My Life in Books

We are getting a new receiver installed in the master bedroom for our satellite TV this week so I spent most of the day cleaning and preparing to rearrange the furniture. Lately our room has become the place to stash things when the "public" areas of the house need to be cleaned so I had a lot to do.  I had boxes of photos that need to be sorted and put in albums, 30+ exercise DVD's  (I should be ripped by now, but I think you actually have to USE them to see results!) and a box or 2 of miscellaneous junk.

But the thing that blew me away was the number of books I had!  I was amazed at how many books were crammed on my poor sagging bookshelf.

                           

 As I pulled the books off the shelves to box them up, I realized that these books represented many different stages of my life.  Some of the books were copies of my childhood favorites like Heidi and Little Women that I had purchased for my girls.  My very well-loved and dog-eared copy of Gone with the Wind was there.  (I discovered Gone with the Wind in junior high and instantly fell in love.  I reread it and watch the movie every couple of years.)  Then there were several picture books that belonged to my children- the book about a little dancer that my youngest daughter loved, a pop-up version of The Night Before Christmas, and other "special" books that I wanted to keep safe.  I found myself tearing up a little as I remembered snuggling up and reading these books to my three now grown children.  I even found my tattered copy of Dr. Spock's baby book!
Then there were the books that represented the different interests I have had throughout the years.  A book on yoga poses was shelved next to a book on Barbie collectibles.  Next to them were a couple of diet books.  Although most of my craft books are in my sewing room, a couple of quilting books found their way onto this shelf.  On one shelf I found the upper elementary/young adult fiction purchased while I was a literacy coach to help me become familiar with what the "big kids" were reading.  There were several books I read during a time when I was trying to get in touch with my spiritual side.  I like to read series books or related titles by an author so I had a shelf filled with the Mitford series by Jan Caron, the quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini and the historical fiction of Philippa Gregory. That shelf also housed my "guilty pleasure" books- all of my Nora Roberts and other romance paperbacks!

A sample of what was on my bookshelf!

These books all tell the story of my life as a reader.  As I browsed through some of the books, I could remember reading the story for the first time or what I was going through in life that made me choose that particular title.  As teachers, I think it is important that we share our reading with our students and talk about the choices we make.  Of course, I'm not going to share with my first graders that I like a good semi-trashy romance novel now and then, but I can talk about how I have favorite authors and genres.  I can share that I choose some books so I can learn something and choose others just for enjoyment.  If we want children to become life-long readers, we have to show them that WE value reading and make time for books in our lives.

Now, I'm back to my cleaning or I won't be able to sleep in my bed tonight!
Happy Reading!

Our Mother Earth Cafe

The first graders at my school hosted our annual Reading Restaurant for their parents yesterday.  What a blast!  Each class chose a theme and created a "restaurant" around the theme.  In the weeks leading up to the event, we read books and completed writing activities that went along with our restaurant theme.  My class was "McNab's Mother Earth Cafe" and our theme was saving the Earth.

On restaurant day, parents are served from a menu of books, and they get the opportunity to hear their children show off the reading skills we have worked so hard on this year.  Each child greets his or her guests and escorts them to their table.  While the children read, I just got to move around the room taking pictures and listening in.   I was so proud of my little readers!  One little boy was so involved in his Robert Munsch book that he could hardly read because he was laughing so hard. I overheard another little girl explaining reduce, reuse and recycle to her mother.  And all of the parents seemed very impressed with the reading progress their child has made this year.

We created a Reuse, Reduce, Recycle bulletin board for outside our classroom.  We used a freebie from Teresa at Fun in K/1.  I read The Lorax to get us started on our Earth study, so he greeted our guests as they entered the classroom.

My teammates all had adorable "restaurants."  We had a Mexican theme based on the book Chicks and Salsa, a pizza parlor, a bakery and an ice-cream shoppe.

