Page Turners #2

Another successful Page Turners meeting! Thank you so much to the moms and grandma that joined us today to make this time possible!!! Once again we began our time with reading forts, and then moved into our first book share by Mrs. Hill. She shared a book titled Santa Comes to North Dakota, which had many familiar places mentioned and absolutely beautiful pictures.

Next on the agenda...book discussion groups! Thank you to Mrs. Puhl, Mrs. Killilea, Mrs. Sokolofsky, Mrs. VanLith, and Mrs. Sieber for facilitating our groups! Having the opportunity to share and reflect on our reading is definitely a learning experience, and the students so appreciate being able to do this in small groups with a book that they've chosen to read.

Finally, refreshments (thanks to Mrs. Sokolofsky and Mrs. Killilea), board games, and a pom-pom bookmark project. If you would like to make more bookmarks, here is the tutorial... http://www.designmom.com/2012/10/the-perfect-gift-yarn-ball-bookmark/

Next Book Letter due the second week of January. Don't forget to record the books you finish in your handbook!!!

Next book assignment: TWO books of choice by our January meeting! (note: books longer than 245 pages count as 2)

Page Turners Club

Our first meeting was a smashing success!!!

First item on the agenda...build forts and read...

Next, enjoy a very dramatic reading of The Grinch by our own Mr. Carlson...

Then, discussion groups with our wonderful volunteers (thank you to Mrs. Syvertson, Mrs. Sieber, Mrs. Deutsch, Mrs. Killilea, Mrs. Light, and Mr. Carlson)... 

Finally, cookies and cocoa (thanks to Mrs. Hill), a bookmark project, and board games!

Since I was facilitating the bookmark project I completely forgot to take pictures. We made covered buttons with ribbon tails (one to mark our place and one to anchor the bookmark inside our books). The students LOVED them! Many asked where they could get supplies to make more covered buttons for bookmarks and other projects. I've picked up kits at either Modern Textiles or JoAnn Fabrics. If you haven't made them before, I'd recommend going to Modern Textiles (on 7th St just south of Main Ave). The ladies who run the shop are amazing and love to help with instructions, inspiration, or any questions you may have! (Yep, they are my favorite place in Fargo...and I hear a few of my students have been in there too!)

We are SO pumped for our next meeting! Students will be choosing a mystery to read next. If they haven't finished up their historical fiction book, they (of course) should finish that first so that it can be recorded on their list in our Page Turners Handbook. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, December 23rd!

December 1-5

Learning this week has been AWESOME!!! Here are a few snapshots!

READING - One of my absolutely favorite reading "tools" to teach students is from a professional book I read last year called Notice and Note. The foundation of the book is that all fictional stories have "signposts," just like streets have roadsigns. And just like responsible drivers pay attention to those road signs, responsible readers pay attention to signposts. I dare you to ask your child about the significance of each signpost to see if you can find an example of each of these in the books you've read! (i.e.: I'm currently reading The Book Thief,  which begins with three memory moments about Liesel, the main character). Over the coming days and weeks we will go deeper with each of these signposts to learn more about what to watch for (NOTICE), and what we should ponder or question (NOTE). 

We dug into our current issue of National Geographic Explorer.  These magazines have become one of my very favorite resources for teaching informational (non-fiction) text. Our article focused on cheetahs and how these animals survive in the wild. Students were seriously impressed by some of the physical features of these animals. Our task was to read the article, then reread in search of information about where cheetahs live and what they are like in order to take notes, and then research further in our second source, Big Cats by Seymour Simon. Pulling from multiple sources helped us synthesize information to gain a more holistic perspective of these animals. This ability to read, understand, and synthesize information on a topic from multiple sources is a huge skill for students as they mature as readers and researchers.

SPELLING / GRAMMAR - Oh...just worked a little on how to add suffixes to words and some common spelling "rules." Also spent a good chunk of time on prepositions and prepositional phrases, but of course I forgot to snap a picture of that page. Oops!