Trick or Treat?

     This trick or treat is coming from the 3rd grade team at Hiawatha!

     Every year, Halloween comes, and so do the costumes and the parties and the boundless energy that seems to exude from the students.  Pumpkins and music and Halloween read alouds fill the classrooms in anticipation of the big day.  Oh, Halloween.  We either love it, or we hate it.  

     This year, our third grade team decided to let Charlotte's Web take over their Halloween festivities.  There is not a whole lot of Halloween in the book, except for the fact that the main character is a spider.  But, when that novel falls as your read aloud in the month of October, it only makes sense to make a big deal about it.  

     So, what did they do?

 

     For starters, they made the characters come alive by dressing as Charlotte, the web, Wilbur, and Fern on Halloween.  They even "recreated" the cover of the book in costume for a team picture.  :)

     

    The messages from the web were their classrooms decorations, both on windows and in costume.  

    They have also been using Charlotte's Web as their anchor text for developing character.  They are working on RL3.3, and have been developing strong character traits across the grade using Charlotte's Web as their example.  Before their party in 3ROWA, they had the kids write about an assigned character on giant writing paper.  Then, at the party, they were give a pumpkin to decorate as their character for their Character Pumpkin Patch!

Welcome to the Character Pumpkin Patch!

Wilbur

Charlotte

Templeton

Charlotte

Wilbur

     Thanks to our third grade team ( +Anna Waszak +Christine Flowers +Kathy Ross Theresa Carrillo)  for bringing their love of literacy into fun activities for the students!  They will certainly never forget this book!  Thanks for modeling that reading can be FUN, and that when we read books that we enjoy, the possibilities are endless.

Mining for Junie B: A Slice of Life

Writing teachers need to write themselves.

I am participating in the Slice of Life 2015 Challenge, 

where I attempt to write stories and narratives about moments in my life.

I apologize if this blog post veers off the informative "literacy lens" I usually write through.

This month I am pretending to be a writer, for my students' benefit (and my own).

Writers write. 

#SOL15

The prospect of literacy gold is high.

Snuggled under the covers, zoo pink plastic miner hat on, bedroom lights off. Let the exploration begin...  Page by page, we look for gold as we read the words of authors.  Tonight they were mining Junie B.

"I just like the B and that's all."

"Its name is birthday cake."

"...a meanie boy named Jim"

"Cause something had gone a little bit wrong here, I think."

The text has clues scattered like diamonds, and the illustrations light the path to big ideas.  Sometimes, questions arise.  

Is she going to get in trouble, Dad?

She should just say she is sorry.

Can I have cake, too?

Every night, our journey through books is the bedrock of all our literate lives.  Tonight, we ended on a piece of text that erupted us into laughter and put us at a bit of a crossroads.

"Hey!  I just figured out where I can move to!  It's called It's a Small World After All.  And it's at Disneyland!  'Member that, Daddy?  It's where all those puppets keep on singing that same song over and over and over again."

For my husband, this chapter might add a soundtrack to his dreams that will border on a nightmare.  

For my son, with his deep obsession for the Small World, the bedtime story will lead him to sweet dreams as we say goodnight to this day.  He can ride that joyful boat, this time with Junie B, for hours in his dreams.  I imagine he will be singing along.

Miner hat off, book closed, kiss goodnight.  

Gold was found.

(Junie B. Jones and that Meanie Jim's Birthday by Barbara Park)

Close Reading in First Grade (AKA: A Coaching Collaboration Success!)

     I had a first grade teacher come to me and ask how to make her shared reading time more of a close reading time.

     Once again, let me refer to the Lehman/ Roberts definition of close reading:

     For a reader to independently stop and reread for meaning, they have to be independent readers in the first place.  That is why the Shared Reading block is a great place to attempt creating habits of close reading for our littlest readers.  Our first grade teachers have a shared text that they read every day for 10-15 minutes outside of the workshop block.  Most often, by the end of the week, most of the students can go back and reread the text for a specific purpose.  If they can do that, we have the very beginning habits of close reading. 

