atychiphobia

Stories From Room 226: Buzzing About Books

    This is part of the Slice of Life Challenge hosted by the Two Writing Teachers

On Monday, I shared the March "Book" Madness tournament that our class started.  In order to get the 52 book bracket complete by Monday, April 2 we have already had 22 "games."  So far each game has been really fast.  Just a quick recap of the books, then a quick vote.  Some games have been close, like the 14-13 victory Floors by Patrick Carman had over Bone by Jeff Smith.  Others have been blowouts like the 24-3 thrashing Bigger Than a Breadbox by Laurel Snyder handed to Tough Cookie by David Wisniewski.  I am pretty sure the thinking behind the voting is going to get tougher and more passionate.  Soon we'll hit some matchups of books that would be ridiculously hard for me to decide.  

Apparently, most of the kids are realizing it is going to be difficult as well.  In nearly every transition we had today, kids were sneaking over to the bulletin board and talking about the bracket.  I hoped this would happen.  There is definitely a buzz moving around the room.  The kids are remembering books that we have loved and are sharing a ton.  Here are a few snippets I overheard.

• Look, Diary of a Wimpy Kid might play Harry Potter.  That will be impossible.  I loved both of those books.
• "Hat Back" might make it to the final 8.  Crazy.  It's good, but not that goood.   It will probably beat Bone Dog and not very many kids have read 39 Clues.
• How can I possibly choose between Queen of the Falls and Percy Jackson if they meet up.  I really wanted Queen of the Falls to win the Cadecott, but Percy is my favorite book ever.
• Do you think that Mr. K. made the bracket this way to make it hard?
• I hope Breadbox wins, but I don't think it can beat Harry Potter, soooo many kids love Harry Potter.  Even the ones who just watched the movies.
• It stinks that Smile has to play Mt. Olympus Basketball.  All the boys are going to vote for that book.
• I wish we had more time to convince kids who haven't read some of these books to read them.  That would make the votes more fair.
• Mr. K. should have put all the picture books on one side of the bracket  --- Yeah, but if he did that then the final might not be between the 2 best books.
• I hope we do another bracket at the end of the year.  Think about all the books we haven't read yet.

The last quote just made my plans for the last week of school a whole lot easier.

 

Later,

Tony

 

Stories From Room 226: books, Books, BOOKS!

    This is part of the Slice of Life Challenge hosted by the Two Writing Teachers

 

Like many schools around the country, mine celebrated Read Across America this week.  We try to keep it realtively simple, but also have lots of fun.  Our students were encouraged to do some things to help "Celebrate the Joy of Reading."  Here is what our school did and how my class did:

1) Match or exceed a nightly reading goal √ Our target goal was to average 30 minutes a night per child.  We averaged 66 minutes per night per child.  For a total of 7,129 minutes during the week.

    My class reads.  It is just one of the identity traits we have.  And if you get stuck in our reading community, you ... read.  So, while the number of minutes read at home this week could seem seem impressive, it is just who we are.   

2) Wear "themed clothes" on each day √ We had over 80% participation each day.

    When you think about it, who doesn't like to wear crazy socks every once in a while? And yes, that is me in the middle rockin' the Leprechaun socks.

3) Donate books √ The target goal for each classroom in the building was 45 books (which is about 2 per child).  Our class donated 577 books.  Which was about 21 books per child.  I did add 23 of my own books on the last day (I didn't want to be outdone by my class and the even 600 number for total books looks pretty cool).

 

To me this was the most impressive thing my class accomplished this week.  I have great kids and great family support so that helped tremendously.  But when a group of children who love reading so much they are willing to clear out their bookcases to give the gift of books to others, that just makes you want to celebrate big time.

So, celebrate we did.  Today we celebrated the "Joy of Reading" by ... wait for it ...

READING.

We didn't have a pizza party, we didn't watch a movie, we didn't have extra recess, we didn't play games on our iPads, we just read and listened to read alouds (including one from our principal). Since we were going to spend all day doing something we love,  I did let them wear their pajamas.  

Best day ever.

Later,

Tony

Stories From Room 226: Caldecott Love

When we returned from our Christmas break on January 3, we started reading and thinking about potential Caldecott Medal winners.  To prep before break, I used resources like the Fuse #8 blog, 100 Scope Notes blog, Nerdy Book Club Nerdies Picture Book Winners, #titletalk archives and our school's crazy knowledgable librarian to make a short list of about 15-20 books I wanted to share.  Below is a pic of the books my class has "analyzed" so far.

Note: I only read excerpts from Heart and Soul due to the fact it would take a few weeks to read it completely aloud.  The class did see nearly every stunning illustration Kadir Nelson created though.

