Currently Enjoying a Three Day Weekend

Well it is already the 6th of September, so I am hoping I am not too awfully late to join Farley's Currently party. It is the beginning of the year, and I have a sneaky suspicion that I will not be the only one late to this party. :) We are all tired...first weeks of school teacher tired! Late or not, I am always excited to join this fun linky party. I could get lost for days looking at all the wonderful teacher blogs out there. Well....sometimes I do lol....Don't miss out and take a few moments to look around; just remember her rule of 3. :)

Showing our Panther Pride!

As always...we spent our days reading and writing away!

We are still sharing our stories and much discussion about where writers get their ideas. 

When I think about what we know first and what we might have to share, these are my go to read alouds... 

  

When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant and What You Know First by Patricia MacLachlan are both beautifully illustrated examples of writers writing from what means the most to them. When thinking about why writers write, these are perfect mentor texts. 

AND... I LOVE LOVE LOVE sharing this song and video by Miranda Lambert. The House That Built Me reminds me that we all have so many memories to share as writers...we are all writers and storytellers.

This anchor, A Writer's Notebook, is an anchor I work to create every year with my kiddos, and we build on it for most of our launch of writing workshops. We share a lot of great stories and discussion around this one, all of them a great lead in to our own writing.

I am having tons of fun grading our reader's notebooks... you can learn so much about a kiddo from what they share in their notebooks. This is one of my most favorite entries this week.... "a black hole like your desk, Mrs. Dunn"..... oh my...hahaha :) Love this group so much already.

So...this week I was super proud to complete a 100 miles to Labor Day challenge! In the past 6 weeks I have walked or biked 100 miles! Whoo hoo! I put a lot of miles on those shoes this summer, and my goal is to keep going...step by step by step!

My sweet, sweet friends treated me to a wonderful dinner at my favorite restaurant, Kan Pai, as a yummy birthday celebration. Such fun times and great laughs with these girls. 

I received the first of Joshua's senior pictures. The last of my own babies is a senior, and I have absolutely NO idea where in the world the time has gone. We won't be able to use the picture of him with his lamb, Riley, in the year book, but it was certainly one of my most favorites. He has always been so good with animals, and the path that has led him on has been so good for him. So proud to be his mom!

OK... time to talk books! I haven't done this in a while, but I haven't stopped reading. I will have plenty to share as I catch up, and soon I will have the kiddos sharing their own!

How perfect for me to start with this amazing story by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. Fish in a Tree is such a sweet story, and I have no doubts that most of you know this already as it is blowing up on most social media. I cannot scroll through our Instagram feed without it popping up at least once a day, if not more. 

Although I had heard a bit of buzz about this one, it wasn't until my favorite summer reading professional development...So Many Books So Little Time...that I just knew I had to pick it up. This made the top of the list by Ken Stamatis, so I had no doubts it would be a great one. According to him, this is a "teacher's book," and I most certainly agree. 

I have taught so many kids just like the sweet and quirky characters in this book... sensitive and frustrated Ally pushes me to be a better teacher just as Mr. Daniels inspires me to do the same. And secretly I love Albert, the "walking google page."

As I read this story, I was frustrated right along with Ally that no teacher before Mr. Daniels picked up on her issues, and I couldn't help but be reminded of Patricia Polacco's, Thank You, Mr. Falker. I laughed more than once and cried just the same. Sweet and moving and a perfectly inspiring read for any teacher, and I am more than sure that I have a few kiddos that can relate to one or more characters in this one. I cannot wait to share this as a read aloud this year.  

With that I will say goodnight for now and finish linking up with Farley... have a wonderful rest of the long weekend...and kiddos, get ready for another busy week!

Happy Reading, friends!

Why I Became a Book Hoarder

Can I tell you a secret? I totally love when someone walks into my classroom for the very first time. Kiddo, parent, teacher, administrator...it doesn't matter. I secretly love the first moment they take in our classroom library.  And each time, I hope they love it even just half as much as I do. This room, this library is truly one of my most happy places. Walking into my class soothes my soul; there is just something so blissful about all of those books, all of those amazing stories waiting to be told. There are books everywhere! In every nook and cranny I can fill, and I am always looking for ways to bring more in.

Our nonfiction library

I can tell you in one word exactly WHY I became the book hoarder that I am today: CHOICE! In my room it is all about choice. My first goal is to create a lifelong lover of reading. That is it! First and foremost before I do anything, I want my kiddos to LOVE reading. I do all that I can to create an environment in which it is super cool to be a reader, and to do that...kids must have an opportunity to choose what THEY want to read.

To do this, I have done all I can to create a library large enough to meet the needs of all of my kiddos. I can honestly say there are well over twelve thousand books in my classroom...and yes, I have counted them. With a library this large, I spend a few weeks each summer reorganizing, cleaning, and culling books, so usually I can quickly place my hands on any particular title when needed. This comes in handy when making book recommendations. 

Why do I add so many new titles each year? For me it is pretty simple...each and every class is so different in their reading preferences. The year before last, I could not bring in enough horror fiction; they flew off of the shelf as quick as I could get them, even with all the titles I already had. Three years before that, Geronimo Stilton was the biggest thing in the world ...so guess who now has two big baskets of Geronimo Stilton books...this girl! 