     But, let's think about it for a minute... Why do 1st graders need to close read?  They are still learning how to read?  Right?  

     Close reading is about NOTICING details and thinking about them.   It is about creating meaning in the texts we read, with meaning that is relevant to the reader.  So how can we help our emergent readers notice details, think about things, and create meaning from what they read?  My answer has always been to close read images.  By using pictures with our K, 1st and 2nd graders, we can get them to think deeply about a text, but remove the challenge of finding a text that is deep enough to really think about that they can actually read.
***We can use pictures beyond K-2, too.  Trust me.  I have.

     So, when +Julianne LaFleur came to me to ask how she could enhance her Shared Reading block, and they were beginning their character unit, the words MO WILLEMS practically fell out of my mouth.  What better characters to explore, with the focus on feelings, than the always expressive Piggie and Gerald!  

     I had been to a workshop at Institute Day where +John Fontanetta presented a lesson from the Library of Congress where we close read just the eyes of a famous historical figure.  We had to describe the man, just based on his eyes, draw the rest of him, and then were given his full image as well as historical documents about his impact on history.  

     Since that very day, I have been waiting for +Julianne LaFleur to ask me this question.  I have really wanted to do this with Gerald.  And now we have!

     I took I'm a Frog! and copied about 15 pictures of Gerald.   I then cut out just a rectangle around the eyes, and slightly enlarged them on a white sheet of paper.  I then went back to Miss LaFleur (and +Sarah Berry was there with us that day) and showed her the copies.  I then asked, "How do you want  to scaffold this to your students?"  Let the collaboration begin!  We talked about reading other Piggie and Gerald books first to generate emotion words about the characters, having the students show emotions on their own faces to "feel" their facial expressions, and then of course passing out the Gerald eyes of an unread book as we had planned.

     The best part of it all?  Miss LaFleur came to the team planning meeting the next week, shared the resources, and gave them lesson plans to use over the week during shared reading.  She shared the experience with her team, so they were all able to do the lesson with their classes.  That also meant that I got to see it happening in more than one room!  

     On the first day, I walked into +Jodi Meyer's room, and she had just read Waiting is Not Easy! and generated a list of emotion words to describe Gerald.

     On day 2, I walked into Mrs. Meyer's class after they had read Elephants Cannot Dance.  She had them meet with a partner, and add a new word to their emotion chart.  She had each team share their word, but also had them tell where in the story Gerald felt that way, and why.  Was it in the beginning, the middle, or the end of the story?

     On day 3, I think Mrs. Meyer had them practice showing the feeling with their partner and a new book.  Miss LaFleur had her students, who have iPads, use Popplet to make a web of emotions about characters.  They chose a character from their own books, and used the illustrations to generate the emotion words.   The one above about Piggie even shows the evidence in the illustration, like "his eyebrow is up."

     On day 4, they finally got the pictures of Gerald's eyes!  First, they generated the words to describe him.  In Mrs. Meyer's room, she had them write a sentence about why they thought he might feel that way.  In Miss LaFleur's room, she had them add a setting around him, and then added a speech bubble to have them infer what he might say.

Here are a few videos from when they first started drawing:

Meyer

LaFleur/Alper

     In Miss LaFleur and Miss Alper's class, she had them do a gallery walk to match their drawing with the full image of Gerald.  She laid them all in a line, and had the partner pairs put their drawing above/below the picture they thought it matched.  She did this after she modeled how our faces show expression, of course.  :)

     In the end, they did not all find the exact match to their image.  Some of his eyes were very close to the eyes in another image.  But, for the most part they were close.  Sometimes, the emotions they identified hit the target.  Sometimes, they did not.  But, they definitely are noticing a new detail now! Facial expressions are a huge clue into how a character is feeling.  

My take aways from this?