We still have plenty of heavy hitters to get to before the announcement of the award on January 23, but something intersting has started to emerge from the classroom discussions we have had so far.  What I find fascinating is that my 4th grade students are really being thoughtful about the their decision making.  As each day has passed they have become stronger in explaining why a book should be considered "Caldecott Worthy."   They also are getting how hard it would be to choose one book out of the thousands of picture books published in any given year.

As of the end of this week our class would most likely award Balloons Over Broadway the Caldecott Medal.  Blue Chicken and Grandpa Green would earn Caldecott Honors.  Some of the "defense" of their choices include:

• Melissa Sweet showed so many different stlyes of art, but they all worked together well

• Balloons Over Broadway can be fun for all ages of readers, because you learn so much about Tony Sarg.

• I love how Melissa Sweet made some of the toys that she used in the illustrations.

• That one page in Blue Chicken has about a thousand shades of blue, how does an artist do that?

• The twist ending in Blue Chicken makes you want to go back and reread it.

• The picutures in Grandpa Green look so different than other Lane Smith books, he must have worked hard to change his style.

• I think the story in Grandpa Green is soooooo good.  Everyone should read this book and appreciate their grandparents.

In about two weeks, I will share the outcome of our class vote and the reaction my kids have to who actually wins the Caldecott.  It will be fun to see how close their decision making is to the actual results.  Who knows, maybe 27 fourth graders in Ohio will pick the winner.  If we don't pick the winner, I will be curious to see if we can respect the decision of the Caldecott panel or if we will think, as one of my students said, "Why do a bunch of adults get to pick the best picture book of the year, shouldn't kids be allowed to vote?"

Later,

Tony

Stories from Room 226: Erosive Behavior

In Ohio, part of the 4th grade science standards relates to being able to understand how forces like erosion shape the surface of the Earth.  In my district, 4th grade science teachers have these resources called "stream tables" that let us design experiments in which the kids can "see erosion in action."  While setting and cleaning up these labs quite be quite cumbersome (imagine about a zillion grains of a sand/clay mixture floating around your classroom for months, kind of like the pine needles of your Christmas tree that miraculously appear in the middle of your living room in July) the excitement generated by water laying waste to a model plateau is rather hard to beat.

Basically, the kids level the earth then with the aid of a cup with a strategically placed hole pour water onto their plateaus and watch what happens.  Over the course of the roughly 10 minutes the water is running a minuture river begins to do its magic by carving out a canyon and creating a massive delta.

During the time the kids are observing, recording notes and taking pictures or making mini movies, I stop by the groups and listen in on their conversations and provide some clarification in their thinking.  Below is a list of a few quotes and scenes that happened this week:

• "Whoa! Look at how fast the water is moving through the channel.  It's like my little brother on his way to the bathroom."
• "So we just saw this tiny little sand canyon being made in about 10 minutes, it's no wonder it took millions of years to make the Grand Canyon."
• "I wonder what would happen if we brought in a hair dryer.  Do you think we could make some mini hoodoos in our canyon?
• "If we have two cups (of streaming water), I bet we could make a mega canyon"
• Picture a dissapointed group who was the last to have delta formation carefully studying their plateau in silence as the rest of the groups are busy chatting about their deltas.  Then from across the room in unison, "YEEESSSSSSS!" when the water finally cleared the edge of the plateau and the delta began to form.  This was immediately followed by one boy yelling. "WE GOT A DELTA! WHOOHOOOO!"
• "So yesterday when the sand was bone dry we had 500 mL of runoff (each group got 1 liter of water to start) and today we have 800 mL of runoff.  Tomorrow I wonder if the plateau will be able to absorb any water at all"
• "This is so awesome, I wish we could do this everyday"

Not being a scientist by trade I am really not sure if building sand canyons and running water across them is a solid model for how water can shape the surface of the earth, but as a teacher of 4th graders I do know the excitement of doing these relatively simple experiments help the kids understand some fairly complicated ideas.  I can't imagine trying to teach all of the concepts I am supposed to teach in this unit by just using textbooks, website articles or even movie clips.  Part of me thinks the reason these experiments spark so much joy and wonder is that in an era where 10 year-olds are expected to learn and synthesize scientific processes that most adults can't articulate well, playing with sand and water is just good old-fashioned fun.

Later,

Tony

Stories from Room 226: Thinking about Theme

During the 10 to 12 days before our Holiday Break the students in my class worked on the idea of determing a theme in a text.  In my opinion this is hard work for an adult, let alone 9 and 10 year olds.  I think determining a theme is hard work because how we define themes in literature is broad and sometimes vague.  Depending on the resource you use theme can be anything from a "big message" to "a central idea" to a "lesson you learn."  I am ok with flexibility and vagueness in a definition of something, but are most kids that comfortable?  I also think things can get muddied a little because what a reader brings to the book can highly influence his or her thinking about themes to be taken from stories.

