STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

I'm I have enjoyed reading all the great posts from the teacher bloggers who have joined this BTS in a Flash linky the past weeks. There are so many super ideas out there that I can't wait to try out in my classroom!

This week the topic is things we do to foster our students' engagement. 

Here are a couple of things that have been successful for me over the years. 

Reading aloud to kids!  I try to read at least once to them every day. I was feeling a time pinch a couple of years ago so I started reading chapter books to them while they were eating their morning snack. I wondered whether they would feel unhappy that I had requisitioned part of their "visiting" time, but the first time I didn't do it they let me know in no uncertain terms that it was one of the highlights of their day. Sometimes I read an entire book to them over the course of a couple of weeks, and sometimes I just read a chapter or two to entice them into reading it themselves. 

When I read picture books to my students I usually do it first thing in the morning and then have them do a follow up activity. One of the favourites I've found is to write a postcard pretending that they are a character from the story, or that they are writing to a character. My students have really enjoyed doing this and I've even been asked frequently if they can write more than one postcard.  

I blogged about Scaredy Squirrel and an activity I do after reading HERE. There's a freebie in the post!

Something that really changed my classroom was having large blocks of time for Language Arts and Math centers. These are often hands on activities and include playing a variety of games with a partner or in small groups. I bought Fountas and Pinnell's book Guided Reading:  Good First Teaching for All Students at a workshop many years ago. It was pretty expensive for me at the time, but it's a purchase I never regretted. It not only gives explicit instructions for running Guided Reading groups, but has excellent info on setting up LA centers. 

Once I got started with centers the kids loved them so much I knew I'd never look back. I set up a rotation board that told the type of activity they'd be doing at a certain time, and they would often get a choice of what they did. Being able to pick which activity they want to do is a big factor in keeping students focused and engaged in their work. 

FOOD!  Whenever I fit eating into the curriculum they are 100% on board. This works really well with Social Studies. Studying about China? Bring in fortune cookies!

Or with a zillion read alouds!  Here are a few of the obvious ones. 

In Math I sometimes make little edible counters (eg fishy crackers) part of the lesson, especially when we need manipulatives to work on a concept in small groups. No eating until we're done, though!

 

Check out the other posts in the collection, or better yet, add your own.  I'd love to hear what you do in your classroom!

Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping

Last fall I discovered Scaredy Squirrel and I love the books.  (The kids in my class were WAY ahead of me...they know all about him!)
I read Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping (by Melanie Watt) to them. It was just recently published at the time, and none of them had read it yet.

Scaredy Squirrel is so popular that we already had 4 out of five of the books in our school library and I have recently found them on Epic! (if you don't have this app yet you MUST check it out.  I blogged about it HERE).  They are also on Just Books Read Aloud, another free reading app that I recently found.  Listening to books and reading on apps is fantastically popular in my classroom.  Even the more reluctant readers love getting the chance to do these centers.

I made a set of activities to accompany Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping and my class completed several of them when we finished reading the book together.  The full product is available at Teachers Pay Teachers, but I have made a preview freebie that includes 3 of the 10 activities included in the full package.  The link for the freebie is at the end of the post.

The first is a craftivity Emergency kit.  Scaredy Squirrel is always prepared for disasters that he is sure are about to befall him!

  

I adapted the emergency kit idea from Jennifer's Teaching Tools which you can find here.

The second activity is an interview sheet.  Students make up questions they would ask Scaredy if they were a reporter, and then answer as if they were Scaredy.

The third is a sheet that I always keep in my Listening Center for kids to complete when they have finished listening to a book.  It is called Making Connections and requires students to make either a Text to Text, Text to Self, or Text to World connection, write about what happened in the story, and explain what it reminded them of.

I hope you enjoy using these in your classroom.  Get the freebie  HERE, then check out more of this week's freebies at Teaching Blog Addict. 

The Pumpkin Blanket

The Pumpkin Blanket by Deborah Turney Zagwyn is a favourite of mine for fall classroom read alouds.