Five years ago, I had a student that was an insatiable reader and so high in her abilities that I ended up stocking an entire bookshelf just for her. Two years ago, realistic fiction was the hot topic in my room, and the girlie girls couldn't read my Wendy Mass collection quickly enough. Just last year, I had a precious reader coming into her own, falling in love with mysteries...now I have the entire A to Z Mysteries collection; of course I had to fill in the gaps of this collection because I did not want her to ever want a book and not have it. 

Graphic Novel library

The last three or four years I have seen a huge spike in the number of quality graphic novels published for younger students. It had been that this was a boys market forever, and I was quite grateful at how spectacularly these titles transformed so many of my reluctant readers...just enough to open the door for me to show them many other amazing titles. But now with the publication of Smile and Sisters by Raina Telgemeier, my girls can't get enough of them either, and don't even get me started on that Raina has now started illustrating The Babysitter's Club as graphic novels. Oh goodness....I know there will be some great new titles to add this school year. 

So year by year, I buy titles to fill the gaps in the needs and desires of each class, and I guide them to what titles I already have by making book recommendations. When I see that a kiddo is just about to finish a cool series, I search to find him a new one. If I can't find what he is looking for already in my room, I will pull him over for a conference and pull up Amazon right then and there. It doesn't take much to find inexpensive used books, and that moment of buying a book just for him is such a motivator. Don't think that my other kiddos don't take notice of that moment either. 

More than once after reading and responding to readers' notebooks over the weekend, I have found myself in Books-a-Million to pick up a recommendation that I did not already have. As my library grows, that happens less often, but when my kiddos see that I am willing to invest in their reading success, they often invest in themselves.

So with all of these titles and a goal to make my kiddos fall in love with books...we start the year with a book frenzy and establish our "to read" piles. This crazy reading workshop launch is another reason that having so many titles is a must for our room.

We launch our reading workshop with a huge, and frankly quite messy, book frenzy! Stacks of books are given to each kiddo. Each stack contains books just below, comfortably within, and just above their expected reading levels and lots of their favorite genres, subjects, and authors. Watching students make their final selections and conferencing with them will clue me in to just how well each kiddo makes appropriate book choices. I have learned that this is sometimes a leap of faith... having enough faith in the kiddos to make the best reading choices until we can conference and learn together is sometimes challenging. I have often found that giving them that trust is simply one more way to invest in their reading and to invest in our relationship.

Garrett (last year's student)
checking out blurbs to create his
"to read" pile in his cubby

Stacks of "to read" piles in cubbies...as we conference and work
together on reading; adjustments will be made to help kiddos
continue growing and motivated in their independent reading

Of course, my ultimate goal is to get them reading and responding to the books they love as quickly as possible.... AND to do as much of that as possible WITHOUT unnecessary interruption from me.

Their "to read" stacks are fluid and always changing as their tastes in reading grow. This is merely our launching point, and as I get to know them more from their notebooks and our conferences, we find which books move them the most, which books they cannot wait to read next, or which books they cannot wait for their friends or me to read.

Our largest fiction library.

As my students begin to recognize just what moves them as readers, they can pull from most of the libraries in the room on their own to add to their to read pile. Books are grouped in a number of ways. There are baskets arranged by subject, genre, series, and author to help kiddos find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently. 

Baskets and books are numbered to help students return books to the correct basket.

 

Our nonfiction library.

Our mentor text library! These are the books I use for guided mini lessons...
Since each year each class has different needs, I choose books accordingly.
Although I do have some all time favorite go-to books. :)

Books are alphabetized by author...

This library is for multiple copies and teacher recommendation.

 

These books are simply organized by like subject/ author. Not sure of the rhyme or reason, but it works for me. I can usually find what I am looking for pretty quickly, and because each section and book is lettered, kiddos can usually return books to the right place just as easily. 

 

Being a book hoarder can be an overwhelming amount of work sometimes, but I don't think I could do it any other way now. 

It makes my heart happy to see a new book and instantly know which kiddo would choose that book if they could. All of this book buying and recommending is just one more way for me to give my kiddos choice.... to let them find what moves them, to let them find their own love of books. Watching kiddos make those choices and watching them fall in love with reading, makes all the book hoarding worth it.

Happy Reading, friends!

Monday Made It

Hi sweet, summer friends!

Well... those of you that know me know that I am not that crafty of a person, so this is my first time to join 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!

Knowing that I would need a new system for my mentor texts with my new book shelves, Katie Byrd and I set out to come up with something new and cute. 

This is what we ended up with....

We started by getting donations of paint sticks from a couple of local stores and spray painting them black to match my shelves.

We picked up some cute cut-outs at the teacher store...

added some bright stickers....

and here is the final result...just what I was looking for. I know this is a really simple Monday-Made-It, but I am very happy with how they turned out. So easy!

...the view from the back

I have spent a lot of time this summer completely reorganizing almost all aspects of my library...it has been a lot more work than I bargained for, but I am loving how it is all coming together!

This is the larger library in the back of the room...now just to get all 129 baskets labeled...even more work...haha...maybe next week's Monday-Made-It!

Look at some of the sweet kiddos that have stopped by in the past week to help me label books with new basket numbers...

 

I have a picture book recommendation for you....

The Three Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz puts a contemporary spin on this childhood classic, and I fell in love! Such rhyming fun! Dan Santat's lively illustrations add to the pace of this story, and although the kiddos will be doing a lot of predicting along the way...you can't help but root for these three little ninja piggies! I hope to have time to read this to my summer reading-hot-spot kiddos this week!

Well...guess with that I will say goodbye for now...

Happy Reading!