Watching Books

Having a copy of a book in their hands while listening and watching its being read was amazing for my English Learners. They would look at their book and then at the screen, comparing the story and illustrations. It was a great teaching tool!

Many read-alouds can be found on YouTube, which is what I typically used. Here is The Very Hungry Caterpillar read by Eric Carle himself. (Since my ELs thought of him as a rock star, they were thrilled to watch it!)

In this video, Bill Martin reads Brown Bear, Brown Bear.

Search for your favorites, and let your students or your own children enjoy and read along!

P.S. If your kiddos LOVE Eric Carle's books as my English Learners did (and my grands do) you can watch this animated version of five of his most popular books on Netflix through the end of June 2016. It includes Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Mixed-Up Chameleon, and I See a Song. (To be honest, $4.99 from Amazon would be a good investment, too!)

Nerdy Book Club: Using Picture Books to Introduce New Units

If you don't follow Nerdy Book Club, you should. You'll find more than 70 bloggers there, so you'll be able to hop right over to their blogs to see which of them will be invaluable to you!

The post I'm featuring today is Top Ten Picture Books To Introduce Units Of Study, by Kari Allen. In it, Kari describes how she used ten favorite books to introduce math, science, and other units to her second graders. Here's an example:

 

Library Mouse written and illustrated by Daniel Kirk

She says, "...it was the foundation for our writing (which we did in all subjects.) I started the year off by sharing this book with students." The next day "students would discover tons of stapled blank books that the Library Mouse left," and thus began their "yearlong (hopefully lifelong) inquiry into writing."

I've long believed, that with the emphasis on reading and math that new standards have required, science and social studies could best be taught by using integrated units. How better to do this than to use books and stories to teach both reading and content?

Enjoy Kari's ideas, and may they lead to many more of your own!

Donalyn Miller: No More Language Arts and Crafts

This morning, I simply have to share a post from Donalyn Miller over at bookwhisperer.com. It says so many things I want to say about reading and reading instruction. And while it may seem a bit critical at first, pay attention to what Donalyn says here:

"I’m still learning how to be a better teacher. I’ve missed a lot of chances to connect my students with reading. I’ve created negative reading experiences in my classroom. I didn’t know what I know now. I learned. I grew. I evolved. I improved. I was a novice teacher once, but I’m not new any more. When you know better, you do better. No excuses."

If you are a teacher, I hope you will read the entire post, and then, as quickly as you can, read The Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild. I also hope (if you aren't already a fan) that you will read all you can by:

Penny Kittle - http://www.pennykittle.net/
Kristin Ziemke - http://www.kristinziemke.com/
Kelly Gallagher - http://www.kellygallagher.org/

When we know better, we can DO better.

Teri Lesesne: Singing the Praises of Books and Reading

It's true that Sunday was yesterday, but I simply can't NOT share this "sermon" from Teri Lesesne, posted over at Nerdy Book Club.

Teri says, in part, "Our first priority is, of course, service to the students who come into our classrooms. In the picture book The Three Questions by Jon Muth, Nicolai has three burning questions: 'What is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?'" 

Read her answers here: 

Preaching to the Choir: Singing the Praises of Books and Reading by Teri S. Lesesne

Readworks Revisited

I've written before about the amazing ReadWorks.org website, and I have to share today that they've just added 100 new passages. As you can see above, these include fiction and original reporting, in addition to science and social studies. The passages are identified by grade level and lexile. 

This fabulous site also provides Skill and Strategy Units, Novel Units, and so much more! I could go on and on, but I'd prefer that you check it out for yourself. I guarantee that you will find it hard to believe that all of this is FREE!

Common Core Poetry Exemplars

I have good news from the Poetry Foundation! This great group has collected almost 50 of the poems that are listed in Appendix B of the CCSS, and they are available to you FREE. Links to the poems are found in the October 28 article Common Core State Standards Text Exemplars on the foundation's website. And while you're there, be sure to check out some of the MANY other resources available. 

Let's say you decide to read Carl Sandburg's "Fog" with your 4th grade class. By clicking the Related Content tab above the poem, you'll find

• a biography of the poet
• links to 34 of his other poems
• links to 15 audio and podcasts of his poetry
• two archival recordings of Sandburg, from the mid 1900s

 And that's just one of the poems on this website. Hustle on over and start finding great resources you can use with your own kiddos!

Update: Last August I wrote about the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's webpage that listed free, online sources for the CCSS text exemplars that are public domain. Unfortunately, that document has been taken down, so I deleted the post from the blog. I hope this one helps with your poetry lessons!

