Lifehack #3 and Poetry Month is coming!

Time for another quick lifehack! This one is for my Mac peeps! If you're a PC person, then your tip for the day is to get a Mac!  ;) 

Have you ever wanted to look up a word super quick, but didn't want to have to open another tab in your browser to check out dictionary.com, or go grab a real dictionary, or even worse...don't have internet access? Use your built in "look up" dictionary! It works offline!

I'm also linking up with my bud Jivey for Workshop Wednesday! 

So, April is Poetry Month, and it's almost upon us! But I couldn't wait to get started with poetry, so we've been working on it for a while now! :) I've been using AMC's (from Looking from Third to Fourth) Poetry Posters and writing frames to help along the way!

I like to have my kids create a Poetry Anthology that we share with parents at one of our big school nights. So over the course of the month I ask the kids to write lots of different kind of poems. 

My intern has been doing a lot of teaching with writing, and has been reading some great books to the kids. She just discovered one called A Kick in the Head by Paul B. Janeczko. It has an example and definition of most of the kinds of poetry that we study. But the definitions in the book are written as footnotes and are super tiny.

I love that AMC's pack comes with a colorful poster that gives the definition of each kind of poem, and another poster that includes an example. I have the posters printed out and laminated, but I think it's cool to project the poster for each type of poetry as it's introduced. No trouble reading THAT definition!
There are handy writing frame organizers included in the pack too! It's great for cinquain or diamante poems because the "rules" for those poems lines are listed. Once the kids have written a good one on the organizer, I ask them to write more on regular paper. 

AMC's poetry poster pack is just one of the products you can get in this new Educents bundle! I have all of the items in this bundle, and can say they're all top notch. For just $10.99 you can't beat it! That price is kind of ridiculously low if you ask me. There are 11 products for less than 11 dollars...you're basically stealing them! Click the image below to go grab it up if you haven't already!

Favorite Chapter Books - Workshop Wednesday

So, when my BBB Jivey mentioned that the topic for this Wednesday's linky was to write about ONE chapter book that we use in class, I knew that I'd have a really hard time with it. 

I mean, of course I want to write about Wonder by RJ Palacio, but I've already done that! Go check that post out if you're interested in hearing more about that awesome book, and check out my novel study unit for it while you're at it! I can't rave about this book enough.

I could always talk about Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger too, which is a super fun chapter book to do with kids, but I've done that already too! I made another novel unit and lapbook set for that book as well.

So, I figured rather than rehash the same info about those two books I'd talk about one that won't just sound like an advertisement!  ;) 

Picking just one chapter book to focus on is impossible! We always have a novel going on in my classroom, whether it is a full blown study of the novel or just a class read-aloud. I have so many favorites! I know a lot of teachers have some old stand-bys that are favorites of mine as well like Frindle, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Phantom Tollbooth (which this very blog is named after!), Holes, etc. but in the end I figured I'd share about our next read-aloud, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.

We are about to begin our next Social Studies unit, which is all about Japan. So obviously this is a perfect time for me to read this book with the kids, but you could read it whether you have a Japan unit or not! It tells the true story of a girl named Sadako Sasaki who was two years old when the bombs were dropped, and ten years later develops leukemia from living in Hiroshima. In the hospital she set the goal of folding 1,000 paper cranes, but only makes it to 644 before she succumbs to her illness.

Sadako's memorial

I've read this book with my 2nd graders when I taught the Japan unit in GA, and I think every year the kids were absolutely shocked that this book doesn't have a happy ending. We're reading Gooseberry Park right now, and I have several kids worried sick about Stumpy the Squirrel (who has gone missing during an ice storm)...but today I overheard one of my boys say to a girl, "Chill out, you know everything's going to work out...these stories always have happy endings." The story of Sadako doesn't end happily, but I think it does do a great job of showing kids that sometimes our actions can have lasting implications. Being exposed to a story that doesn't end with everything wrapped up in a nice bow is a good experience for them, and this piece of historical fiction really cements one of the big ideas behind why we study history...to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The book is pretty short and easy to read. I will probably finish it with the kids in a week and a half. I usually use it as a whole class read-aloud, and will model some of the CAFE strategies as I read it with the kids. Noting the point of view, character traits of the characters, cause and effect, and making predictions based on evidence from the text are all good places to go with this book.

There are a ton of activities available to go along with this book out there on the web. I've included a couple of sites you might consider checking out if you plan to read the book with your class!

