Made It Monday - July 27th

Like so many others I have so many things I want to accomplish this summer. So far I have started many but have finished few. I am linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics in the hopes that it will help me get motivated to finish my many projects.

I made these adorable bookmarks for my students. I am going to send them out this week with a letter reminding them to do their summer reading. I am also going to encourage their parents to join Bloomz before the school year starts so we can work out any issues before September. You can get these cute bookmarks here for free from Catherine Reed.

Next, I finally finished my Back to School Color by Numbers Activity. I can't wait to use it with my students in September. 

You can enter for a chance to win this product by going here.

Now head back to Tara's blog and see what everyone else has been making.

New Back to School Product and A Giveaway!

My students absolutely love color by number math activities. I have created a few over the years. You can see them here.

For a while I have wanted to create a set of place value color by numbers. I always start off the year teaching/reviewing place value. This set is a way to ease the students back into school work while keeping it fun.

click the picture to go to product

This set contains 6 color by number worksheets. 3 of the pages concentrate on whole numbers while the other 3 focus on decimals.

Would you like to win a copy? Enter below. One lucky person will be picked on Thursday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Readicide: Ending Readicide (week 5)

It's the final week of Focused on Fifth's book study, blog hop. If this is your first visit, you can get started here with chapter 1.

If you are an ELA teacher and haven't read Readicide by Kelly Gallagher, I can't recommend it enough. For me it has validated everything I was thinking and feeling about my current ELA instruction. I was trying to be a good teacher.  I was doing what was expected of me and what everyone else was doing. However, I was having a hard time following through. So much of the curriculum seemed pointless and just a bunch of busy work. There wasn't enough substance to the excerpts of novels in our anthology to develop a meaningful conversation. I wasn't sure what I needed to do to change that but I knew what I was doing wasn't working. I was contributing to Readicide.

Now let's take a look at the final chapter of Readicide.

My big take away from this last chapter - high stakes testing and narrow instruction is killing creativity. The can-do/risk taking spirit of Americans is becoming something of the past.

It amazes me with education being so "data driven" these days that we are not looking at countries like Finland (that top the world in math, science and reading) for ways to improve.

"How did the Finns build the best readers in the world? By eliminating standardized testing and emphasizing the importance of reading and critical thinking, by nurturing deeper thinking and creativity, and by leading their students away from the drill-and-kill instructional approach that is currently permeating American schools." Readicide (p.116)

One of the many things I love about this book is that it does not just tell you what is wrong, it gives you legitimate strategies to fix it.

In chapter 5, page 117, Gallagher gives I list of key elements of his 50/50 approach. This is a page I will be referring back to many times during this next year as I begin my personal war against Readicide in my classroom. I have chosen three elements to focus on in the coming school year.

1. Never lose sight that our highest priority is to raise students who become lifelong readers.

2. Understand that recreational reading actually is test preparation. When students read books recreationally they are building valuable knowledge capital that will help them in the future.

3. Recognize that "facts" change. Instead of memorizing them, teachers should spend more time teaching students how to think. Students need to do much more analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

I am excited to have a new focus for the upcoming school year. Reading Readicide is just what I needed to give me the motivation to re-vamp my ELA instruction. I am looking forward to all the possibilities. 

It's been so much fun collaborating with the lovely ladies from Focused on Fifth and getting to know them better through their posts. I'm a little sad that this blog hop is coming to an end but I know there will be lots of collaboration in our future......stay tuned!

Now hop on over to Erin's blog, Learning to be Awesome, and see her final words on Readicide.

Readicide: Finding the "Sweet Spot" of Instruction (week 4)

Happy Tuesday! It's time for week 4 of our book study, blog hop of Readicide with the collaborators of Focused on Fifth. 