This year I launched our exploration of theme by trying to be very explicit about the idea that there are some really huge themes that seem to be in an enormous amount of books and movies.  I shared a theme (like "good vs. evil" or "the importance of family") and let the class think and talk and list stories they felt might be good examples of these themes.  We created an anchor "smartboard chart" to highlight some of the general themes and stories that showcase them.  By the end our chart had 12 big themes and example stories.

After this, over the course of a few days, I read aloud several picture books (Angel for Solomon Singer, Amazing Grace and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble) and the kids charted thinking in their reader's/writer's notebooks.  We would debate which theme or themes emerged, but it felt a little like a matching game.  "I think it is # 9 on the chart because ...."

It was during the last day of the read alouds with Sylvester that I saw "the magic" happen.  We all agreed that "the importance of family" was a theme definitely in the book.  But when one of my students asked, "I know it is not on our list of themes, but could something like "Be careful what you wish for" work as a theme in this story?"  I was elated.  I don't think there is any way as a teacher that I could share every single possible theme that is "out there" and this idea was not on our list.  So I responded something like, "I think it would definitely fit.  One of the things to remember about our list of themes is that it is just a general guideline.  It is just to get us thinking."

You could see the class collectively "get it" a little more.  I asked them to talk about the new theme that was shared and the buzz was quick and thoughtful.  I heard snippets great thinking as I bounced around our meeting area.  Some of the comments I heard were:

• There are tons of stories that deal with be careful what you wish for.
• Of course Sylvester has multiple themes, I bet most stories do too.
• Maybe this isn't a be careful what you wish for story because by the end, both Sylvester and his parents got what they wished for.

When we broke into partners that day to read and think about the collection of picture books I pulled for this study, you could see that it was much easier for them to dig in and determine themes because of the freedom to not choose from the list on our anchor chart.  It was energizing to see the kids debate with each other about themes present in their books and defend their thinking with examples (sounds a lot like what one thing 4th graders are supposed to do within the Common Core). I am not sure if I would have been able to lift road block of just using the achor chart themes without the help of the student who took the risk and proposed a theme we hadn't previously discussed.  I love it when a student leads the way in our room.

When we return from break the kids will be writing reviews of some of these picutre books.  One of the items on the rubric for this project is an exploration of theme.  I am thinking it will be a great deal easier for this group of students because of the fact we took the time to slow down, share our thinking and push oursleves to new places in our thinking.

Later,

Tony

Coming Soon

In an effort to become a little more routine about my writing in this space I am committing to a few new regular events as well as joining a group of friends for a weeklong event in January.

1) Inspired by Jen Vincent and Kellee Moye over at Teach Mentor Texts (who seem to have been inspired by Sheila at Book Journey) I will be posting a quick blurb about what I have been reading.  The goal here is not necessarily to review the books and articles, but it will help me track my own reading.  Hopefully it will also help me keep better track of what I am logging on my goodreads account.  I have found that when I finish a book and I am not near a computer, I forget to update my goodreads accout.  Who knows, maybe you might even choose to read something I listed.

2) Colby Sharp wrote a thoughtful piece on his blog about a month ago that caused me to reflect on my role as being "just a teacher."  The tickles in the back of my brain from his post along with some interesting conversations with my principal, a very smart colleague from my school and a mentor on mine have made me wonder why I have tried so hard to be "under the radar" and not regularly share what is going on in my class room.  The students who I work with are awesome, so starting tomorrow I will do a regular Friday post that highlights something one of my students accomplished that amazes me.  Not sure how this will work, but "Stories from Room 226" is not meant to be selfish or showboating, I want these stories to honor students who have shown their love of learning.

3) In January I will be writing alongside some people who I admire greatly.  Frank Sibberson got the ball rolling on making me think about the use of mentor text with students who are composing digital works.  I think she is onto to something really big.  If we are wanting our students to produce authentic work that can be shared on the web, then we probably be thinking deeply about models that will inspire quality work.  It will be exciting to learn from Bill Bass, Katie DiCesare, Troy Hicks, Kevin Hodgson and Franki.  It will also be a little nerve-wrecking to read their "stuff", then go back and read my "stuff" and think "Man, I should have said that!"

Hopefully, openly broadcasting that I will be writing more regularly will hold me accountable to develop a more consistent habit of actually ... writing.

Later,

Tony