1.  Mo Willems is a genius.

2.  A Library of Congress lesson on close reading images can be adapted to a primary classroom.

3.  First graders need to focus on learning to read.  However, if we want to add some close reading habits, like rereading for a purpose (emotions) or using images (like illustrations in picture books) then the kids will have a blast while thinking a little deeper.

4.  This series of shared reading lessons hit multiple CCSS standards.  RL.1.3 and RL.1.7 are the biggest, but the incorporation of narrative elements, dialogue, partner work, reading multiple books about the same character, and fluency immediately includes more.

5.  MY BIG TAKE AWAY?:  The Common Core tells us what to teach, but not how to teach it.  I have said that many, many times.  I think that just by watching this seed idea grow in two different classrooms in two different ways shows that.  Collaboration with each other not only helps us learn new things, but it also helps us teach each other.  This series of lessons was just a seed idea that grew into something much more.

And, to close, I figure I'd add a fun image my son drew of Piggie and Gerald.  Just because.  :)

      

     

Close Reading, Grinch Style

     My daughter is home with a fever today, which means I am home with a daughter with a fever.  What does one do with a sick daughter?  Go to Pinterest and make Christmas crafts together, of course.

     Her current favorite Christmas character is the Grinch.  So, we made some fun crafts together in honor of the Dr. Seuss seasonal icon.

     It started the other day with some ornaments for our tree.

 

     Today, we painted a paper plate brown and turned him into a reindeer, just like Max.

     Next, we found a way to make the Grinch by painting a paper plate.  (Pinterest has everything.)

     Then, we drew the Grinch and Max, his dog, following step by step directions we found.  This time, we each drew our own.  Keira was happy that we drew the same things.  Mommy/ Daughter bonding with smelly markers and dot dot markers.

     My favorite thing that Keira made, though, was her own picture of the Grinch.  She clicked on a picture of the Grinch from the ones I had searched in Google, because it was the picture of when he got his "wonderful, awful idea."

     As a literacy coach mom, I immediately thought about how my daughter close read that image.  She knew the exact moment in the story when that happens simply because of the expression on his face.  She has, in fact, noticed some differences between the cartoon version and the book.  But, most impressive to me is that she is inferring a character's feelings using illustrations and story events.  Take this conversation a few hours later:

"Mommy, why do some people hate Christmas?"

"Who hates Christmas?"

"The Grinch."

"I think it is because he didn't have love."

"But he has Max!"

"But did he really love Max?"

"He said "hating the Who's" in the movie.  I know he didn't love them.  He loves them now, though."

     Talk about character development.  That Grinch certainly develops over the course of the text.

     I love the Grinch, because it has always been a holiday tradition of mine.  But, perhaps he could mean just a little bit more.  Perhaps, it can be a door into deeper thinking with a mentor character who really leaves an impact on our students.

     On my search for Grinch crafts, I found a few fun things, and a great blog post from Scholastic, about how to actually use the text to do some close reading.  Here is the blog post.  She mentions some possible themes and social issues to explore, and gives some picture examples of annotated text from the book.

     On Fairy Tales and Fiction, they give some freebies for the Grinch.  There are some fun character activities for K-1, maybe 2nd grade kids.  Here is the link to their blog and freebies.

     This is a fun number identification coloring sheet, that I do not really think is Common Core aligned all that much, but makes the Grinch when complete.  Fun activity, not deep thinking.  Here is the link.

     I saved the best link for last.  This lady loves the Grinch AND taking photographs of her kids.  We had a conversation this week in 2nd grade about character traits vs emotions vs physical traits.  Her anchor chart is really a combination of the three things.  I suppose when asking kids, at 1st and 2nd grade, to describe a character we hope for great vocabulary, and less about which of the three categories the word falls into.  We want them to go beyond "happy."  But, using the word adjectives instead of "character traits" removes the argument about categorization, I suppose.  Perhaps that is a way to start the conversation with kids.

These images are from thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com

     This post is really about holiday fun, mixed in with a little literacy fun.  Enjoy the season with your students and your family.