July Currently and Reading in the Wild!

Happy July, friends! Can you believe it's almost the fourth already??

Today I'm lucky enough to link up with two of my favorite bloggers, starting with Farley from Oh Boy Fourth Grade for my July Currently! 

Listening: My summer project has been to clean all my teaching supplies and college things in the basement, and organize them so I'm ready for August. Something about John Mayer just relaxes me and is perfect for organizing.

Loving: I've had time to FINALLY read so many books that I've been wanting to read all year, both professional and personal. See below for details about my favorite read this summer!

Thinking: I feel like every teacher feels the same way when July 4th comes around...summer is going by too fast! I have so much more to do!

Wanting: I've been so out of the loop on TpT. I want to start creating more files, and I have lots of little projects that I've started but never finished. So keep a look out and I promise that I'll have some new lovely products coming your way! :) 

Needing: Organization is a MUST and I've been slacking. I have so many bins, and am currently putting all my library books into them to keep them organized. From what I've seen and heard from other teachers, this is the best way to maintain a classroom library that is organized. I'm labeling everything by genre so that my students can do my 40 book challenge again next year with my new Reader's Notebooks! You can check out my post HERE for more info!

4th Plans: My family is visiting from Virginia this weekend, and we're taking them to some hometown Pittsburgh favorites including cheering on the Bucco's for some fireworks on the 4th and a trip to Kennywood the next day! 

Now onto my other favorite blogger, Catherine from The Brown Bag Teacher for the Summer Book Study! I know, I'm a little behind (only by a chapter!) 

I fell in love with Donalyn Miller after reading with her first book, The Book Whisperer. She gave me a whole new understanding of the meaning behind teaching literacy and how to foster lifelong readers in my classroom. I implemented her 40 Book Challenge this year, and saw tremendous improvements in the level of interest, vocabulary use, and writing of my students. 

Miller opens the first chapter by discussing the ways in which we need to make time to read for our students each day in school. I committed to a 15 minute quiet read time each day this year after recess. Students came in, and after the first week, knew the expectation was to grab a book and indulge in some quality reading time. What did I do during this time? Modeled my passion for reading, and read in a comfy spot, too. Sometimes, that even means on the floor! 

I know so many teachers who have asked how do I find the time for independent reading in my classroom? Well, my question is how do you not have time for independent reading? Students need choice! As we grow older, we lose our passion for reading as we are given requirements and books we have to read. Remember all those college textbooks you had to read? How many of them did you actually keep because you enjoyed reading? 

Students who spend their time reading, in school and out of school, are indefinitely more likely to achieve higher on standardized tests and develop a better vocabulary. Using time in school for students to read is an essential part of my instruction. As suggested by Miller, I use a reading/writing workshop in my classroom with use of mentor texts and mini-lessons to help make connections between what students are reading and what they are writing. 

Miller talks about how we can set aside time for independent reading in the classroom. She explains how we must be prepared for "reading emergencies" and always have a book. I've found this to be so beneficial for myself, especially with all the activities with which my family is involved. Getting oil in my car, waiting in line at the store, etc. are all great opportunities I've taken advantage of to get out my book and read. Teaching students about taking advantage of these spare moments is so important to foster a true love of reading. Even with the 40 book challenge my class did this year, as a first year teacher, I admit I never took advantage of these small opportunities we shared. All of those minutes truly add up and I look forward to challenging my students this year to take advantage of these "reading emergencies" in their life, both in and out of school. This could be waiting in line for special (gym, library, art, etc.), waiting for the bus, during transitional times, etc.

One of the ways I allowed for additional reading time in my classroom was doing the Lunch Bunch Book Club this year. Every Friday, students chose to come in and eat their lunch while discussing the book we were reading together. Spots were limited, so students would race to the sign up sheet each month to see the next book. I chose books from various genres to provide for different interests. This was something that my kiddos looked forward to! You can read more about this idea here.

I'm looking forward to seeing the other ways teachers foster independent reading in their classrooms! I love learning new things, and am always looking for ways to improve. I'd love to hear how you do this in your classroom!

Monday Made It: Reader's Notebook

Happy Summer friends! 

Today I'm linking up with Tara from Fourth Grade Frolics for my first Monday Made It of the summer!

This summer, my goal is to get organized for next year. On my to-do list right now is refining my reading strategies. This year I completed a thirty book challenge with my fourth grade students inspired by Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer. Now, I'm reading her second book, Reading in the Wild. As I read, I'm refining my Reader's Notebooks.

So, let me introduce to you the start of my new Reader's Notebook for next year. It's a model, that I plan to show students and have them create their own. 

I plan for students to decorate the cover of their spiral bound notebooks
during the first week of school. They can make them personal and unique.

One of the first pages of their notebook will include a reading timeline.
I want my students to see themselves as readers from day one.
I want them to think about why they are readers, and how they became readers.

A closer look at my timeline will show that I included books that
share personal impacts on my life as a reader. These books have shaped
the way in which I view my reading life.

My book timeline spans from my first book, to elementary
 and middle school, to my college life, and into my
recent year of teaching. 

Then, I want to have a section for genre blurbs where students can
determine what genre in which they are most interested, and discuss
why they like these kinds of books.

