July 21, 2022 · curriculum
Students use maps to do research. I know it is the middle of summer, but I finally had time to reflect on and write about one of my favorite units in both reading and writing: nonfiction! I’ve tried out many different kinds of nonfiction units over the years and while I still love our Biographical Essays: Researching People Who Inspire Us unit, I have enjoyed the students’ enthusiasm and engagement in all of them. Nonfiction literacy is so important. It ties into media literacy and understanding and learning about the world around you, is a life skill (you will always need to understand and explain information!). There are so many facets to it between learning about facts vs opinion, critical literacy, synthesizing information, and more. But most of all, it is fascinating and FUN. Some essential elements: you MUST have great mentor texts (we had a lot of success with Pink is for
nonfictioncurriculumreadingwritingunits
June 17, 2022 · curriculum
My former co-teacher’s “shelfie” from the fall of 2020. She created it digitally, but you can also use paper! We wrote about some of the ways we set students up for summer reading a few years ago, and I still am not a fan of forced or assigned reading. There is research that reading logs actually reduce students’ motivation to read and negatively affect their attitudes toward reading . And honestly, they are just annoying! Imagine having to log how long you read and how many pages you read when you are reading before bed to relax. This applies to summer reading as well. Assigning a book or list of books students must read takes the joy out of reading. It’s much better to give them freedom and encouragement to find something they want to read and (hopefully) enjoy it! This has been a long, hard year for teachers, so it’s also really important that you find your own summer reading that is
readingsummersummer readingbook reviewbook recommendations
March 2, 2022 · book review
The picture book bracket for this year. So many good books! Happy March! I usually find there is so much to look forward to this month: spring, Women’s History Month, spring break (at my school at least), more sun, and MARCH BOOK MADNESS! March Book Madness is exactly what it sounds like. It is March Madness, but for books! There are 3 categories: picture books, middle grade books, and young adult books. Each gets its own bracket and anyone can vote on the website for each round. They start with 16 books (“Sweet 16”) and have “games” between two books and slowly go through rounds until we reach the championship. When I taught 5th grade, we followed the middle grade bracket, and in 3rd we follow the picture book bracket. It is so much fun and gets students excited about reading in so many ways. Often, students who are resistant to trying out a new genre are happy to expand their reading
book reviewbooksreadingMarch Book Madness
October 5, 2021 · blog posts
Image from storydistrict.org You can find a list of podcasts and related resources with amazing classroom potential in this past post about remote learning options , but I mainly listen to podcasts for myself. They make cooking and housework more fun and are a great way to get through a road trip (if my baby allows us to listen to one, that is). There are so many podcasts related to education and teaching, but for the most part I like to listen to ones that are less classroom focused and more of a break. Here are some recommendations to help us get through another unprecedented and unpredictable year in the classroom. Educators Lead: Nina was interviewed and featured on here , it’s a great way to hear from other educators Teaching Hard History from Learning for Justice (previously Teaching Tolerance): this podcast goes through real events of American history, most of which I did not
podcastreadingstorytelling