Foldables FoldiFun Factory, by blogger Mor Zrihen

A quick heads-up to all of you who use and love foldables (and those of you who soon will!) Mor Zrihen, a teacher in south Florida, blogs over at A Teacher's Treasure. She shares her own collection at the Foldables FoldiFun Factory tab on her blog. 

Giving credit to Dinah Zike, who holds the registered trademark for foldables, Mor describes them as "interactive 3D graphic organizers (that) encourage student ownership of study material, provide a kinesthetic component to teaching strategies, and promote long-term retention of academic lessons." 

Below are just a few pics of Mor's cool ideas:

Math

ELA

Vocabulary

Click on over and see what you can use, offered FREE from this great blogger!

Booklists for the Common Core from Reading Rockets

Almost a year ago, I wrote about the many resources available from Reading Rockets, the national multimedia literacy initiative of WETA's Learning Media. 

With the current transition to Common Core State Standards, one of the most useful resources for those of you who teach K-4 is their Themed Booklists. As you create your CCSS ELA units, you will be searching for stories and informational text that you can sequence appropriately for your kiddos. 

And while your reading textbooks will provide a starting point, you will need to search out other quality texts, a daunting task to accomplish on your own! The 150+ booklists found on the Reading Rockets site can help. Below is just a sampling of booklists you'll find there.

• Are You Ready? School's Open
• Books About Our National Parks
• For Laughing Out Loud
• How Things Work
• Jobs People Have
• Passport to the World
• Remarkable Women
• Young Detectives

Every list I previewed consisted of ten books, with a nice mix of fiction and informational text. Check it out - just another awesome FREE resource from this great site. And while you're there look at what else Reading Rockets offers! 

Common Core Resources for ELLs at Colorín Colorado

I have great news for anyone who teaches English Learners, via Lesli A. Maxwell at Education Week. In a blog post yesterday, she reported that Colorín Colorado has added a wonderful new CCSS resource for teachers of ELLs. Lesli had previously reported about the work that Albuquerque, N. M., teachers were doing to "ensure that the district's large number of English-learners would not be left to languish under the more demanding requirements of the common core." Now she reports that "anyone can see the full lesson plans those teachers created, videos of them teaching in the classroom, and interviews of them talking about how it worked." Lessons created by teachers, for teachers? Bravo!

And another "Bravo!" to Colorín Colorado. As an ESL teacher I consulted this amazing website often, and it's no surprise that these resources are now available here. In addition to the work done by the Albuquerque teachers, you'll find information for teachers who "might be trying to figure out what their role in supporting students and content teachers should be in the common-core era" as well as parent resources.

Hurry over and see what you can use, and enjoy the work of teachers who are willing to share - the BEST kind! 

Listen and Read: Read-Along Books from Scholastic

I love Scholastic for many reasons; the newest is their Listen and Read site, where they provide 54 FREE nonfiction read-along ebooks for primary students. Your kiddos can access them on a computer or tablet, or you can use them with a group on an interactive whiteboard. They are sorted by subject and by level, with a good mix of science and social studies topics.

So why is it called Listen and Read? Because each of the ebooks is also an audiobook - by clicking on a "listen" button, your beginning reader can hear the words on the screen as she reads along. A nice feature at the end of each story is a list of vocabulary words.

Here's a sample page from a story for 2nd graders:

I learned about this great resource via a Facebook post by Charity Preston, who writes the Organized Classroom blog. Charity's post linked to a Pinterest pin by Carolyn Wilhelm, who operates the Wise Owl Factory. Both of these sites offer a ton of free resources themselves, and are definitely worthy of a visit.

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

CCSS Initiatives for ELLs

I have a quick share today for those who teach English Language Learners, whether in ESL or regular classrooms. 

 

TESOL International Association released an issue brief just last month titled Overview of the Common Core State Standards Initiatives for ELLs. Its stated purpose is to "provide a comprehensive overview of the policies behind the CCSS and to outline some of the initiatives now in place to address the needs of English language learners (ELLs) in relation to the CCSS."

If you teach ELLs, you need to read this brief. One of its most important features is a table that shows the three overarching English Language Arts/Literacy CCSS Shifts side by side with the continuum of expertise, according to Achieve the Core, that teachers will need "to ensure that ELLs with varying levels of first language literacy, background knowledge, and English language proficiency can achieve the CCSS."

Important knowledge for everyone, since ALL teachers are teachers of English Learners!

Reading Beyond the "Popular Posts"

Hey, friends!

I just want to remind you that there are MANY resources on the blog that don't appear in the right-side column as "Popular Posts." Below are some of my favorites.