It is the story of Clee who receives a quilted blanket as a baby gift. It becomes her special blanket as she grows up and readers are treated to views of her through the seasons as she enjoys it as she plays and draws comfort from it. 

As Clee approaches school age she helps her father in the garden and especially enjoys the pumpkin patch. When frosty fall weather threatens the pumpkins Clee gives up her cherished blanket square by square to protect the pumpkins from freezing. 

This story with its beautifully evocative illustrations conjures up powerful images of growing up and letting go. It is a wonderful text for making personal connections and mental images. You can almost FEEL the chill in the air. It also provides a great opportunity for a discussion on sharing and giving. 

I love the mysterious mood that Zagwyn evokes in this book. If you haven't read this story before I highly recommend it. (Be prepared to get a little choked up, especially if you have kids of your own....).

After reading this book I often give the kids a piece of drawing paper and have them design their own quilt square.  Then I put them all together in a hall display. 

Because this story has such wonderful imagery it is good for launching a fall poem. I use this form to get them started. 

Click here to get a copy. Sometimes we just do this and not write a poem - depends on the age and ability of the class. The poem makes a good choice for Work on Writing for individual students even if the whole class isn't writing their own. 

For reluctant or emergent writers I provide a set of cards to help them be successful. Last year I had a little fellow in my class who was refusing to write anything. With the support of these cards he finished the form above with one adjective for each noun and went on to write a basic "Fall Is...." poem. Click here to see the cards in my TpT store. They're free until Saturday. 

I made the pumpkin frame and several other writing papers and they're free too. Click here to get them. 

It's a little late in the week for Mentor Text Monday, but I'm linking up with Emily from The Reading Tutor OG anyway. Better late than never, right?  To see more pumpkin themed books click here.

If Everybody Did with a FREEBIE

If Everyone Did by Jo Ann Stover was one of my favourite book finds last year. I read it to my grade two class in September and they howled with laughter at the outrageous consequences when everyone breaks the rules. 

Rhyming text and hilarious illustrations engage the book's audience and make it fun to read aloud. 

If one person walks inside with muddy shoes footprints are left behind, but:

If one person squeezes the cat: 

BUT:

The book provides excellent opportunities to make text-to-self connections and is a perfect lead-in for a discussion about personal and community responsibility. 

The best part, though, is that Stover ends What If Everybody Did with examples what happens when good choices are made. 

After reading the book I had the class draw pictures of one situation where kids at school all do something they shouldn't and the consequences (an example was everyone left their things out on the floor instead of putting them away in their lockers). Then they did a second drawing of something they could do to make the school or our classroom a better place. 

Looking back, I think I should have read this book at least 2 or 3 times to my class last year!

I made an Incentive tag to give to students who help others. 

If you'd like it you can get it free at my TpT store by clicking here.

For more books that foster responsibility click to visit Emily at The Reading Tutor/OG for Mentor Monday.

Ten Red Apples

Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins is a fun, simple countdown book. Bright illustrations and repetitive rhyme make this book engaging.

At the beginning of the story the tree has ten apples, but animals arrive and eat them one by one.  The horse is first: Ten red apples hanging on the tree./ Yippee, fiddle-dee-fee!/ Horse came and ate one,/ chomp, chomp, chomp./ Neigh, neigh, fiddle-dee-fee./ "Horse!" cried the farmer./ "Save some for me!" 

Finally there's only one remaining apple. But the farmer's wife has been planning to make a pie. 

I often stop reading the book at this point and ask for predictions about how the story will end. There are always lots of entertaining ideas. Sometimes I read the end (The farmer spots another tree with ten apples), but sometimes I give them this sheet to complete first.

If you'd like a copy click here.  (There's a second page with plain lines)

There are oodles of possibilities for activities to go with this book. I find that having a picture book read to them is a real treat for older students, and this one is good for them to use as a template for writing their own countdown booklets. Change the farmer to a soccer player, change the apples to soccer balls.........let their imaginations run!  If you use this idea and have a younger "buddy class" these booklets are great for sharing with their little buddies. I have also done them as a joint project with older and younger buddies.