Kids Peace Station - an illustrated timeline of Sadako's brief life.
The site also has a place to send and read letters to Sadako, and lots of other information about the bombings, Japan, and peace.

Fold a paper crane - this includes step by step videos for folding a perfect crane. In past years my classes have folded 1,000 cranes and shipped them to the shrine in Hiroshima.

Don't have time for the chapter book? Consider checking out the picture book version! Sadako by Eleanor Coerr is illustrated by Ed Young, and tells the story in a somewhat shorter version that the illustrations make up for greatly. 

Be sure to stop by all the other links to learn about some more great chapter books!

Workshop Wednesday - Word Work

I'm linking up today with Jivey's wonderful Workshop Wednesday! The topic of today's linky is Word Work games and activities! I was excited to hear that because I have recently introduced Words their Way with my 3rd and 4th graders and am always on the hunt for more Word Work games to keep it fresh.

Only a few people in my district are using Words their Way in 3rd and 4th (I'm one of the two from my 7 person team in my school) so their aren't a ton of resources handed to us by the district. The district provided resource is Sitton Spelling. It is mostly based on high frequency words, and has a cloze style spelling test for every Friday. It just wasn't doing it for me, so I asked if I could do something different, was happy to hear that a couple other teachers were interested, and before you know it we're doing WTW! So far I've been really happy with it too!

It took me getting over one thing though...my brain kept insisting that I somehow had to fit everything into a Monday - Friday rotation, but then I read a blog post on Life, Love, Literacy and it clicked, why not do a 7 day cycle?! So that's what I've done, and it's working great!

Our system is basically this:

Day 1 - Intro New Sorts (word lists) - Initial Sort - students cut sorts and try to sort them any way that makes sense.

Day 2  - Sound/Spell Sort - students practice sorting their words by sound or spelling pattern. They check their sorts with a friend.

Day 3 - Game Day - students play a game with their words.

Day 4 - Alternate word work day. I didn't want to not be able to do all the other great word games and word study opportunities because I only had time for WTW. This day the groups do one of those other great games that don't necessarily relate to that week's sort.

Day 5 - Game Day - students play a game with their words.

Day 6 - Buddy Spell - students quiz each other on their words.

Day 7 - Each group takes their own spelling test.

So, on to the activities and games! Some of my favorites are really simple, and you could easily reproduce them! 

Kids in different groups have different
colored paper for their word cards.

I have printed off American Sign Language sheets and the kids practice signing their words to a friend.

We play a word game similar to Guess Who, where kids choose a secret word and the other student asks questions to narrow down which word from the sort it could be.

I have my kids make their own word searches and trade with a buddy. 

Long, long ago when I first taught 2nd grade and used WTW I made myself this "Words Have Value" page to have kids practice counting money and spelling their words. I've found that my older kids like doing it too! I went ahead and added this simple sheet to my TpT store for just a buck! 

One of my favorite activities for the kids on the alternate day is a new one for me this year! It's the Expand-a-Word pack from Joanne over at Head Over Heels for Teaching. Basically, the kids get a sheet for recording, and a set of cards for the week (I give my kids 4 each time). The letters on the cards should be used to make as many words as possible by adding other letters without rearranging the letters on the cards. So if the card says "SOR" one word that a kid could make is "Source." My kids LOVED it when we tried it this week.

There's a year's worth of cards in the pack, so at just $3.50 you're basically paying 10 cents a week for a ready-made, worthwhile word work activity! Click the image to go and grab a copy!

And of course sometimes I have the kids practice alphabetizing their sort, or trying to find other ways to sort their words if they have a couple of minutes. But I'm excited to sit down and read all of the other link ups!

If you stuck around this long, you must have a kind heart! So go check out my class's current Donorschoose.org project! We're almost funded! We're asking for a bunch of "Who was" and "Choose your own adventure" books. My kids need some engaging biographies, and they just eat up the "Choose" books. Match code MALL20 will match any donation! (Thanks Jivey!)

Workshop Wednesday - Math Edition

So before I get into the meat of my post, I want to share my "popping tags" experience at Goodwill the other day! I regularly go to Goodwill to check out the kids' books section and usually leave with a bag full of pretty decent books. Well, I just happened to pop into Goodwill this past weekend and grabbed this whole stack of books at 50% off for just $23.00! What?! Two of the hard cover books are worth that alone! I even found a bunch that my kids requested on their reading interest surveys! Also grabbed up a few picture books, one of which is one of our mentor sentences books later this year! Go to Goodwill, people!