It was a fabulous day, but exhausting!  I'm going to try and take a day off from schoolwork today and just relax so tomorrow I can start working on plans for the last 4 weeks of school.

Getting Ready for the Doctor!

We started planning our Read Across America Day this week.  My first grade team will start our celebration on March 1 and continue with a week-long author study the following week.  Although we are still finalizing plans, we hope to end our study with a "Read-In" on Thursday, March 7.  Last year we invited the children to bring blankets and pillows, a healthy snack and their favorite Dr.Seuss books.  We spent the afternoon comfortably reading and watching a Dr. Seuss video.  This year we will be adding crazy hats to honor the theme of this year's celebration- "Hats Off to Reading"- chosen to recognize the anniversary of the book 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.


                                       


I'm going to try something new this year for Dr. Seuss week. I've been wanting to try some differentiation menus with my class, so I have created a choice board for activities to complete based on Dr. Seuss books.  I based my menu on some ideas I found in this book:
                                        

I'm going to use a power point to introduce the menu and each activity to the class.  I've included a link to a PDF of the slides so check it out!  If you have used menus, tic-tac-toe boards or other differentiation tools with your class, I'd love to hear about it!

Dr. Seuss Menu

Apples, Addition, and Connections

This week we celebrated Johnny Appleseed Day, learned more about addition and used our schema to make connections in reading.

Addition:  One of the activities we did was from Oceans of First Grade Fun- Corn and Tomato Soup.  I saw this last year on Yolanda's blog and had to try it!  The kids really had fun making their "soup."  I created a little Smartboard activity to demonstrate making the soup.

Click here for the notebook file for the Smartboard.

In reading this week we did Tanny McGregor's reading salad lesson and made this anchor chart.  I hesitate to post any of my anchor charts after some of the fabulous ones I have seen on other blogs!  But I am NOT and artist, and usually just do the chart with the kids, so this is what I get!  Even the kids laughed at my head this time!

I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of our apple graph.  First we made a real graph using our apples and sorting by color.  Then we collected the data using tally marks and then they colored their graphs and answered some questions about the data.  I have a couple more apple activities planned so I will try to get some pictures!

Unrelated note:  I just recently got my first smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S3) and I don't know how I lived without it!  It makes adding pictures to my blog so much easier, I can send texts by talking, and I just discovered yesterday I can scan documents with it and send them to myself or others.  All this and Angry Birds, too!

Must Have Picture Books Linky

The Teacher Wife is hosting a linky for Must Have Picture Books.  Asking me to choose a favorite book is like asking me which one of my children I love the best.  Even choosing five is going to be tough.  I love books!
Most of my children's books are at school so I just sort of closed my eyes and let titles pop into my head.  The first books that came to mind are my favorite two books from childhood, Madeline and Horton Hears  a Who.  I read these books to my class early each year to talk about my life as a reader.  I think it is very important that your kids see you as a reader, so I often share what I am reading.  (Probably not a good idea to share if your current book is Fifty Shades of Grey!) Both titles reappear throughout the year for various lessons on characters and lessons on literacy strategies.
A book I use often for lessons is Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco.  Patricia is probably my favorite children's author, and I use her books often and do an author study every year.  Thunder Cake is a great book to use for making connections by talking about a time we were scared or a special time with a family member.  It also lends itself well to retelling and as a model for writing a personal narrative.
Another favorite of mine is Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney.  I love this book as springboard for discussing and writing about how we can make the world a more beautiful place.
Kevin Henkes books- particularly Chrysanthemum- are some of the first books I read each year.  I think the kids really relate to these characters as they experience common childhood events.  Chrysanthemum is such a great story about being proud of who you are.
Wow, I could go on and on!  Each year I discover a new favorite (like Pete the Cat last year.)  After hearing Peter Reynolds at Confratute, The Dot and Ish might be this year's new additions.  I had to open a "secret" account with Amazon so my husband wouldn't know how much I spend on books!  I can't wait to read about others' favorites even though I know it will cost me!