Celebrating Read Across America

I don't know about you guys, but it just baffles me that we are almost all the way through February!  We have a short week this week for parent teacher conferences, which means I get to go through all my shelves and make sure things are in order.  Lucky me!  My to-do list for conference days is always a million miles long and never seems to get even halfway done.  We'll see how productive I am at the end of this week!

Every year the National Education Association promotes Read Across America day.  This program is an effort to get students across the country reading and celebrating a love of books.  Since it falls on Dr. Seuss' birthday, many people love to celebrate with Dr. Seuss themed activities.  With the event approaching quickly I thought I would share some of my favorite ideas.

Fox in Socks Graphing
I have seen this idea a few times in my searching and thought it was a great way to incorporate math with literature!  You designate one day of the week as "Silly Socks Day".  Students wear their silliest socks and listen as you read Fox in Socks.  Then, you can have students decorate a sock with a new design and tape it onto the board in either the "Wearing Silly Socks" or "Not Wearing Silly Socks" section.  Once all the data is collected, students create graphs to show how many students in their class are wearing silly socks. 

The Lorax with Upper Elementary Skills
I found this great blog post from One Stop Teacher Shop with ideas on how to use The Lorax with upper elementary students.  She has worksheets for inference, context clues, and story mapping.  There are even movie questions and a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the book with the movie.  All of the worksheets are $5 on her Teacher Pay Teachers site and it looks like it would be well worth it.

Cat in the Hat Word Family Sorting
I found these free word family sorting hats on This Reading Mama.  It would be a perfect center activity in your classroom for Read Across America.  She has included PLENTY of short and long vowel options, so you will be guaranteed to find word families you have covered with your students already.  If you plan ahead you can even laminate them to be used every year.  Just put them in envelopes with the word family on the front so you can easily find them as you teach them!

Rhyme Time Sorting
Khrys from Keepin' It Kool in KinderLand created this free rhyme sorting page.  This would be a great activity for your kinders and first graders.  You could have the entire class do it at once after doing a rhyming lesson with a Dr. Seuss book, or have it as a center.  You can find the download here.

Bartholomew and the Oobleck
This has to be one of my favorite Dr. Seuss activities.  It is definitely a messy one, but the kids absolutely love it!  Plus, you get to combine science and reading all in one!  It is a great project to discuss states of matter, and I have even seen some posts where you incorporate sound as well.  The book is a bit long, so I broke it up throughout the day with my second graders and we did the science portion at the end of the day.  Go to my Read Across America Pinterest board for several links to this activity.


I will be continuing to look for Dr. Seuss activities in the coming week so make sure to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas!  Do you have a favorite activity for Read Across America Day?    Until next time, happy reading!

Comparing and Contrasting with Kevin Henkes

One of my favorite authors is Kevin Henkes.  His characters are funny and relatable for students while dealing with common issues.  My students love realizing that some characters appear in multiple books.  His books are useful for teaching many skills, but I especially love using them to teach students comparing and contrasting.

I taught this two part lesson with my third graders and focused on theme for the first lesson.  (If you teach younger students you could look at story elements or beginning/middle/end.)  We used Storyline Online to watch Chester's Way during our first lesson.  I was so excited to find this story on SAG's website, and even more excited when I saw that they have Katie Leclerc doing American Sign Language interpretation with this story!  I took sign language in college and enjoyed it, so this was a fun addition.

I've noticed my students have a difficult time locking onto the difference between theme and lesson in a story.  I gave a few examples of lesson and theme to help them see the connections and difference between the two concepts.  We looked at how students need to look at what the characters say and do as well as how they change throughout the story to find the theme.

As we read the story we kept track of events and characters to help us track those changes.  At the end, we discussed with partners what the lesson would be first, then used that lesson to help us find the theme of the story. Students were able to find more than one lesson or theme for the story, which led to a good discussion on how we can get different things out of a story.

The next time students came to me for library I read aloud Julius, Baby of the World.  I chose this book for several reasons.  It has characters from Chester's Way, which allows them to compare and contrast the same character in different stories.  In both stories the main character does not get along with another character until the end of the book.  The two books have enough similarities and differences to make them perfect for this standard.  We began by reviewing how to identify the theme of a book and reminding our neighbors of the events in Chester's Way.  At the end of the lesson, I had students get into groups of three to complete a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the stories.  Students did well with this lesson and they definitely felt more comfortable with theme the second time around.

What's your favorite Kevin Henke's book and how do you use it in your classroom?  Until next time, happy reading!

Genius Hour: Unlocking the Passion in Your Students

Happy Friday everyone!  Is it just me, or did this week drag by extremely slowly?  The PTA came in to set up Book Fair on Thursday and we opened today, which meant we saw a lot of traffic in the library.  I will definitely be ready to stay in bed late and watch a ridiculous amount of Netflix tomorrow morning!
On Tuesday I started a new club with some of my students.  I came across the idea of Genius Hour a year ago when I was looking for research projects for my students.  The idea intrigued me, but I was hesitant to take on the chaos of Genius Hour with 25 second graders.  This new trend actually began at Google, where they allow their employees to spend some time working on pet projects (as long as they could potentially benefit the company).  This idea has spread into classrooms, where teachers are setting aside time for students to research something they are passionate about.  I could type out all the information about Genius Hour, but the video below gives the history of the idea and how it is being applied to classrooms.

Here are a few reasons I like the idea of Genius Hour:
1.  Giving Them Choice
So much of what we do is dictated by standards, administration, and other forces that run the education world.  I know when I was in the classroom it seemed like I was constantly being told what to teach and how to teach it.  Trying to fit every child's interests into your lessons is daunting and impossible.  This gives them a chance to be in charge of a small part of their school time.
2.  Sneaking in Skills
As students do their projects, they will naturally have to use research skills.  This gives you a chance to teach these skills as they do their projects, having them apply their research skills in an authentic way.  It will be a great opportunity to informally review things such as how to choose a search term or how to check if a source is credible.
3.  Creating Lifelong Learners
We all want our students to grow up to be lifelong learners that have a passion about something.  If a student is having trouble trying to find a book I always start the conversation with "What are you interested in?"  You wouldn't believe how many times the answer is "Nothing."  I throw out some popular answers (animals, sports, crafts, drawing, etc.) and we come up empty.  Helping students explore various topics lets them discover these passions that they will be able to carry into the future.

For our first meeting we came up with topics we might want to research and narrowed it down to one specific topic.  When I was preparing and making my own list, I realized it was even difficult for me to narrow down my topics.  I chose to use a blank bracket to help us make the process easier.  Students started by making a list of topics they might want to explore during Genius Hour.  I reminded them that they can include things they want to learn more about, hobbies they currently have, or even things they know nothing about or skills they want to learn.

After we finished our list, I modeled how to narrow down our list using the bracket.  Some students had over 20 items (whoa!) and had to narrow down ahead of time since there were only 16 slots.  We discussed things like what supplies we would need to make our final product, if it would be hard to find information on the topic, or if one topic sounds more interesting.  In the end they were all able to choose a topic for Genius Hour!  We had everything from Shopkins to aeronautics to snakes.

Next week we will be looking at the difference between a Google question and a Genius question.  Then we will use our topic to formulate a question that will guide our research.  I'm excited to see what these kids come up with!  Have you ever done Genius Hour or something similar in your classroom?  What are your opinions on this movement?  Until next time, happy reading!