Family Literacy Newsletters

Many of you are always on the lookout for some great literacy tips to share with families.  I came across the Wisconsin State Reading Association's Family Literacy Newsletter.
They have many great resources and tips to share with parents about the Literacy Standards and how to support students at home.
Here is the Link:  WSRA Family Literacy Newsletters

March Madness Book Championship

I know some of you  have done this in your classroom.  Here is another March Madness Book Winner from Two Reflective Teachers.

March Madness Book Edition 2015: Championship and Champion Announcement!

My class loved Fish in a Tree and One for the Murphys, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, as read alouds this year so it was no surprise that both titles were voted into our championship round! 

  

We are huge fans of Lynda Mullaly Hunt and for the past 2 years, One for the Murphys has been in our championship round and won! So I couldn't wait to see how students would vote between two of their favorite read alouds from this year because it was going to be a tough decision.  

To read more head to Two Reflective Teachers Blog.

Mentor Text Monday

Here is a Blog from Line Upon Line Learning, with some great texts for comparing and Contrasting two texts.

Mentor Text Monday: Goal Setting Compare Contrast

January 19, 2015 by Rebecca Leave a Comment

101
Shares

97211

In my reading and writing co-op, my goal has been to help the kids learn to read a book beyond just reading it! I want them to recognize the story arc, and hopefully compare it to ones we have already read. I want them to read something and notice the evidences in the text that give it meaning.

In my co-op class, we read two similar stories and compared and contrasted them. Two of those we read fit in perfectly with this week’s Mentor Monday (Character Building with Goal Setting), for in both of them, kids work towards earning money for a goal.

(Note: for your convenience, the book covers are Amazon affiliate links.)

 

In Tia Isa Wants a Car by Meg Medina, the girl and her aunt save money. In A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams, a girl and her mother save money to buy her mother a soft armchair, because the furniture they had in their home has burned in a fire. From that preliminary summary, the similarities are obvious!

I really like these two books for a few reasons. Both kids help their older guardian by working hard! The items they want are not necessities but are desired for a good reason. These books show kids how perseverance pays off in the end, and how desired items are not always a luxury. I love how they saw incremental growth and then joined their older guardian (aunt and mother) for the ultimate purchase. Besides that, both books portray cultures different from the white middle class so prevalent in picture books (and among the kids I work with in my co-op!).

For my co-op, I used these books with a Venn Diagram, a writing outline page, and then a finally “composition” writing page. I also gave the kids the option of comparing one of the books to themselves, although none of my kids took me up on the offer.

Do any of them work for something like the characters in these books? How can I teach my son, at least, to appreciate what he has and work hard? Questions to ponder as I parent.

This compare/contrast set of pages could also work well with a number of other books. Here are some others we read together that I encouraged the kids in my co-op class to work with:

• Enemy Pie by Derek Munson and My Rotten Red-Headed Older Brother by Patricia Pollacco
• My Name is Maria Isabel by Alma Flor Ad and The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi andChrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

Since I created these printable pages for this activity, here they are for your convenience!

What are your plans for the final quarter? Not just checking off the standards!

I came across this short blog post on reflecting on your students and setting attainable goals for the final quarter of the year.   I like how she has identified four main goals and this will provide a guide during one of the busiest and craziest times of the school year.   Find one poem that speaks to you Read one amazing book that you must pass on to someone else Write something that makes you proud And have a deep conversation with someone face to face  What are your plans? Going Beyond the Standards by Pernille Ripp

I sat in my empty classroom on Monday, spring break just started, and looked at what I have to cover in quarter four of 7th grade English.  Great things, and yet...We need to get back to the basics.  Somewhere in the mad rush of trying to cover everything within the 45 minutes that strangle our English class, we seem to have lost touch with what English is really all about; amazing books, deep conversations, and writing, so much of it so that we lose our fear of being bad writers and just start to embrace the process.

So as I looked around at the empty chairs, I knew exactly what to do.  Monday morning we will start with a circle, a to-do list of dreams facing the students.  I will ask them to discuss expectations and rules, I will ask them about their thoughts on what the standards say we need to get to and then I will ask them this is this quarter to please

Find one poem that speaks to you

Read one amazing book that you must pass on to someone else

Write something that makes you proud

And have a deep conversation with someone face to face

Those are the opportunities that I need to create, those are the things that matter.  Beyond the standards, beyond what we need to cover.  We need to have incredible experiences in English, not just survive the last quarter.  What are your plans for after the break?

Optimism, Self-Control & Perseverance- Grit Lessons for 5th grade Research

GRIT = Passion and perseverance for a very long-term goal 

Amy Lyons developed lessons for her fifth grade students on developing Grit. She focuses on these three areas:  Optimism, Self-Control, & Perseverance.
Link to Blog with Lessons and Link to Amy's website bit of GRIT