So, I'm finally getting a chance to link up again to Jivey's Workshop Wednesday! This time I'm going to talk about one of the workshops in my room that I haven't talked about yet...Math!

5 years ago when I moved here to lovely Central PA, I was hired to teach a 1st/2nd multi-age class. At the time the expectation was that teachers would NOT switch for math...so that meant teaching both first and second grade math class at the same exact time. Well, there are some significant differences in those levels, and the only real solution was to embrace a math workshop! I have to admit that teaching math through the workshop model was relatively new for me at the time. But what choice did I have?! Now I'm grateful that I took the plunge.

This year, I still have a multi-age (3rd/4th) but we do switch for math. (Phwew!) This year I'm in charge of teaching 24 third graders (half are mine and half belong to a class down the hall for the rest of the day), and while there isn't the same huge spread of abilities I found when teaching both grades at once, there is still a pretty big range in the class. Luckily I've had a few years to practice how I like to run my Math centers.

If you're familiar with Guided Reading then you know how my math centers work! Basically I start the day with a whole group mini-lesson, and then I have four or so flexible groups that rotate through 4 centers daily. I see each group every day (but some groups see me longer than others) and later in the year my intern (super lucky to have a year-long student teacher, amiright?!) sees one group. The other groups are a math game and an independent practice group.

I've also started doing Interactive Math Journals with my kids (as of last year) and I've found that it is usually best to get that process started in whole group and then finish or check in during small groups. I've been using I'm Lovin' Lit's foldable templates to make all of my own foldables this year.

Preparing for math workshop can be a little time consuming, but I think it pays off in the end. Being able to cater to the needs of kids across the range is just so much better than shooting for the middle and ending up with one set of bored kids and another set of confused kids. 

So. Many. Worksheets!

Typically all four groups are working on the same skill (but at different levels of understanding) so planning my station and my intern's station is usually pretty simple. I'm basically working on the common core standards and using the scope and sequence that my district provides. We have a primary math resource, Math Expressions, that I find to be VERY worksheet heavy. Often my lessons will relate to lessons in the book, but are tailored to fit my teaching style. (aka not 4 worksheets a day per kiddo) Usually it involves some math manipulatives, marker boards, etc. But sometimes we even do cool stuff like make cookies, read a mentor text, or build something. (depending on the skill!)

It is pretty common for my independent practice station to include activities from the book, IXL or Xtra Math on the computers, a Math Literature Activity, or sometimes even good old fashioned math fact drills. Last year I really got into Task Cards, and this year I'm committing at least one math workshop station per unit to having my kids do those. I post them around the room in order to get the kids moving a bit.

Here's just a few of my math games in a bundle!

Probably my favorite part of Math Workshop would be the game center. I'm pretty sure that my kids like that one the most too! I won't list them all here, but I have made lots and lots of games for math workshop that can be found in my TpT store. Of course, the games change with every unit, and I usually try not to repeat the same games more than a couple times per unit (or the kids lose interest), so that means I need LOTS of them. 

I spend a lot of time in the first few weeks practicing how to handle the workshop, and getting kids to understand that some centers can whisper, some are silent, some can talk, etc. It's an ongoing process...haha.

I have really found that running a math workshop makes math FLY by. Every day I look at the clock and can't believe that my time for math is up. On the occasional day that we need to do a whole group assessment or for some reason can't do the workshop, I feel like math just drags on and on. 

Right now, my kids are working on multi-digit addition. This skill was introduced in 2nd grade but I've found that my kids really need a lot of practice with it to become fluent. I created a resource for myself that the kids have really loved doing. I call it Monster Math Battles. Basically, each day the students complete some multi-digit addition problems, and the monster that "wins the most rounds" (has the highest sum each round) moves on to challenge another monster another day! 

There's a whole bracket set up, and the monsters will fight all the way through a championship bout where the ultimate winner will be determined! That's a total of 31 fights. With 10 problems in each fight, the kids will have completed a total of 310 math problems and never complained about it once! That's potentially 31 days of math practice, but I give my kids 2 fights each day (because they asked me to!). 


I've had kids begging me to get the sheets for certain monster matches. Haha. The best part? My independent practice math center right now is nice and quiet, and planned for the next couple weeks! Fast finishers flip the page over and write a quick story explaining how the winner won their battle (they have to include some math talk in the story!)

Just 5 measly dollars!

My kids have liked it so much that I am planning to make another tournament of battles for when I introduce multiplication later in the year! Grab it for just 5 bucks! If you like the concept, but teach a different math skill, let me know and I'll make a tournament for that skill for my TpT store!

