Fourth Grade Read-Aloud Round-Up

I love to read aloud with my kids so I'm excited to join Mr Hughes for his Read-Aloud Round-Up. I'm also a big fan of audiobooks so sometimes we use those for our read aloud time. I'm going to share a couple of each in this post.

I went through the other posts that were up so far so I tried to share some different ones.

One I always enjoy reading aloud each year is Regarding the Fountain by Kate Klise (illustrated by her sister M Sarah Klise). If you haven't read any book by this duo you are in for a treat!

Regarding the Fountain is filled with fun characters, a silly but engaging plot, fantastic word play, and illustrations in all sorts of forms like memo, newspaper, maps, bulletin boards (you really just have to see them). Because of all the illustrations it is definitely good to have a document camera and/or some extra copies of the books s the kids can see the details. I use both while reading. Since it is the first in a series there are always kids that want to continue on reading the others. More recently the pair created another series called 43 Old Cemetery Road which is also great.

While talking about series. I love to do a read aloud of the first 39 clues book because it often prompts kids to continue reading on through the books. I really like all the information it shares about Ben Franklin and the connection to our social studies. Since it is filled with action and suspense it was a great one to stop in an exciting stop and have the kids beg to keep going.

A cool book for fun characters an interesting setting is Dead End in Norvelt. While being grounded for the summer (for shooting off his dad's gun) the only thing he was allowed to do was help his crazy neighbor type up her obituaries for the original natives of Norvelt. It is also includes all sorts of interest historical references. It is a great read.

Below are a couple great books that were brought to the next level by listening as an audiobooks

Wonder got tons of attention this year so I'm sure everyone is familiar with the book. This was even better because the audiobook was created with multiple voice actors creating all the characters. The kids totally ate it up!

The narrator/actress for The Incorrigible Children of Aston Place totally draws in and makes you feel like you are her close confidant. Not to mention that her accent is a pleasure to listen to.  I have not done this as a read aloud yet but I plan to next year.

Here is the Amazon description of the book.

Found running wild in the forest of Ashton Place, the Incorrigibles are no ordinary children: Alexander, age ten or thereabouts, keeps his siblings in line with gentle nips; Cassiopeia, perhaps four or five, has a bark that is (usually) worse than her bite; and Beowulf, age somewhere-in-the-middle, is alarmingly adept at chasing squirrels.

Luckily, Miss Penelope Lumley is no ordinary governess. Only fifteen years old and a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, Penelope embraces the challenge of her new position. Though she is eager to instruct the children in Latin verbs and the proper use of globes, first she must help them overcome their canine tendencies.

But mysteries abound at Ashton Place: Who are these three wild creatures, and how did they come to live in the vast forests of the estate? Why does Old Timothy, the coachman, lurk around every corner? Will Penelope be able to teach the Incorrigibles table manners and socially useful phrases in time for Lady Constance's holiday ball? And what on earth is a schottische?

Happy Reading!

Tried it Techie Tuesday

I'm on a roll joining some of the link ups that I have only followed for ages. It's such fun.

Today I'm joining Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper and Technology Tailgate:

 In all honesty this first item is something I tried for the first time this school year but not actually this week.

After seeing several book recommendation ideas on blogs or pinterest I decided to do a combination of a few.

a collection of fun ideas shared by others

The students decided on a favorite book they would like to recommend to others. Then they worked on recreating a cover (either their own version of a favorite scene of one of the current cover) with a summary of the book on the back. This could be done either on paper or with a favorite program of ours, Wixie. Wixie is an online subscription version of the popular software Pixie (which is available for the computer or as an iOS app). We LOVE this software because it is able to do so many things yet it is very easy to use. In this case the students took advantage of a few of the capabilities like drawing, adding images, using internal clip art and adding text boxes.

After the main covers were done they could do an audio recording of their recommendation for the book. For the students that used iPads they did the recording in audioboo and then pasted the url into kaywa to create the QR code. For those that had drawn the covers on paper they went to a computer and did the recording in vocaroo since it can save directly as a QR code to be printed out from the computer and glued on the cover. Well actually we copied and pasted the QR code image into a word doc so we could shrink them down - otherwise they came out way too big for the covers.

While they were working I pulled a few students out at a time to pose for a picture. We printed them up and they cut and glued them on to their completed covers.
I really thought the project came out very cute.

