or seasonal page like a word search or a coloring page. After that, they decide what they want to do—read, draw, color, or play with something quietly at their desks. My plan for next year is to incorporate learning centers during this “free time” so that one group is reading, one is doing seatwork, while the other are doing center activities.  Another summer project. J

3.     3.  Read fun stories TO the kids. I think that this is the time to expose the students to quality literature that they might not pick out on their own to read for a book report. I love to use picture books to incorporate into lessons for different subjects but my classes especially love when I pick chapter books to read to them. I just LOVE to leave them hanging at the end of the chapter, making them beg and thirst for more. I LOVE talking with them about what we just read and then asking them to predict what they think will happen next. I LOVE when they ask me to borrow the book when we’re finished reading it, so they can read it themselves. Can you tell I just LOVE reading to my kiddos??

Well, because of all this, one of my summer projects I want to work on is building up my classroom library and finding more awesome read aloud books to share with my class. Here’s a couple of my favorite read alouds that I already use in my class that have been a hit.

I always start the year with Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, because it’s my absolute favorite story ever and surprisingly, a lot of kids have not even seen the Disney version of this story. Plus, for those who have seen the movie, it’s neat to discuss how the movie is the same and how it’s different from the book.  

The next book I like to read to them is a more modern story, one that works for older kids and younger kids too. It’s by one of my favorite authors for children’s books and it’s called Frindle by Andrew Clement. The kids totally eat this one up!

The Adventure of Tom Sawyer is another great one that my class has enjoyed. They love to hear about all his adventures and makes for great discussion about the wisdom in the choices he makes. It’s a little more suspenseful but the kids really like to tell me how “not scared” they are!

Last year, after reading Tom Sawyer to my class, I had a boy ask if we could read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn since he had it at his house. Naturally, I told him we didn’t have time. Totally kidding! J I had him bring it to school and the kids enjoyed it just as much or even more than Tom Sawyer. When we finished, we were able to compare and contrast the two boys, talking about their personalities and their character and then we voted which book they liked better. Really. Fun. stuff.

These are a couple of my favorites but I’m curious, what read alouds do you use in your class? Any books you think should ABSOLUTELY be in a classroom library?

Thanks for reading!! Here's a freebie for you from my TpT store: Puppy Pronouns! This adorable clip art was purchased from Scrappin Doodles.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Puppy-Pronouns Follow the link to download for free!

Enjoy!