Like those monsters? My brother drew them, and the clip art is available in his TpT store! He's a high school English teacher, but an excellent artist as well! Go grab all 32 monsters in both color and black lines for just $8! Halloween is coming up after all!

Whew! This was a long post! If you stuck around this long, you deserve a prize! How about this PEMDAS Order of Operations poster that I made for my classroom?! Just click the picture to go download yours for free! Feedback is always appreciated! 

I have been so busy with school that I just haven't had the time to write about everything I want to write about! I've definitely hit that point where things are finally calming down though! It's hard to believe that Summer is turning into Fall already. I really hope we have a nice long Fall, and a short Winter! 

Check back soon because I have a couple more freebies I'm looking forward to sharing later! And as soon as I get my act together I'll be celebrating reaching 500 followers!

Writer's Workshop this week!

So, last week was all about setting up expectations and routines for Writer's Workshop. We made an anchor chart, we talked about the writing process, we thought up a go-to list of ideas with my 50 things I love sheet, and most importantly I introduced the concept of my VOICES board.

One of my favorite examples to model is
when I talk about the big idea of my
marriage. I could write a lot about that. But
a great example of a small moment is that
moment when I saw Killer B in her wedding
dress for the first time walking down the
aisle. Even the boys are interested when I
vividly describe that moment to the class.

This week I focused in on the VOICES strategy "Choose a narrow topic" by talking with my kids about small moments. I was first introduced to the idea of teaching kids about small moments when I read Lucy Calkins' set of writing books a few years ago. Ever since then I've always launched my writer's workshop by modeling some small moment stories of my own, and then having the kids think up some ideas and begin writing their own small moments. I don't spend nearly the time Lucy does on this though (I think she does it for months!)

I remembered seeing a cute little graphic organizer on Ideas by Jivey where she talked about Watermelon ideas and Seed ideas. I got it all ready to go, went to my school copier with it last week...and the copier was broken! Aargh! It's STILL broken! So I just made my kids draw their watermelons! Haha.

Before that I read them a perfect example of a small moments story in the form of the ever-popular "The Paperboy." If you haven't read it, it's a simple story about a boy getting up to do his paper route, but it seems like so much more because of the author's craft. I make up a different version of the story where we glance over the paper route, but I include all the events of the paperboy's day from waking up to going to sleep that night. It's boring. The kids see how much more interesting it is to get vivid details about a small moment, rather than basic info about a lot of moments.

Today, we read the story "Roller Coaster." This is another great example of the excitement and detail that can go into writing about a small moment. Tomorrow we'll read "Goggles." And alternately in the past I've read "The Shortcut." If you're looking for mentor texts for small moments, these books can't be beat!

So after the mentor text each day, followed by a modeling mini-lesson and some brainstorming...the kids are raring to go and ready to write their own small moments. We'll write several this week and then pick one to publish later!  As they write I'll circulate around the room and check-in and confer as needed. Next week we'll add a couple new strategies to the board from the Conventions section of my VOICES menu (probably the ones dealing with end punctuation and capitalization so I can refer to them all year long), and we'll publish a small moment story to put in our portfolio! 

I'm eager to share more about how Reading Workshop is going, but that's for another day!

Setting up Reading Workshop...and some freebies!

I'm linking up with Jivey's Workshop Wednesday for Getting Reading Workshop Started! I wish I was already in my classroom setting up, but this energy workshop has really been taking up most of my time this week. I'll be sure to post about some of the things I'm learning and will be implementing in science from the workshop later!

A big part of getting Reading Workshop started in my room is launching the Daily 5 system. I begin by talking about how to choose a good fit book. I've talked a bit before about how I use IPICK from the Daily 5 book to help guide students in their choices. My first mini-lesson is straight from the Daily 5 book and involves me bringing in a bunch of books and talking about why they are not good fits for me.  I also make the shoe analogy from the book for the kids. Finally I show a few examples of some books that are good fits. We take some time to quickly choose our first good fit book, so we have one to practice Read-to-Self. (Kids refine their ability to choose an actual good fit book over time.)

Go here to get a copy of my IPICK bookmarks for free! I made them using just 4 of the colors from my Chevron Overlays Pack (just $2)!

Click here to grab my CAFE headers for free!