As for something techie I tried THIS WEEK it would have to be the new app for ISTE 2013.

It just came out the other day and I have been exploring all through it. I have been look through my planner, adding vendors that I want to visit and attendees that I would like to meet (you know some of my heroes).

Is anybody else heading to ISTE?

Thanks for dropping by and hopefully this gives you a fun technology idea you might want to consider.

Tried it Tuesday

This is my first time linking up for Tried it Tuesday even though I have been checking it out for a while.

Something I have tried this week is Goodreads.

I have known about it for quite some time but never took the time to go and do it. I just set up an account and added a bunch of middle grade books that I could think of as well as a few personal reads. I also added one of my teacher friends and browsed through her books to see some more that I had not thought of. I primarily was doing it with the iPad app. I searched some titles by name and others by author (if I knew I had read a few by them). I also used the scan option to add some from my summer reading pile.

I probably need to search around for some more teacher friends to get some other good suggestions but at least I started.


This past year I had my students using Biblionasium which I thought was great.

You create a class and add your students (with lexile levels if you want). At first I created two classes for my morning and afternoon. Once I got into it a bit I decided I would rather have one big group so they could interact with each other and so I didn't have to add everything twice.

Once in they can select their avatar and add their own books. They can rate books and recommend them to classmates. They can enter the books on a reading log and get "awards" for various things like different genres and number of books read. Students can also see each others shelves to get ideas without specific recommendations. I did add myself as a student as well as a teacher so I could set up a student shelf with the books I was reading.

As a teacher I could add required and/or suggested books to a class shelf for students to reference and add. I could also track all sorts of things like logs, awards, book levels, etc. I could also create specific challenges for the class, groups, and/or individuals.

I would highly suggest checking it out.

Reading Roundup

It's always nice to reflect about the books in my big stack. Must of the kid books are an actual stack but the professional books mostly collect on my Kindle until I make time to read them. I actually expected to get more reading done over vacation but I did get in a couple of good one :-)

If you would like to join in click here.

Professional book

I have a huge backlog of books but I think next note list is going to be Conferring: the Keystone to Reader's Workshop. I really need to work on my conferring skills. I feel like I say the same thing when I talk to students and I need to make it more meaningful.

Personal book

I always enjoy a good Nicholas Sparks book. Of course my husband always says ones that make me cry that hard can't be enjoyable. I'm a few behind and I would like to read, Safe Haven, since it will be coming out as a movie in February. It was on sale for the Kindle for only $3.99.

Book to teach a skill

A book I just ordered that should arrive tomorrow is "Did It All Start with a Snowball Fight?: And Other Questions About The American Revolution." It isn't really a skill but a content area. In reading we are about to start reading some historical fiction novels that go along with American Revolution. I don't teach social studies but we are trying really hard this year to tie our reading in more closely with out content area. It sounded inline the question answer format would be entertaining for the kids.

I look forward to seeing what some others are sharing.

A few things we have been doing

We have been doing a bunch of things in class over the last month and a half or so that I haven't taken the time to write about.

Here a just a few favorite:

 
The kids loved International Dot Day. They made watercolor dots on paper and we put them in a swirly got frame. Then they made some digital dots using our new iPads. They also helped our first grade reading buddies make dots on the iPads as well as all the kindergarten stuednts in the school. It was a fabulous day.

They enjoyed participating in the annual OREO project. We had some great stackers this year. We figured out our class average and submitted it along with tons of other classes. If you haven't ever done this one before it is great fun. Projects by Jen also hosts a fabulous Holiday Card Exchange in case you might be interested.

Our Student Teacher, Ms. King, Ivan and I

We have been reading The One and Only Ivan as part of the Global Read Aloud project. Unfortunately we got pretty far behind with the schedule so we didn't participate as much as my previous classes have done. They still have been enjoying the book and the activities.

The kids performed their grade level musical, Music and Me,  for the school during the day and then an evening performance for the parents. That did such a great job and I was very proud of them.


Currently we are doing a two week unit about Greek mythology. I will definitely have to share a bit about that soon with some pictures since I forgot that camera at school. The kids are totally loving it.

This week we have our field trip to the Stone Mountain Indian Festival and Pow-Wow. This was a great time last year so I hope it is this year as well.