If you want to make your science classes more effective, you NEED to read these three posts about inquiry:
A Private Universe - It will change your life!
A Private Universe - Second in a Series
Teaching Science Through Inquiry - Last in the Series

Thinking ahead to next year? Consider using Planbook as your very convenient online planning book/tool. I guarantee it will make your life easier with its pull-down lists of standards and its calendar format.

White Flour - the Book and the Video is personally meaningful to me, as a southerner and the mom of a missionary.

I think you'll love Booksource's Classroom Library Organizer to keep track of all those books that are so important to your students.

Staying with the book theme, ReadKiddoRead is James Patterson's initiative "dedicated to making kids readers for life." You'll find videos, lists of suggested books by level and genre, suggestions for lesson plans, discussion groups, and more!

I love the books I wrote about in the "Cures for the Common Core Blues" series: 

• Irena's Jars of Secrets
• Pink and Say
• My Name is Maria Isabel
• Tomás and the Library Lady
• Inch by Inch
• The Keeping Quilt
• Goin' Someplace Special

Be on the lookout for more of these!

Remember to use the "Labels" list to find posts related to particular ideas and subjects. Don't forget to follow the blog, and have a great weekend!

Book-Love

I've written before about my daughter's book blog; her latest post is one that warms the heart of a teacher/Mom/Gran-Nan who loves to read and wants the children in her life to love reading, too. 

Joanna describes how she read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars at school while her students read their independent books: "My students delighted in watching me read it, as I laughed out loud, (and) shared lines and paragraphs with them. (They) could hardly wait for me to finish so they could fight over who would check it out next from our school library. I finally felt, with my reading of The Fault in Our Stars, that I could at last show my students what it means to fall head over heels in love with a book -- with the characters, with their predicaments, with the plot ups and downs."

Of course, Joanna's blog is just one of many that review great books for young people and adults. If you're especially looking for teachers to follow who are dedicated to instilling a love of reading, I suggest that you start with:

Sarah Mulhern Gross, contributor at The Learning Network at the New York Times, who blogs at The Reading Zone, and is @thereadingzone on Twitter, and

Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer, whose Twitter ID is @donalynbooks. Her Facebook page is also called The Book Whisperer.

I'm looking forward to reading this book, and perhaps seeing the movie, which is currently in pre-production.

An Excellent Find: E is for Explore!

You are going to LOVE the site I have to share with you tonight! I came across it via a science activity posted to Pinterest, and was I ever amazed and delighted when I followed the link to Erin Bittman's blog, E is for Explore!

Erin blends graphic design, her original career, with her current path toward becoming a teacher, to "develop unique learning activities, search the internet and compile additional great ideas from other sources." Her site is chock-full of manipulatives and activities useful across the curriculum, from literacy to math and engineering, and she provides easy links to sites that she shares.

Since Easter is coming soon, I'll show you images from one of Erin's posts, wherein she shares activities from inferencing to fractions using Plastic Eggs: 

Great, huh? Click on over to Erin's blog, where "all 'E is for Explore' activities conform to state common core curriculum standards."

And you're welcome! :-)

More Common Core Writing Practice at the New York Times

For your own best practices, here are two recent Common Core Practice Writing Tasks from The Learning Network at The New York Times.

An argumentative writing task about the late "technology wunderkind," Aaron Swartz: A Data Crusader, a Defendant and Now, a Cause.

Michael Francis McElroy/The New York Times

A narrative writing task about Richard Blanco, the son of Cuban exiles who was the 2013 inaugural poet: Poet's Kinship with the President.

Craig Dilger for The New York Times

I highly recommend not only these tasks, but also that you check out the Common Core Practice that appears each Friday on The Learning Network's page! And, as always, I ask that you leave a comment if you use Sarah Gross and Jonathan Olsen's great ideas.

Lit2Go - FREE Audio Books

From Aesop's Fables to The Velveteen Rabbit, with Dracula, Jane Eyre, and Tom Sawyer in between, you'll be amazed at the number of FREE audio books you'll find at Lit2Go, an ongoing project of the Florida Center for Instructional Technology.

"Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom."

Frankenstein

Around the World in 80 Days

The Invisible Man

Try playing these classics for your students during read-aloud time, and watch them start to appreciate books that haven't exactly been flying off your library shelves!

Storyline Online, from the Screen Actors Guild

How would you like to have 25 FREE read-alouds for your students to enjoy? What if all 25 of them were GREAT children's books? And if the readers were people like James Earl Jones or Jane Kaczmarek, or perhaps Ernest Borgnine or Annette Bening?

If this sounds amazing, then you are in luck! 

The Screen Actors Guild Foundation provides this great resource via YouTube or, for those whose systems block the site, via SchoolTube's Storyline Online channel. 