Chapter 4 - Finding the "Sweet Spot" of Instruction

My two big "take aways" from this chapter

1.  The not so new idea that it is all a balancing act

2. So much of students learning depends on background knowledge. 

Gallagher suggests using the Big Chunk/Little Chunk philosophy when teaching a novel. Gallagher has warned in previous chapters not to cut a novel into so many piece that the students lose interest. At the same time he realizes that we do need to teach close reading. Students need to be taught how to make connections, analyze a character's actions, identify foreshadowing, etc. What I personally need to do is not try to cram everything I need to teach into one novel. As a teacher, I need to figure out which standards would best go along with a particular novel.

Another thing I will work on this year is giving my struggling readers exposer to as many kinds of text as possible. Building their background knowledge is just as important as building their reading skills.

What will you do to prevent Readicide?

Keep hopping and head over to Erin's blog to see her thoughts on chapter 4.

Then be sure to come back next week when we discuss the final chapter of Readicide.

Pick 3: July Pinterest Linky

It's that time again! I am thrilled to be joining PAWSitively Teaching  and and Inspired Owl's Corner for their Pick 3 Linky.

It feel amazing to FINALLY be on summer vacation. It is day 4 for me. It was a LONG winter to say the least. I am ready to jump into summer mode and start doing all those things us teachers put on our "I'll do that in the summer" list.

Every year my parents host a 4th of July party and every year my mom comments on the cute 4th of July t-shirts I get for my children. She always says that she wishes they made them in adult sizes. Well, this year my children and I will be making her one of these. 

click photo to go to original pin

As well as adding some "fireworks" to the back like this.

click photo to go to original pin

We might just have to make these for the entire family - depending how motived we get.

The kids and I made these last 4th of July. It was a fun kids cocktail to make for Independence Day.

click photo to go to original pin

We took this idea and changed it a bit. Instead of bowling we created a ring toss game. Forming the rest of the glow sticks into rings, we placed the bottles on the stairs of our deck. The bottles on the higher steps were worth more points than the lower ones. The kids had a blast.

click photo to go to original pin

If you like these ideas, you can follow my "Summer Fun" board here.

Be sure to check out the other Pinterest ideas below.

An InLinkz Link-up

Readicide: Avoiding the Tsunami (week 3)

It's week 3 of our blog hop book study! If this is your first visit and you want to start at the beginning, my chapter 1 post is  here.

In chapter 3, Avoiding the Tsunami,  Gallagher discusses how teacher guides (ie. the step-by-step approach) for novels like To Kill A Mocking Bird are one of the leading causes of Readicide.

 As I read this chapter I immediately thought about Brandi from The Research Based Classroom.  She wrote about how her oldest daughter hated To Kill A Mockingbird. The reason she detested the novel was due to all the stopping and analyzing of the text she was being forced to take part in. It was ruining the flow of the book for her. You can read more about Brandi's daughter's experience with Readicide here.

"Students who never experience reading flow are students who will never become readers." Readicide (p.65)

My big take away from this chapter is that we need to stop breaking up novels into little piece and asking the students to analyze every single page. Getting "lost" in a book is an amazing feeling. Unfortunately students are not given the time to experience reading flow in school. 

"...philosopher Kenneth Burke, who says the reason young people should read books is that it provides them with "imaginative rehearsals" for the real world. When children read books, Burke argues, they are not just reading stories. They are being given an opportunity to understand the complex world we live in (1968)" Readicide (p. 66)

When you think back to when you read To Kill A Mockingbird, what stood out to you? What was your "take away"? I know for me I couldn't believe that such racism could exist in the world. I think back and think I must have been living in "LaLa land". Can you imagine how timely this novel is today? Have race relations improved at all? What amazing conversations this novel would produce in an ELA class if given the chance. 

Instead we are requiring students to take notes, highlight examples of figurative language, complete comprehension questions and write reflective essays. We break the book up into so many tiny pieces they are unable to identify with it anymore.

My goal for next year is to read more novels with my class. We read only three novels together this past year (and one read aloud). With those novels I am guilty of requiring my students to use sticky notes to summarize chapters, notebooks to keep track and analyze characters and worksheets to make text to self connections. Now these are all things I need to teach my students (it's part of the curriculum) but I can do it in a way that doesn't break the flow of these novels. That in itself should create more time to read!

