How to Use Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer & GIVEAWAY!

I'm very excited to share with you how we have been using Ali Maier's book, Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer, throughout the last few weeks of school.  As you may remember, I first mentioned this book right before Christmas break.  This book is about twins, Maggie and Max, who are challenged by their mom to write 12 journal entries together during the Summer.  The twins analyze a different event, situation, or activity for each chapter (or journal entry) which makes for a great book to focus on analyzing, comparing, or contrasting perspectives.  You can read my initial review here.

Here are my suggestions for using the book in your classroom:

Ways to Read in the Classroom:
- Provide individual copies for students to read independently.
- Read with a partner (one student reads Maggie's part while the other reads Max's.)
- Read whole class (teacher reads main text and chooses a student to read Maggie's comments and another to read Max's.)
- Project for the class to see so they can follow along with all Maggie and Max's commentary.

Using the Book to Teach Comprehension Strategies:

- Analyze characters and setting.

- Locate humor and descriptive details within the text.

- Create a list of Maggie and Max's character traits.

Initially, I recorded every student suggestion.  Then, students looked back, and debated whether or not each character trait really fit the characters.  If not, we crossed them out, and added a better fitting trait.

- Analyze perspectives.

- Compare and contrast Maggie and Max's experiences, perspectives, likes, and dislikes

Below, students compared and contrasted Maggie and Max's experiences at a hotel.

Journal Writing
- Analyze the genre of journal writing.
- Use this book as an anchor text to model positive characteristics of good journal writing.
- Use this book to launch an in-class journal writing center where students write back and forth to one another in the same fashion as Maggie and Max.
- Launch an at-home journal writing activity over an extended break (Christmas, February, April, Summer, etc...)

Want to snag a copy of this book for your classroom?  Enter using Rafflecopter below.

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Lastly, be sure to check out Ali Maier's website for more resources and information!

Life in a Longhouse Village, Main Idea, and Paper Books

One of our first social studies units focuses on the Iroquois, Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands.  My favorite book to use with this unit is Life in a Longhouse Village by Bobbie Kalman. 

Since we were not going to have time to use this book as a whole class read aloud I set it out as a reading center.

We have been focusing on main idea and details a lot lately, as well as supporting our thinking with details from the text.  This was the basis of my reading center.

Students created little paper books (directions below) based on the assigned pages for the week (pages 8-9) on Sharing One Room in a longhouse.

They created a new title for their book on the cover and included an illustration and their name.

On the inside they wrote the main idea for the section.

For each following page they included some supporting details for the main idea.  I think they turned out pretty cute!

Need directions for making a paper book?  Check out James Darrow's directions here.

I love little paper books.  So cute, quick, and easy.  How else do you use paper books in your classroom?

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and Character Traits

This past week we used an amazing book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, to learn about character traits.

This book is about a 14-year-old boy, named William, who builds a windmill in his drought-ravaged village in Africa bringing electricity and running water.  William is truly a hero that students can relate to.  William shows that no matter how young you are, with creativity, determination, and hard work, you can save your world!

While reading, students recorded character traits to describe William and we paused to record them at the beginning of the story, in the middle, and at the end.  Here is what our chart looked like when we were done...compliments of my student scribe.

Afterwards, students selected the 4 best character traits to describe William and then defended their reasoning for selecting the character traits with evidence from the text.

Students published their writing in a fun windmill display for all to see.

I organized all the graphic organizers, worksheets and templates that I used in this mini-literature pack for the book, available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  I also included a few extended response worksheets for students to practice writing about reading in preparation for state testing.

Check out the book!  It's the perfect addition to your Black History Month read alouds!

Real Reading Salad

Today we made a real reading salad. 

Before we put on our chef hats, I started out by reading a challenging passage to my students fluently.  I asked students what they noticed about my reading.  They complimented my appropriate pacing and intonation.  They complimented my ability to decode tricky words and to not sound like a "robot."

Then I let students in on a little secret.  I told them that although I read fluently, I really had no idea what I read about.  I didn't know what any of the words meant and if they were to ask me a question about the passage, I probably wouldn't be able to answer it.

Students glared at me in awe and we started our discussion on the importance of thinking as we read and pausing if what we read does not make sense.

Then I introduced the ingredients for our real reading salad.  We started out with some lettuce (to symbolize reading) and tomatoes (to symbolize thinking).

I selected a volunteer to put on the big chef hat.  While I read our story for the day I had the student add green lettuce to the salad bowl when I was reading and red tomatoes when I was sharing my thinking.  We used little pieces of red and green construction paper for convenience.

At the end we had created a real reading salad, a great symbol for the importance of thinking while we really read. 

I told students that in fourth grade, we need to be really reading and always thinking.  For more information on making a real reading salad with your class, or for more great comprehension connections, check out Tanny McGregor's book:  Comprehension Connections.

Happy Friday's Eve!

Shared Writing Journals and More . . .

I'm linking up again this week with Tara for Monday Made It! 

This week, I finally had time to put my own spin on the shared writing journals Tara posted a few weeks ago.  I created some of my own covers for the journal, printed them out, and glued them to some composition books that I found at Walmart.

I plan on having students use them during reading and writing centers or as an activity for fast finishers.  Students will grab the journal of their choice, write about the topic on the cover, and read what other students have written.
I packaged my shared journal labels, along with some fun writing prompts and character and setting dice here at my TpT store.

This week I popped into my local library and snagged some read along books, the kind that come with both a picture book and a CD to listen along.  I downloaded the stories onto my classroom iPods and then started to work on the packets to go along with them.  The first one I finished up is for the book, The Emperor's Egg, by Martin Jenkins.

It includes worksheets and activities (some for fun and some for state test prep) for reading, listening, and writing.  You can download it here at my TpT store.  Look for plenty more to come in the near future as I plan on making one for each of our listening passage books...and we use a different one for each week of the school year.

Check out Monday Made it for more Made it Fun!

Don't forget, there is still one more day for the Back to School Sale at TpT. 

Pinterest Boards to Demonstrate Reading Comprehension

Students had a blast creating personal laptops with Pinterest pages on their screens.  Their Pinterest pages had a reading comprehension flair. 

After reading the book The Memory String, by Eve Bunting, I modeled for students how to fill out the Pinterest themed graphic organizer to summarize the book.  On the top left side, I created an illustration for the book, the title, author, and a summary.  On the top right side,  I included 3 of the main character's names and pictures.  At the bottom of the page, I "pinned" an illustration of the setting, beginning, middle, and end.  Each illustration opens up and underneath is a description.  (Just like when you click on a photo that has been pinned, you see a description that will send you to a link to learn more.)

Interested in making personal laptops with reading comprehension Pinterest screens?  Download the craftivity here.  It comes with 5 different versions of the Pinterest page graphic organizer covering summarizing, main idea and details, making connections, and questioning along with a blank version.

Download the Back to School - All About Me version here!