Here's Betty White reading Gene Zion's classic Harry the Dirty Dog:

As if the videos weren't enough, Storyline Online also provides a downloadable activity guide for each book that includes questions, suggested research extensions, internet activities, and biographical information about the author, illustrator, and reader, plus more book suggestions.

I know you'll enjoy all this site has to offer you and your kiddos!

Writing with Sentence Frames from a (Great) Blogger

Wow. I found a super-great resource for you this morning that I wanted to share right away!

Arlene Sandberg shares "best practices, ideas, strategies, information, and FREEBIES to help teachers make a difference for elementary students, low performing students, and ESL students" at It's Elementary. With 33 years of teaching experience, she has so much for us! I'm now following the blog and I recommend that you do the same.

Arlene's newest post is Using Sentence Frames to Help Struggling Writers Make Sentences, but I think every primary teacher could make great use of her free packet Writing Sentences with Sentence Frames, which includes a whole group activity, two Writing and Illustrating Sentences with Sentence Frames Activities, and a Writing Sentences Assessment. She even walks you through the process of using it, a valuable tutorial!

The preview above links to the packet at Arlene's Teachers Pay Teachers store, LMN Tree, where you'll find more of her creations, with none costing more than $7.50! 

I downloaded it to share with the teachers where I'm working as an academic specialist, and I'm letting Arlene know how much I appreciate her generosity in sharing her expertise. I hope you will, too.

Cures for the Common Core Blues: BOOKS, Vol. 7

Like me, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack are Tennessee-born-and-bred. This teacher and civil engineer started writing because of their concern about the lack of stories written for African American children; since 1984, they've published a number of books set in the segregated South where we grew up. 

An author study on this writing couple would provide cross-curricular opportunities for learning about the Civil Rights Movement and Jim Crow laws, and Black Americans who have made great contributions to our society and culture. Researching primary sources and reading their biographies would offer opportunities for close reading of (and writing about) informational text, a major tenet of the CCSS: "Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text."

Their picture books are wonderful; one of my favorites is Goin' Someplace Special, written by Patricia and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.

The book is described by Barbara Bader in "For the McKissacks, Black Is Boundless," which appeared in The Horn Book Magazine in 2007: "Though she’ll be allowed into the downtown library, ’Tricia Ann has to ride in the back of the bus, finds that the bench in the nearby park is for 'Whites Only,' and has a real scare when she innocently follows a white crowd into an off-limits hotel."

You and your students will enjoy seeing and hearing Patricia and Fredrick McKissack talk about their work in this Reading Rockets video interview:

Kemp Elementary School in Cobb County, GA chose Goin' Someplace Special as its book of the month in February 2005, and provides reading and writing strategies and a connecting activity to Rosa Parks. In January 2010, the K-2 Exquisite Prompt on the Reading Rockets website was based on Goin' Someplace Special.

You can teach SO much, including vocabulary, visualization, making inferences, time line activities, mapping, US history, and cultural understanding using this beautiful book. Share it with your kiddos and let its important themes help cure your Common Core blues!

Building Academic Vocabulary

I just might have mentioned before that I love Ireland's NBSS site. There are actually many reasons to love it, but as a teacher, I especially love two things. One is the organization's understanding that academics and behavior are tightly interwoven. The second is that it provides truly great teaching strategies; not only are students' needs considered, but teacher support is also a focus.

Today we'll look at their collection of Academic Vocabulary Building Activities & Strategies. Every teacher knows that a student must be able to understand and use the vocabulary of learning in order to succeed in any content area. Our students need a deep knowledge of these words in order to "access information about them from memory as they read" and we must explicitly teach both academic words and strategies for learning new ones that they encounter.

You will appreciate the explanation of Robert Marzano's six steps to effective vocabulary instruction, and the suggested methods of implementing each one: 

• The teacher gives a friendly, informal description, explanation or example of the new vocabulary term.
• Students give a description, explanation or example of the new term in his/her own words.
• Students create a non linguistic representation of the word.
• Students engage in activities to deepen their knowledge of the new word. 
• Students discuss the new word with one another.
• Students play games to reinforce and review new vocabulary. 

You'll love even more the thirty-three vocabulary Graphic Organizers provided for your students with so many different activities that they'll never get tired of them! Here's a sneak peek of some of my favorites:

   

NBSS provides links to six Useful Websites for Vocabulary Activities such as Visuwords and Triptico, that have fabulous vocabulary activities for your kiddos.

      

Last, but certainly not least, are Games for Learning. From Charades to Pictionary to Taboo to Wordo, you'll find instructions, templates, and links to sites that allow you to create your own puzzles tailored to your students' needs.

Convinced? I thought you would be. Enjoy this great resource and see how much difference it can make for your students' essential academic vocabularies!