Next I introduce Read-to-Self and the concept of building stamina for the first few days, so today I'll just talk about that. For the uninitiated, stamina refers to the amount of time that students can read in one sitting. And I mean READ, not sit quietly and look at a book. We begin the year trying out read-to-self and I monitor the stamina. 

Before we try to read the first time, I explain what my expectations for read-to-self are by making an anchor chart about it with the kids. Once the expectations are clear I help the kids find a good spot in the room (not next to friends, etc.), my kids can sit anywhere in the room while reading. As soon as we are situated, I start the timer and begin monitoring. 

Typically within a minute or two at most I notice a kid who isn't reading. At this point I call the entire class back to the carpet and we talk about some of the behaviors I noticed that let me know that we had maxed out our stamina for the moment. We review the anchor chart, and I send them out again. Usually at this point the message has been made that sitting and staring (even quietly) does not constitute Read-to-Self. But I will call the kids back to the carpet as many times as necessary to make the point. We usually get a solid 15 minutes of stamina (upper grades) to begin and the class quickly builds to 30 minutes. I feel confident that the kids are actually reading the whole time because I've made it clear that that is the ONLY acceptable activity at that time. Talking, daydreaming, picking new books, going to the bathroom, etc. are not. 

We graph our stamina daily, and the kids love to see the progress! I think the graph motivates them to build stamina faster actually.

Click here to grab a stamina chart!

After we have a good handle on how to pick a good fit book, what stamina is, and what Read-to-Self is all about...I begin introducing the other components of the workshop. I do all 5 of the things, but I have modified them a good bit. I count my daily read-aloud as "Listen to Reading", our Book Buddies as "Read to Someone", our Reading Response Journals are our "Write about Reading", a combination of Reading Olympians (Latin & Greek roots study), spelling practice, grammar skills, etc. make up our "Word Work."

I won't even begin to worry about forming strategy groups until about 15-20 days into the school year. The whole first few weeks are set aside for launching the system properly and conferring individually with students!

Whew! Thanks for sticking around for all of that! I wish I had more pictures for the post!

Workshop Wednesday - Prep for Writer's Workshop

So, even though I don't go back to school for almost a month, I can't help but start to get excited about "BTS2013" when I sit here and read about all of my favorite bloggers prepping their rooms and getting ready to meet their kids!

I'm chiming in one more time for Jivey's Workshop Wednesday Linky! This time I'm going to talk a bit about how I do Writer's Workshop, and then I'd like to present something to you, my fabulous readers, and ask for input. One great thing about having 350+ followers (enter the giveaway!) is that I can ask 350+ people for help all at the same time! ;) 

So, first a brief explanation of what I do. I begin about 80% of my writer's workshops by reading a mentor text. Most of the time it is a short picture book, or a piece of a picture book that exemplifies a certain trait that I want my kids to emulate. I say 80% because some days we simply take time to "Just Write." 

What I do most days is pretty simple really, and nothing ground-breaking. I do about a 10-15 minute mini-lesson using my mentor text, model some writing along the way, engage the kids in a discussion on the topic we're looking at, and then send them off to write while I circulate and hold writing conferences with students. So the biggest prep I do is procuring books and ideas for mentor texts, and preparing a conferencing notebook. I travel to the kids during conferences, so I usually carry a clipboard and a sheet of labels to take notes for myself. Then I stick the label on their page later.

My writer's workshop is independent of the writing they do during Daily 5 and Science/S.S. time. I'll be doing the Mentor Sentences Units that Jivey has made with my kids this year, and while I plan to tie those into my mentor texts, that will happen whole group in a separate 15 minutes later in the day, after our reading block.

Anyway, in my room I'm a fan of referring to the Six Traits and I have in the past had the ever popular VOICES posters displayed in my room. This year I'm going full out and creating one of the VOICES boards for my room similar to the one I use for CAFE. In the past I've given my kids a VOICES menu similar to their CAFE menu only it focuses on writing strategies, obviously. Here it is:

I'm making the menu a freebie on one condition... I would love it if some 3rd-5th grade friends out there would take a look and see if anything is missing from the menu... I don't want it to be too cluttered or repetitive, but obviously I'd like for the menu to include more strategies if there are some to add. There are currently 30 strategies on the menu. Any suggestions will be taken into consideration and then I'll update and repost the menu as a freebie again!

The menu as it stands, along with my VOICES headers, and the 30 strategy cards for the current menu are available in my TpT store for just $3.00! (You can't even get a Big Mac for that!) Of course I'll update that file if/when I make adjustments to the VOICES Menu.

Thanks for the help! Be sure to check out all the other great ideas in the linky!

Workshop Wednesday - Prep & Tunes Tuesday Rocked!

So I'm linking up with my favorite linky ever, Workshop Wednesday from Ideas by Jivey! I've got kind of a random posting of thoughts today regarding preparing for a successful reading workshop.

I'm a big believer in student choice, and this comes into play in a few different areas in my class when it comes to reading. First, the students need to be able to choose books that are a "good fit" for them.

Student choosing a book from the hundreds in my room!

The Two Sisters explain in their books all about the IPICK idea of choosing good fit books, but the thing I want to focus on (that I think some teachers forget the importance of) is that second I, interest. So, if a kid is going to choose their own book, and it has to be interesting (and on the right level) then that means one of the biggest things a teacher needs to do to prepare for reading workshop is to build a giant classroom library! And of course, if you have a giant classroom library then you need to organize it somehow! And if you organize it somehow, then the mouse will want another cookie! I mean, the kids will be able to find new books quickly.

So, step 1: Build that library!

I have a HUGE classroom library, and quite frankly am kind of a snob when it comes to classroom libraries. When I walk into a classroom and see that an experienced teacher has one little shelf of books I have to admit that I shake my head a little bit to myself and wag my finger at them (in my mind only, of course.) There are lots of ways to get books for your room if you're willing to a) spend a little money and/or b) put a little work into it. 

I yard sale, go to Goodwill (LOTS of cheap books there!), and bargain bin hunt in other stores of course, but one thing I do to build my library is use Scholastic Book Clubs in my class. It always amazes me when I meet a teacher who doesn't do this. I just can't help but wonder "Why NOT?!" I know some of you are reading this and thinking, "Everyone knows about Scholastic Book Clubs." But they don't. I meet a few teachers every year who don't. And I know a LOT of teachers who know about them, but don't use them...(finger wag) 

Some of those books!

I buy the dollar deal books pretty much every month, along with a few others when I put my students' orders in online. But the best part (besides putting books into my kids' hands) is the points system. Points can be exchanged for free books, and I've gotten literally hundreds of free books over the years. 

More of those books!

The second way that a lot of teachers know about, but don't use for some reason...is through donorschoose.org (or another similar grant program). I've not used it for books, but I did get that big fancy $400 rolling bookcase in that picture up there through them. If you haven't done it yet, you should really think about trying it out. I've had 4 projects funded through them over the last 4 years. It's super easy to do! It amazes me when I do a search on my area for active projects and only find a couple. There are HUNDREDS of teachers in my district, so why aren't there hundreds of projects?

Even more books!

Of course, the problem posed by having a thousand books is that you need to organize them or else the kids will be overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices. I arrange my books in multiple ways, and the kids are trained to go through steps to find new books. In fifth, I always wanted the kids to have 2 books in their queue. Now that I'm moving to 3rd/4th I will have "book boxes" for the kids to queue up around 4 books at a time.

New readers might not have seen my
"read bead" post about reading through
the genres. Go check it out!

I organize my library by genre, media type, and lexile level. The kids in my class are expected to read across the genres throughout the year, so their first step is to decide which of the genres they would like to tackle. 

We use MAP testing in my district, which provides me with the students' lexile level. The kids know their own Zones of Proximal Development, so they begin their search in that range of books. Once a kid has narrowed their search to "Mystery Books in a 600-700 lexile range" or "Sci-fi Graphic Novels around 500" it's easy for them to make a choice. Kids make these choices in their spare time, not during reading time. This is why I insist they have that queue of books I mentioned. Read to Self is NOT choose-a-book time.

My big challenge to tackle this summer involves all those books pictured above. Those are just the books I have taking up space in the closets of the spare bedrooms at my house. I taught Kindergarten through 2nd grade for 10 years before I moved to 5th 2 years ago. Most of my picture books and low level chapter books didn't translate to 5th, but now that I am moving to 3rd/4th (!!!) I need to go through all of them (and the ones in my classroom) and create my new classroom library and reorganize it all! Waaaaaah!

Alright, random tip of the day. We keep a little magnetic spice jar on our kitchen magnet board to save boxtops in. When I accrue a decent amount, I take them in to school!

If you stuck around to the end of this long-winded post, you're a saint! Now if you have the stamina go and read some of the other great posts in the linky!

Tunes Tuesday rocked by the way! Check out all the links in my previous post if you haven't already! It was such a success, and due to a few people requesting it, I'll be doing it again one day! Be on the look out!