Slice of Life - Mondays

Slice of Life is sponsored on Tuesdays by Two Writing Teachers.

Last Monday was a true Monday. I felt like I was dragging my students – and myself – through the day. I questioned whether they had internalized any of our practices from the first twelve weeks of school.  I braced myself for another Monday today. A Monday after a full moon last week, after being out of the classroom for a day and a half for a sick kiddo, and before a cold weather front moves in? It was bound to be bad… and yet, it was awesome.

There were moments, of course. Moments where kids rushed in to tell me what rule they had broken when our guest teacher (substitute) was in last week. Moments where they told me they hadn’t read or written over the weekend. Moments where they shared with me a disagreement they had on the playground before school. I sat there, as these moments washed over me in the first five minutes of our school day, and began to despair. And then, I realized something big.They rushed in to admit they had done something wrong, to own up to their mistake. They were honest about their homework not getting done, had not made any excuses, but told me so I could deduct a point. They told me about the problem on the playground so they could discuss how they handled it and get advice on what to do next time. Those moments show a lot of growth since that first day, just twelve weeks ago. With that, my Monday began.

It moved on with the introduction of our Mock Caldecott unit. We are doing this unit in corroboration with Margie Myers-Culver’s students in Michigan. This will be our third year in a row, and it is a unit I look forward to all year long. Margie is awesome to work with. You’ve got to love a friend when you both look at your list of twenty, know there are some books you wanted to include, and say, “Let’s just make it 25.” Awesome!

Here’s the twenty-five books we selected:

Created with Padlet

Today we read our first book from the unit, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole. We’ve already shared this title this year, so today we were able to read it critically. This is a crowd favorite in all three of my classes. After sharing the book, the kids added their reactions to a class Padlet so they could see what their classmate’s opinions were. This was the first time I have used Padlet for the whole group at once. Oh my! Twenty-seven kids typing away at the iPads at once? It was a bit crazy.

Created with Padlet

You might notice when reading some of their reactions that they’ve been influenced by Travis Jonker’s theories as to what happened at the end of the book. The kids loved reading Travis’s post (HERE) and now want to meet him just as much as they want to meet Klassen and Barnett!

Mondays. Some days they make me want to curl up and sleep for another week. Other days they give me a chance to reflect on growth and make me want to teach until I am seventy. Grateful today for one of the latter.

Our Mock Caldecott List

Last year Margie Myers-Culver joined me in my first ever Mock Caldecott unit. It was amazing! We picked a little over twenty books, the kids read them and discussed them, talked about the Caldecott criteria, and then we voted on which book should win. Once each of our three classes had a list of winners, we joined classes via Skype to tell what we loved about the books.

This year we’re beginning a bit earlier to be able to celebrate these books during Picture Book Month, which is celebrated in November each year. These are the books we’ve selected to study:

I’m so excited to begin studying these books with my students. I’m going to try to combine the study of these books with some lessons I’m taking from Chris Lehman and Kate Roberts wonderful new book, Falling in Love with Close Reading. I think it could be a great way to examine each text.

Have you read any of these titles? Any favorites for you or your students? I’ll report back when we’re done with our unit as to the favorites from our students.

ALA Awards in the Classroom

 January 28^th has been circled on my calendar for some time, the date the American Library Association awards would be handed out. I’ve read, and read, and read, hoping to at least have heard of the award winners when they are announced. Some years are luckier than others. Many years I’m blindsided and wonder how I could have possibly missed the books that win.

Skyping with the other 5th grade

This year I decided to get my class into the fun of predicting the winners. Margie Myers-Culver kindly agreed to do a Mock Caldecott with me. I wrote in detail on Choice Literacy how we created the unit, but I will share that it was a hit. Our only snag? We matched up three fifth grade classes. Two of the classes Skyped before break with no issues. Our third class was to Skype the Friday before break – but they had a snow day. So we scheduled for the Friday after break… ice for them, no school. Ok, we aren’t deterred, the Friday after that… no internet at my school. The Tuesday following, snow day for them. Finally, finally, we met on Skype yesterday.

Sharing some favorites on Skype

The winners and honors for my three classes:

·      Class One: Little Dog Lost (medal) Z is for Moose (honor) Good News Bad News (honor)

·      Class Two: Two Tall Houses (medal) Extra Yarn (honor) Little Dog Lost (honor)

·      Class Three: Z is for Moose (medal) Green (honor) Little Dog Lost (honor)

I loved having the students debate the merits of each book – describing the mediums used, how “distinguished” it was in comparison to another.

As for the Newbery, it was more difficult to have the students read all of the books that are being mentioned in the same breath as the award. Finally, I came up with a list of 18 titles and told the kids that anyone who wanted to read at least three of them could come in for lunch and recess the week before the award was announced and we’d pick a winner.

Mock Newbery Group

Out of my 68 kids, about 30 gave up their lunch time to come discuss books. Anyone who felt strongly about their book could stand up and share their thoughts. At the end of our lunch we took a vote, The One and Only Ivan was far and away the winner. Likely my favorite part of the vote was overhearing conversations with other students who hadn’t come to the lunch. When they heard what book won, many added it to their “to read” list as the student informing them of the victory extolled all of the merits of the novel.

As for the award ceremony, we plan on watching the live stream on Monday (Watch it HERE). We’ve had great conversations about what we’d like to win. If our favorite books don’t win, they will still remain our favorites. We have decided that would be the chance to “meet” some new book friends. Time will tell, but I, for one, do have my fingers crossed. Two days left!