This book is available from Amazon here.  There is a good "peek inside'. 

I also found this video on  YouTube

Amazingly I think that I am actually going to be able to imbed it into my blog!!!

I'm linking up with at The Reading Tutor OG for Mentor Monday today. Click here  to find more good book ideas to use with your class. This week it's all about apples!

Summer Book Finds - Arthur Writes a Story

There's hardly anything that I like as much as books.  Any other teachers out there feel the same way?
When I go to visit my parents on Vancouver Island my mum and I always do one of her favourite things:  go to second-hand stores.  At 84 she can still outshop me any day of the year!  There is a new ValuVillage there and it is usually the first place we head for.  She keeps me interested in going up and down the aisles for a while - you never know what good stuff you can get in the stationary section or housewares, but eventually I give her the slip and sneak off to the books.
Kids books are usually $1.49 each (although sometimes they're 99 cents), but if you buy 4 you get a 5th for free.  I generally stock up for my class, and this year they had shelves and shelves and shelves of picture books.
Here's what I got:

I was particularly pleased to get the two Robert Munsch books because my kiddos love listening him to read them during our morning Language Arts time.  I have lots of Munsch books, but not these two.
I blogged about how we do Listen to Reading in my class here.  There's a two page freebie of the sheets that I have the kids fill out when they're finished listening.  The first sheet is for making connection, and the second is a book recommendation.  You can grab them here.
I love to use Arthur Writes a Story with my class, so I was very pleased to get it - in hardcover, too!  Usually I borrow it from the library.
In the book Arthur's teacher asks them to write a story for homework.  The topic is "Something that is important to you".
Arthur goes home and quickly writes "How I Got My Puppy Pal".

He shares it with DW who tells him it is boring.  She suggests that getting an elephant would be more exciting.  So Arthur rewrites his story using elephants instead, but then is influenced by his friends who have written about outer space, that include scientific research, jokes, and songs.  Arthur attempts to introduce all these to his story, which becomes rambling and confusing.

After he performs it for his family and his class he finally reverts to his original version, which meets with approval by all.

I use this story in my classroom as an example of how simple stories that tell about ONE thing that you know about are the best.

It's an E-MERGENCY!

Last week I shared about the wonderful gift card that a bunch of parents from my class gave me for a year end gift.

A very short time ago...

Today I had to go to Chapters to get my sweet granddaughter Sydney a gift card of her own for her 12th birthday.  I can hardly believe she's twelve already.  The years fly by even faster when you're a grandparent than when you're a parent!

                                                                 

While I was there I browsed through the kids' section a bit and found
E-MERGENCY! by Tom Lichtenheld and Ezra Fields-Meyer. It is so clever that I really couldn't resist.


Beginning:  The letters all live together.

Notice the P in the bathroom. My little boys are going to collapse when they see this!

One day E falls down the stairs and has to be taken away in an ambulance.

Other letters can be seen looking on in horror, and Y says, "WHY isn't E even crying?"  O replies, "Sometimes E is silent.

Middle:  At the hospital E is placed on total bed rest in order to recover. While E is absent from the alphabet, O is selected by A (who is obviously in charge) to replace E because O is "so well-rounded". There are hilarious "letter-play" like this on every page. 

More Middle:  Because O is replacing E there are all sorts of mix-ups. 

More middle:  When the letters find that E is not recovering they take a road trip to make sure everyone knows that is is recovering and not to be used. 

But when they get home they find E has still not recovered. And then they realize that the narrator of the book is still using E to tell the story. 

End:  With the solution discovered E makes a speedy recovery and things return to normal in the alphabet. 

I think that this book will offer not only great entertainment, but an opportunity to point out why it's important to use correct letters in words.
I made this sheet for my class to do after I read E-MERGENCY to them. 

                                    Click here if you'd like to use it too.

I'm linking up to Book Talk Tuesday with  Deanna Jump today.  Check out the other book ideas over there too!