First Week

I just completed the second week with students and I'm finally getting around to sharing some activities we did in the first week.

Obvious we spent time the first week going over procedures, sorting supplies, and getting to know each other. On this post I'm just sharing a few of the FUN things.

On the first day the kids participated in the Saving Fred activity shared by Lorraine at Fabulous Fourth Grade Froggies. They loved it and it was nice to get a feel for the kids. It even connected with our ocean theme. I know I took pictures but I don't seem to have them right now so they must be on the other camera. On our second day we also Lorraine puzzle races. The winning team finished in just over 10 minutes and the last team finished in a little over 20 minutes. I used Sponge Bob puzzles from the Dollar Tree. Once again there were great strategies shared.

the winning team

On the first day we also opened up a package that came to us from New Zealand! The kids were very excited to meet Snail and Whale, traveling pets from Room 3. We read the book about them and then picked a lucky child to take them home and fill out the journal about their visit in Georgia. The first week the kids took them to an assembly, out to recess, to specials, to the cafeteria and pretty much everywhere else. They also our school mascot ,Wolfie. This continued on through the second week as well.

In keeping with our ocean theme, on the second day I also read Manfish. It is the story of Jacques Cousteau given to me by the Two Sisters at a D5/CAFE workshop. I also shared a quick slideshow of pictures I have taken while scuba diving. Then I let the kids try on the gear and we took pictures in front of a green screen. I finally finished changing out the backgrounds this weekend. The full set can be viewed here.

 

One other thing we did the first week was read Not A Box and Meggie Moon and then have the kids (in pairs or trios) use their imagination to transform a squiggle into something else. They definitely had Snail and Whale on the brain because five groups had some variation on them. We did however get a rabbit spy with a jet pack and a few other creative things.

I'm sure we did some other fun things but since it has taken me so long to write this post I lost the list I had made for myself. All in all it was a fun week.

This week was a bit busy for the summer.

I attended a two day differentiated instruction conference put on by my school system. I have to say I thought it was pretty well done. I felt that the opening keynote speaker could have been better but the presenters did a nice job on their individual session. Not only were all the sessions well planned and organized but I got at least a couple new ideas/things from each. There was also a lot of good discussion. One of the best parts was that they put together the materials from ALL the sessions in a LiveBinder and gave us the link at the end of the last day. Would you like to see what was shared? Click the link or the binder below and browse around.

2012 Summer S2A Summit

I also had to finish putting together a little training for some fellow staff members about iPads. Our school just purchased an iPad cart with 30 tablets for the students to use next year. My principal generously offered to let teachers check them out for the summer after they attended a little training. I was supposed to cover the basics of how they work as well as some specific procedures for purchasing apps and collecting app suggestions. Unfortunately we did run over a bit but I think most of the people found it helpful. We did set a Dropbox account for the school and install it on the iPads so I could put a few helpful resources in there for reference. I have included links to a couple of useful items: MakeUseOf iPad guide, Apple iPad 2 User Guide, Simple K12's 15 iPad Tips for Teachers and Simple K12's 20 iPad apps Educator's can't live without. Of course there are tons more resources but this was just intended to give a little taste and give them something they could reference when they don't remember how to do something we talked about at the training.


  

I was also able to fit in some crafty time but I'll share that on Monday.

 

 

  

Catching up with books

As I mentioned in my introduction post I have quite an obsession with Amazon and purchasing books for my classroom. I spent a bit of time today reading some of my new additions to the collection.

Here are a couple of new favorite from today.

Dear Hot Dog - It has wonderful everyday object poetry. It could definitely be a spring board for student writing. I also happen to like that they are free verse not rhyming poems.

A Day's Work  - It has a nice message about telling the truth and working hard. It would be really good for a quick character analysis.

Squirrel and John Muir - It is a fictionalized biography about John Muir's time at Yosemite. I loved the writing from a craft standpoint and the story line.

Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story - It is a biography of the first Asian American to win an Olympic gold metal. It is a wonderful story of determination. It includes some great sensory details to use as a model for student writers.

Have you heard of Shelfari? It is a fun way to show what you are reading. I have my shelf embedded on my class website. Then each year we add books as we read them together or they read them in book groups.

I am going to attempt to add it here as well :-)

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog