Horses, by Seymour Simon, is on the Common Core Standard Exemplar list for the 4/5 reading band.  Simon is a master at presenting nonfiction information for youngsters in an engaging, interesting manner.  The photographs are so appropriate for the text.  There are no run-of-the-mill photographs; all are extraordinary.  In Horses, Simon begins with the history of the horse and how they are used throughout history.

Because Simon does such a thorough job of describing the characteristics of horses, I decided to compose a lesson focusing on comparing and contrasting, a common core standard for fourth and fifth grades.  I made a 3-column chart for the activity.  The left column is for information only about horses, the right column for human information, and the middle column for the commonalities.

simon explained where the phrase "from the horse's mouth" came from.  My second activity for this text deals with idioms.  After discussing a couple of other idioms, I will have the students work with some on another handout I made.  I typed some common idioms, followed by lines for students to explain what they think the actual meaning of the idiom is.  I also placed a box below their writing so they can illustrate the literal meaning of the words.  For example, if the teacher states "I want all eyes on the board," the students would write something like "the teacher wants everyone to look at the board."  In the box, the students would draw a picture of a teacher and a blackboard with many pairs of eyes on it.

I also came up with some discussion questions to use with the students.  Simon discusses how people used to describe things as needing two horses or four horses to pull them.  Today we still refer to the ability of engines to pull vehicles as horsepower.  Why do we still talk about horsepower when horses don't pull our cars, trains, or planes?  Horses don't exactly pull airplanes across the sky and never have.  Can you think of anything else we still refer to by a name that no longer makes sense literally?  Also, Simon tells us about feral horses.  Is it right that humans capture and keep horses?  Are there still places in our country where wild horses roam freely?  If so, where are they?

Another assignment I thought about is to have students make a timeline about the history of the horse using the information from the text.  Also, Seymour Simon has a great web site at http://www.seymoursimon.com/.  You can access all or most of his books there.  I typed "Horses" in the search box.  There are teacher lesson plans available to download.  Included in the lesson plan is a series of 6 pictures illustrating events in history relating to horses.  Students are to use the text to determine their proper order.

My school had parent-teacher conferences tonight.  Since I'm not in a classroom of my own this year, my role was somewhat different from past years.  I am an Academic Coach.  Our school's Reading Coach and Math Coach share a room with me.  We have been turning our room into a resource room for all of our teachers.  Tonight we had copies of lots of reading and math resources for parents to use to work with their children.  This is the first time we've tried this and it was very successful.  Traditionally, we have a poor turnout at our school.  Twenty-one families visited our new resource room, which made the three of us very happy.

We had several handouts -- higher order thinking questions for before, during, and after reading; tips to improve fluency; lists of Dolch words by grade level; lists and run-downs of websites for reading and math activities; as well as several games for reading and math.  We also handed out packs of index cards to use for flash cards, dice for a math game, and decks of playing cards for addition and multiplication games.  Parents were genuinely appreciative.  We played some of the games with the children so they understood what to do.  If parents didn't understand some of the reports from their conferences, we helped explain them.

Tonight was so fulfilling.  I wasn't sure how it would go and knew I would miss the interaction with students and parents.  What a pleasant surprise when so many of them came and sought out advice.  We're already planning for the next conference night.  I'm ordering books so that we can hand a book to every child who comes.  We'll get bookmarks and other giveaways.  Tonight was a success, but it was also a trial run.  We now have a better idea of ways we can help our parents help their students improve their reading skills.  Being out of the classroom doesn't mean I can't still help students.

Our Reading Coach is also planning a Family Literacy Day for this next month.  Family members are invited to come to the school during either of two different time periods and read with their students.  She has connected with a local bookstore to get books to give away at the event.  Each student with a family member attending will receive a goodie bag with books and other reading materials.  Our goal is for families to share a positive reading experience together and learn ways to help their children.

I would love to hear other ideas and suggestions from others so that I can help make further reading events meaningful and successful.

I have learned so much more about technology in the past two or three years.  However, these past two or three months have been record-breaking in that regard!  Through this Literature and the Learner Master's course, I've created a blog and a webquest.  I am also in the process of completing a training through the Lee County School District called Lee Digital Educator Training.  Two weeks ago I learned more about Power Point and how to make my presentations more interactive.  I also worked in Microsoft Excel and learned some new things there.  Yesterday, I learned how to use Audacity to record my voice and place it in Power Point or in a Smart document.  My mind is spinning with ideas to incorporate all of my new technological knowledge in the classroom.  I still have two more full-day sessions in the Digital Educator class.  Next meeting we're working on photography and the last meeting will be about embedding video.

Yesterday I showed my webquest to a teacher at my school.  Her excitement was just what I needed.  She asked me to show her how to do a webquest.  We agreed to do one together for her third grade class.  However, we first have to complete a project for our Digital Educator class!  I'm thrilled to be able to teach someone else how to do a webquest.  I want to experiment with the other webquest site, other than Quest Garden.  I believe Dr. Slick said it was weebly, or something like that.  It seems I've gained a new freedom by being able to use this technology to create lessons to help students want to learn.  Also important, I've gained the confidence to know that I can use new technology by experimenting with it and taking the time to learn how to use it.

 

I just finished reading The Schwa Was Here today.  I enjoyed it immensely!  At first I thought it was going to be about supernatural events, but it was anything but.  One of the main characters is "invisible-ish," according to classmates.  Nobody ever seems to really notice or pay attention to him.  His name is Calvin Schwa.  He is likened to the schwa referring to the vowel sound that largely goes unnoticed and is marked by an upside down e. 

 

 

The boy feels unimportant and unnoticed since his mother disappeared when he was five and his father retreated into his own world, ignoring Calvin for the most part.  The story is told by Anthony (Antsy) who befriends Calvin (the Schwa).  Together they have several adventures.  Antsy tries to help the Schwa deal with the fact that nobody ever seems to notice him.  At first he exploits this "talent," making money from it.  Then he feels bad for the Schwa and tries to help him solve the mystery of what happened to his mother.  The two boys end up working for grumpy Mr. Crawley and must endure verbal abuse.  Mr. Crawley's blind granddaughter comes to spend the summer.  Mr. Crawley requires the boys to spend time with her and make her feel welcome.  Through a series of events, the Schwa's family mystery is finally solved.

 

One reason I really liked this story is because of the subtle messages it contained.  How many children at one time or another in their lives feel like they may as well be invisible, either at home or at school?  Both Antsy and the Schwa had to deal with this feeling.  They also dealt with unfair treatment.  They even fought over a girl that both of them liked.  The boys learned all the right lessons, although they suffered some while doing it. 

 

Kids will like the fast pace of this book as well as how the action moves from one thing to another.  There are several subplots within the main plot, wich adds more interest to the story.  I would highly recommend this book!

 



I've been thinking a lot about the books I've been reading.  As I look through my blog posts and the personal summaries on my Annotated Bibliography, I notice a common thread.  Long before I'm done reading, I'm sold on the book!  One common thread I haven't mentioned often is that when I first begin many of these books, I'm not sold on them.  My thinking is this is because they aren't books I just chose on my own; they had to be from award-winner lists and weren't necessarily my "type" of books.  I'm currently working on When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and am experiencing the same thing.  Although I'm almost halfway through it, I'm only mildly interested in it.  For some reason it just doesn't grab me.  The story isn't awful; it just isn't that deep - at least so far.  However, I'm sure children will enjoy it.  There is a mystery developing.

The point I think I'm reaching as I type this is that usually I end up enjoying these stories very much.  How often do I hear students say after reading only a few pages of a book, "This is boring.  I don't want to read it."  If I can motivate children to give them a fair shot, chances are they will end up enjoying the stories as much as I have.

