Celebrating Read Alouds!

Thank you to Ruth Ayres for the opportunity to focus on celebrations every week! 

Please join us!

We are reading aloud Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. If you don't know this book, get it...get it NOW.  It's about a sixth grade girl named Ally who struggles with school. Every word rings true!

Read alouds are one of my favorite things about teaching. Sharing good books with students is powerful...but it's more than that. This book, this story, is helping our classroom become a community. As we share the struggles and successes of Ally and Albert and Keisha, we think about our own struggles and successes. Yesterday we read a chapter called, Misfit Lunch. We watched the video from the Rudolph Christmas special, Island of the Misfit toys.

We talked about negative and positive connotations of the word misfit. I shared how I felt (and feel) like a misfit and I love it! In one class, students shared their own misfit stories. The vulnerability they showed by sharing their own struggles brings us closer together. I beam with pride when I think about how brave they are to share these stories and how kind their classmates are when hearing and responding. One student identifies closely with Albert. I've watched him come alive when I read the parts when Albert is present. Students who struggle with reading feel like they've found a kindred spirit in Ally. 

They are rooting for her to succeed!

This is what I want people to know about "kids today". They are kind and empathetic. They are thoughtful and creative. All they need is a safe place to take a risk and to be themselves... it's really what we all need. A world where we can be authentically ourselves and loved because of it.

If you are looking for a good book, please take some time to read Fish in a Tree. Lynda Mullaly Hunt weaves together a story that has touched our hearts. As classes ended yesterday, I heard, "Pleeeeaaasssseee!!!! One more chapter!!!!" Music to my ears.

I celebrate good books.

I celebrate sharing good books.

I celebrate reading good books together.

Here is some of our thinking about the book. Students jot or sketch as I read aloud and here are some I'd like to share...

Blasted from the Past into the Future!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, & Anna for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers. 

I arrived to school yesterday to prepare for the day ahead. Walking down the hall, I was going over my To-Do list in my head when I heard, "Computers are down." A colleague informed me that all of the computers were not working. I furrowed my brow and then I burst out laughing, "Maybe we should all go home, like a snow day, " I joked.  Yesterday was an exercise in the "old days". I couldn't access any files. I couldn't make anything new. I couldn't even use the promethean board as a blackboard. No attendance online. No emails. Nothing...wait, this was getting better! I embraced the problem. I'd been wanting to read What Do You Do With An Idea? Brainstorming what I could use this read aloud for, I decided to take a leap into the unknown! I've been thinking about participating in Genius Hour with my students for a long time, but I let fear steer me away. There's so much about this that I don't know. Losing control and stepping back in a project-based learning environment like this is scary, so I kept pushing it to the bottom of the pile...until yesterday. I used the read aloud to leap into the unknown. 

Introducing the idea of Genius Hour was met with furrowed brows, scrunched up faces and lots and lots of questions... "What do you mean?" "I decide what I learn about?"  "Can I pick anything at all?"  "How will this work?"  "When will we work on this?" "Will it be graded?" "Can we work in groups?" "Where did this come from?" "Why haven't we been doing this before?" Oh the questions were confused and brilliant and unsure and we answered them together. I'd been reading Pure Genius by Don Wettrick, so I had some answers to their questions, but not all of them. I confessed that this was my first time doing this and if we decided to move ahead with Genius Hour, that I would do my homework too. I asked them if this is something they wanted to try. They wrote in their notebooks as I wandered around the room and tallied their answers. 93 students. And only 2 said NO. Everyone else said YES or maybe. Now, I am scrambling to finish reading Pure Genius and to research best practices for Genius Hour. This is a moment in time when I'm immensely grateful for my PLN. I have been collecting so many resources about this kind of learning and now I'm ready. As students left the classroom yesterday, I heard an excited buzz about the possibilities of this project. One student came up to me and said, "Ms. Haseltine, you should be a motivational speaker." I guess I sold it! My favorite comment is from a boy who was walking down the hall leaving class. He turned around and yelled back at me, "Hey? Genius Hour? We're geniuses?!?!" I yelled back, "YES!" He nodded, smiled and walked away a little bit taller. Yes. You are all geniuses!

Vocabulary Poems

April is poetry month. This month I will be crafting and sharing original poems. Often, these poems will be messy and early drafts. Many of us are sharing our poems on twitter using the hashtag, #digipoetry. We hope you join us!

Before spring break, we finished The Crossover as our read aloud. First of all, I love, love, love this book. The students did too! Back to school, we are analyzing some of the poems in the book. The vocabulary, or definition, poems were some of our favorites! We now use the word pulchritudinous as part of our daily vocabulary. We reread those poems as a reader and figured out the parts. Today we will finish writing our own poems. Here is my first attempt at a vocabulary poem...

Introvert

in-tro-vert

noun

a person who lives inside their head,

someone who thinks

A LOT

before speaking;

a person who

gains energy from

being

alone

As in: After a long day at

school, the introvert

needs time alone in her room

to quiet her mind.

As in: I am loud and talkative,

so I was surprised to

discover that I am truly an

introvert.

As in: Josh never shared

his feelings and

struggles about

JB and Miss Sweet Tea

because he is an

introvert.

Written by Michelle Haseltine

Inspired by Kwame Alexander’s book The Crossover