For shame, it has been a month since I’ve posted! With Thankgiving break, then jury duty the week after, I’ve been frantically trying to catch up at work. And I’ve been working on the yearbook quite a bit. I’m determined not to have a break down in February when it’s due. After Christmas break, I’m going to start really focusing in on my “Take One!” for National Board Certification, so I’m trying to get as much other stuff accomplished as possible right now.

Let me give the run-down on my library lessons for the past month:

The week before Thanksgiving, I had my last order of books come in from The Cookin’ for Our Kids fundraiser that was done for the libraries in our district last spring. Since I had an enormous amount of work to do (and I knew I wasn’t going to be at school for the next two weeks), I did something I hate to do – I showed a video. I found a really good one, though – William Bradford: The First Thanksgiving. It made for some really good conversation with the kids. I was shocked at how little they knew about the first Thanksgiving feast. Example: before starting the video, I’d ask, “Who was at the first Thanksgiving feast?” I got lots of “Jesus” answers. One girl even told me her grandma was there! So showing this video ended up working out. And I was able to get all of the new books processed and on the shelf! Yeah for Perma-Bound processing and MARC records – I don’t know how libraries functioned before it! They even put my AR tags on for me.

The week of Thanksgiving, I went up to school one day and put up my tree. It’s so cute and I’ve gotten tons of compliments. It’s a book tree, and my mom made the ornaments for it.

The week after break, I had jury duty, but great subs! And I didn’t have to go all week – thankfully! We read Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars by Douglas Florian. This is a book of poems about outer space. My subs didn’t care for it, but I had fun with it when I incorporated lots of discussion about poetry in general (rhyme, lines and stanzas, etc.), as well as discussion about their prior knowledge about outer space. I think this would be GREAT to incorporate into a science unit on space – very cross-curricular.

This week, I did The Mitten by Jan Brett. Such a fun story that completely sucks the kids in. They can’t believe when that bear crawls into that mitten!

After the story (which is pretty short), we played “Nanna Bingo.” I used http://print-bingo.com/ to make the bingo cards with different names that grandmothers are called all over the world. The kids had a blast with this game. It was a good activity for right before Christmas, because they are full of energy at this point! Next week will be a challenge, that’s for sure.

I’m doing another reader’s theatre from Read! Perform! Learn 2 with my third graders this week. I’m reading the story Axle Annie and the Speed Grump by Robin Pulver.

It’s a cute story that could lead to some good discussion about following the rules and consequences for breaking them, but doing the story, reader’s theatre PLUS book check out in 45 minutes doesn’t give any time for discussion. Ah, the joys of fixed schedules. But I digress! The kids love this story, they think it’s hilarious – especially since “Rush Hotfoot is plucking his nose hairs” and wearing “purple underwear.” (Insert hysterical fits of 8 year old laughter here). My third graders are really starting to get into their reading, showing some real feeling with their voices. I’m looking forward to the reader’s theater unit that I’m contemplating for my “Take One!” entry.

With second grade, I’m doing Alpha Betti byCharlene Morton.

This is another cute story that’s popular with the kids. The book came with a lesson guide that has some great ideas for activities use. But once again, there is no time for that this week. I’m reinforcing some things with AR, quiz taking, and finding books in their ZPD. After the conference last weekend, I’m really trying to see how we can get our program in the place that it needs to be.

We’ve almost made it to Thanksgiving Break!

This week, I’m doing a reader’s theatre for Book! Book! Book! with my second graders. This is a cute, quick story with bright illustrations. The kids really get into it. The reader’s theatre script comes from the first edition of Read! Perform! Learn! It’s a good intro to reader’s theatre for my second graders, and I used it last year as well. A lot of explaination has to go into how to read the script and such, and the first reading is pretty painful until they start to “get it.” The first few reader’s theatres that the struggle through are worth it when they finally become confident are really get into their parts.

Next week is Halloween, which means The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Stellaluna!!!

I’m thinking about doing National Board Certification for Library Media. Next December, I’ll have my 3 years of experience needed to begin the process. I may do Take One! in the spring, which lets you do one portion of the certification process.

This week, I’m reading Casey Back at Bat by Dan Gutman to my 3rd graders.

This is one of the Louisiana Young Readers Choice (LYRC) books for 3-5 grade this year. I’ve read them one other LYRC book this year – Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, which I LOVE!

When I taught middle school, I taught the poem “Casey at the Bat,” and the kids usually enjoyed it. I really like this sequel story by Dan Gutman, and if I were still teaching in middle school, I would definitely add this to my poetry unit. I wanted my 3rd graders to get some back story before I read the book. I just read the poem to my first two classes, but the language is difficult for the younger ones to understand, and it didn’t particularly hold their attention, either. Then I found this video of a cartoon that Disney made of the original poem in 1946. The kids love it!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F0qC1-sa0]

We discussed how the cartoon lead into the story, then I read Casey Back at Bat. I really enjoy this book, and the kids love it too. The illustrations are great and the rhymes are fun. The ending leads into some heated discussion by the students, which is always fun. I see lots of my boys voting for this as their favorite in January, since it’s a baseball story.

I’m really enjoying this story this week (much more than my 2nd grade lesson, which I’ll talk about tomorrow).

Kids love doing reader’s theatre. It can get noisy and chaotic, but they’re excited about reading and practicing fluency! Plus, my library is noisy and chaotic more often than not. I like my kids to be excited!

I did this lesson with my 3rd graders, since I did reader’s theatre with them last year and I knew they’d be pumped. I have lots of reader’s theatre books, but this lesson came from my favorite:

This is the second Read! Perform! Learn! book, and I love them both. They’re perfect for using in the library because the scripts are adapted from books. First I read the story so they can enjoy the illustrations and understand the plot, then they get to be the characters during reader’s theatre. This week I used the lesson that goes with Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms by Christine MacLean.

This is a cute story about a little boy who likes to pretend that he has different jobs (firefighter, police officer, astronaut, garbage truck driver, etc.). He’s too busy at all of his “jobs” to stop and give his mom a hug. The story itself is very repetitive, and gets extremely boring if you read is as many times as I do with 12 third grade classes. It makes a really great reader’s theatre script, though. The repetition works well for the kids when they’re reading their parts. I especially love the Read! Perform! Learn! selections because they select books with lots of onomatopoeia and put those into the script for the role of the “chorus.” This allows EVERY student to have a part, even if it’s a chorus role that’s shared with others. Even though the chorus is a smaller role that’s part of a group, it’s great for struggling readers because they have support from others but still get to participate and be proud.

Library Club is up and on its way. I’m teaching them how to check books in and out so they can help during their class time. They take their job so seriously — it’s so cute! They’re excited and working hard to learn how to help in the library.

I can’t believe how quickly this week has gone by. Tomorrow’s Friday! Woohoo!

Happy Monday!

Today I was going to start doing this C25K (Couch to 5K) program, which is an app for the iPhone that a friend recommended. But I don’t think my first day of a new running regemine should be done in the rain, so I’ll wait. I’m definitely going to do it soon, though, since I paid $2.99 for the app.

I’m going to write about this week’s 2nd Grade lesson today, and I’ll write about the 3rd Grade lesson another day this week. I’m posting this one first because I’m reading one of my favorite children’s books ever (okay, so I have a lot of favorites, but this is one of them)! If you have never read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, or any of the other “If You Give a…” books, then you are missing out. Laura Numeroff has created this precious series of books that’s great for teaching sequencing and cause and effect. I use it to teach a little bit of previewing, and we play the Mouse Memory Game after. Now that I have my fancy-schmancy document camera, this lesson is even better.

I start off by introducing the book, author, illustrator, etc. Many of the kids have at least heard of one of these “If You Give a…” books, so they get excited about the book. I let them preview the pictures before I read, and I ask them what they think will happen based on just the illustrations. My favorite is the illustration where the mouse realizes he’s thirsty again…the kids always think he’s choking or “actin’ crazy” like on of them said today. Then I go back and read the story to them. It’s a quick one, so the previewing helps it really sink in for them. And it must sink in so we can play the Mouse Memory Game. They get a paper and have to list all of the things the mouse asked for that they can possibly think of. Then we go over all of the things he asked for, which they really get into. The person with the most correct answers wins a pencil. My kids last year loved this lesson, so I was really excited about re-using it this year. Thankfully, this is a story that I never get sick of!

If you have a child in your life and they do not own this book, then you need to go and buy it for them immediately. I gave my niece If You Give a Cat a Cupcake along with a play cupcake kit for her birthday. She’ll be getting If You Give a Mouse a Cookie for Christmas this year, along with many others.

Now it’s time for me to do some grown-up reading. I’m three chapters in to Fearless Fourteen, and I’m already hooked!