Also, I'm noticing that when I think about how the first part of a book isn't interesting, at least so far I've been proven wrong.  Every book I've read so far has value and I'm glad to have read them.  Most often I absolutely love them!  Of course, maybe that's what I should expect.  After all, I'm only reading award-winning books at this time.  What's kind of funny is that I've got a new list going of other award-winning books I want to read based on my classmates' recommendations and personal summaries.  My list of the books remaining on my Annotated Bibliography sits by my recliner.  I cross off the titles as I complete them.  My new list awaits and I find that I can hardly wait to get to it. 

          

Happy reading everybody!!!             

                                       

Return to Sender in my opinion is a must read for everyone.  Regardless of one's feelings about immigration and illegal aliens, it will give one pause to rethink old beliefs.  Julia Alvarez does a wonderful job of telling a story in such a realistic way.  This book could easily be a true story.  She includes not just the big picture of illegally being in the United States, but the smaller, more personal, issues of bullying and internal conflict on the part of young children.  The family of illegal Mexican workers includes two U.S. born daughters who don't want to move back to Mexico.  In a quite natural progression, the characters in the story slowly begin to change their deep feelings about illegal aliens.  They see these people as human beings trying to survive rather than criminals who are trying to invade our country.  There are people in the story on both sides of the issue, right up until the end.

This book left me wanting to read a sequel!  Because of the ending, it would be a very easy thing to do.  If this was a movie, I know there would be a sequel to it.  If nothing else, students would easily write their own sequel after completing this story.  I would love to read them.

Last week I also completed reading Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper.  I think this should be required reading for all teachers and students alike.  There are Life Skills classes at my school so our students see all kinds of disabilities.  I have partnered with one of the Life Skills groups in the past and had my third graders be reading buddies with them.  Although the disabled students benefited, my students probably grew a lot more from the experience.  They were actually afraid of the students at first.  As they interacted and discovered that they are just real kids who can't walk, or maybe talk, or function quite the same, they became very comfortable working with them.  After seeing the positive effects of this arrangement, I teamed with that teacher each year after that.  Still, we have incidents every year in which a student teases or in some way hurts the feelings of one of the disabled children.  We try very hard to educate them about what the disabilities mean and to make them understand that they are still people with feelings.

Out of My Mind is told from the perspective of a young girl with cerebral palsy.  She is an extremely smart child, but cannot speak or move her body on her own.  The frustrations she shares are so realistic.  I kept forgetting that the book is fiction.  Knowing that it could very easily be a true story was sobering.  I cried several times during my reading.  I have talked to a couple of our Life Skills teachers about the book.  It turns out their department recently read the book.  We are talking about doing something with it for the entire faculty to help with awareness toward our disabled children. 

If you have not read this book, please do!  It will change you!

My most recent book is The Ravenmaster's Secret.  I enjoyed reading it much more than I expected.  In fact, I had a hard time putting it down, reading every spare minute I could.  This historical fiction novel is set in the Tower of London.  Upon research, I found that the setting and general characters were factually accurate.  At one point in history, the king wanted to rid the Tower grounds of the noisy ravens.  His advisors told him that if all the ravens disappeared, the Tower walls would fall and it would fall into the hands of the enemy.  The king ordered the wings clipped on nine of the birds to keep them in the Tower, getting rid of the rest.  A Ravenmaster was appointed to care for the birds - an important task. 

The Ravenmaster in The Ravenmaster's Secret also had the duty to watch over prisoners.  His son, Forrest, became involved with a prisoner, a young girl his age, and became convinced of her innocence.  Commiting treason and risking his life, he helped two friends escape certain death.  In the process, Forrest learned a life lesson.  He stood up for what he believed was right.  After reading this story, I would ask students to form and opinion and debate whether Forrest was right to defy the laws of England or whether he should have honored the laws and allow justice to take place.  It would certainly make them think a lot about right and wrong.