If you haven't yet, make sure to go to Tara's blog to check out more fabulous ideas for Monday Made It!

Sparking Student Motivation on a Snowy Saturday

Happy Saturday, friends!

I hope somewhere there is warm weather - here it's been snowing all day! So on this snowy Saturday, I'm linking up with Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching.

Lately, I've been feeling like I'm finally in the swing of things. No t that I wasn't confident in my teaching before this, but I just have that feeling where our class is in a routine. I feel more confident, and I feel like our lessons are moving more smoothly. So now, my goal has been to revamp our literacy block a bit to allow for more engaging activities. Our school is so fortunate to have two and a half hours at the end of the day dedicated to reading instruction. So while I've been using them to the best of my ability, I'm ready to kick things up a notch. 

One of the things I've been working on is my FOCUS board for ELA.

Oops! Just ignore the ants, I forgot I left my suffixes poster up from last week! 

Each week we focus on grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling, and writing skills. While we cover most of these during our literacy center time on Thursdays and Fridays, I have been trying to update them with larger posters to which students can refer. This week, I'm making resources for main ideas, irregular verbs, spelling, multiple-meaning words, and persuasive writing. I'm hoping this will be a useful reference to motivate students to stay on track of their learning for language arts. 

In one of my recent posts, I talked about how I've been incorporating more work with vocabulary by using these vocabulary lanyards each day.  Check out that post here. 

Well, I've come up with something else for my students to try this week! I present to you, Vocabustrations!

Remember the game "telephone," where you start with one word (for example, banana), whisper it in someone's ear, and after it goes around the room, it's a completely different word (like zebra)? Well, the concept is pretty much the same here. It's based off the game, Telestrations, which you can see an example below.

For Vocabustrations, students will be divided into groups of 4 - 5 players. Each student will choose a vocabulary word and write their word on the "Secret Word" page. 

Then, the timer gets turned and the same student draws their word. They have 60 seconds to sketch their vocabulary word. Once the timer goes off, that player turns to page two, and they pass the book to the player on their left. 

Then, each player takes a few seconds to guess in words what they see, and passes their book again to the player on their left. The timer is turned again for 60 seconds, and everyone draws what they see. 

This play continues until everyone's sketch book has been passed by every player, and returns back to its original owner, where it's time for the BIG REVEAL to see what happened to each secret word. Depending on how many vocabulary words you have, the degree of difficulty of this game may vary. 

I think my kiddos are going to have fun and be more motivated to practice their vocabulary this week!

You can download your copy of Vocabustrations to try in your classroom here for free!

Thanks for stopping by! I'd love to hear how you motivate your students in to practice and expand their vocabulary.

Have a warm weekend!

Spark Student Motivation Saturday

Happy Saturday everyone!
I'm linking up with Joanne today for Spark Student Motivation!

One of the ongoing projects that we started in October is our 30 Book Challenge. This is a literacy-based project based off of the amazing (seriously, absolutely amazing) The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. Teachers, this is a MUST read for fabulous tips on motivating a passion for reading in your students.

To kick-off this project, we started by completing a Student Interest Survey on the first day. This helped me get a better feel of what students liked and disliked to read, as well as what outside interests might make great topics for reading. (For instance, several students might not like to read, or language arts might be their least favorite subject in school, but if I know that they love a certain sport, I will look for books about that topic to help stimulate their growth as readers.) I used a cute version of the survey, and looked at their responses to create the requirements for each genre.

Each student has their own Reading Response Notebook, where I gave them copies of documents to keep track of their reading, and helpful hints on each genre. In order to assess what my students are reading, I have five minute conferences with them during the week, and require that students write me a letter detailing their response to each book that they have read. 

Okay, okay; I know what you're thinking. Yes, thirty books is a TON for a fourth grader to read. Thirty books is a TON for anyone to read.  I'm reading thirty books alongside my students, and yes, it is a challenge. How do I keep my students motivated? Donalyn Miller says:

Since I started the project, I've added a daily 15 minutes (which turns into twenty or more) of pure reading time to our schedule. Let me tell you, even the students who are not necessarily avid readers, are asking me, "When will we get our 15 minute read today?" They have started to find good books that match their interests, and books that open new worlds for them. That in itself is an accomplishment in my mind.

Still, I have students who tell me that they want to read, but they just can't find the time. Admittedly, I fall into this scenario as well; I'm human and have other things on my to-do list. So I came up with a solution: This week I am presenting a Lunch Bunch Book Club!

I plan to introduce this to my class on Monday. One of my sweet girls is reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, and her enthusiasm that she shares with me every morning about the book made me realize that it would make a great book to read and discuss with other students, too! 

Instead of having my students purchase the book, or purchase multiple copies of the book on my own, I've contacted several libraries to borrow the books this week. I plan to do this as a first come first serve sort of group, that way it allows different students to participate for each book based on their level of interest. I'm going to come up with some questions for discussion for the first few meetings, and then I'll open it up for our meetings to be more student-led. I think this will be a wonderful way to motivate my students to read, and to explore other sorts of books. 

What ways do you motivate your students to read in your classroom? I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!