Now hop on over to Learning to be Awesome and see what Erin has to say about chapter 3.

Then be sure to return next week when we discuss chapter 4 Finding the "Sweet Spot" of Instruction.

Readicide: Endangered Minds (week 2)

It's week 2 of our book study blog hop. If you missed week 1 you can check it out here.

I am absolutely loving Readicide by Kelly Gallagher!  In our data driven teaching world, it always amazes me when we ignore the data and continue doing things the same way. As if all of a sudden we are going to finally get the results we want. Chapter 2 is packed with research that  again and again shows one thing "students get better at reading/comprehension by READING." So why are children reading so little at school?

I don't even know were to start. There is so much I want to say about this chapter. 

            KEY POINTS: 

Students Need Authentic Reading

There is a Dearth of Interesting Reading Materials in Our Schools

Many Schools Have Removed Novels and Other Longer Works to Provide More Test Prep

Students Are Not Doing Enough Reading in School

Students Need Authentic Reading

Gallagher suggests that students should be exposed to a mixture of reading experiences. Students should experience longer challenging novels, works of nonfiction, as well as lighter recreational reading. 

In my school we are strongly encourage to use our anthology series each week that focuses on nonfiction text and excerpts from novels. Very few of the stories are of high interest to my fifth graders. I do have a few class sets of novels but it is hard to fit them in to the ELA block with all our other "requirements".

There is a Dearth of Interesting Reading Materials in Our Schools

I have been teaching fifth grade for ten years. My classroom library has grown tremendously over that time but it is still lacking. I have a lot to improve on. Our media center is in a small room and most of my students have read the majority of books on the shelves. In my own children's school, there will not be a media center/library next year. They need that room for a classroom. Media/library class will consist of a few books on a cart, wheeled into the classroom. I don't worry about my children because they  both have a bookshelf in each of their bedrooms that are packed and we go to our public library at least once a week. My concern is for those students whose only access to books happens at school. We are failing them.

Many Schools Have Removed Novels and Other Longer Works to Provide More Test Prep

Our novels haven't been removed but they are definitely collecting dust as we are encouraged to do way more test prep each year.

Students Are Not Doing Enough Reading in School

I can remember when D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time was the "big thing" in school. Time to enjoy reading what you liked to read. Reading for the sake of reading.

This is again something that has been pushed aside to make way for more test prep.

Gallagher's connection between Olympic swimmers and reading was perfect. "An Olympic swimmer swims hundreds of thousands of laps before being judged in a medal race." "We put (students) in the "race" (in this case, high stakes reading testing) and ask them to perform well. However, there is a big problem: these students have not been the "pool" very much."

I also love how this chapter takes you step by step through ways to begin to solve this problem.

My two favorites:

Establish a book flood zone
 Don't expect students to go to the library, bring the books to the students.

This is something I started doing last year for my students. If a student gets "hooked" on a book series and I only have the first two novels, I will go to my library and check the next ones out for them. If I have two students that want to read the same book and I only have one copy, I go to the library and check out another copy.

Recognize and fight against summer reading loss.

My current 5th graders will leave on summer vacation at the end of the week with a novel in hand. I usually order 20+ copies of a novel to give it out each year. Then every year I have one or two students who look disappointed and I find out they have already read the book. This year I took a different approach. I spread out a box of 30+ books and gave each student a slip of paper. Everyone wrote down there top three choices. This way, each student not only goes home with a book they have never read, but one that they are interested in.

I am still processing all the information in chapter 2. I have a lot to think about and many changes I want to make next year. Now I just need to figure out how to do it.

What are you doing to prevent Readicide?

Hop on over to Erin's blog and check out what she thinks of chapter 2.

Check back next week when we discuss chapter 3 "Avoiding the Tsunami".