State Testing

This week and next week students in certain grades will be participating in state testing in our school district.  It’s a good idea to get to bed early before test days so you are well-rested.  Also, make sure to eat a healthy breakfast the days you will be testing.

I hope everyone who is testing has a book ready to read when he or she is done with the test!  For those kiddos who aren’t testing this week, I hope you are still reading everyday.  Reading everyday is the best thing you can do for yourself.  If you read everyday and read lots of different kinds of books and practice good reading strategies, then you will be ready for the state tests.

Here are some of my favorite books about kids and school in case you are looking for a fun school read!

Miss Nelson Is Missing

 

Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus (Junie B. Jones, No. 1)

Keena Ford and the 2nd Grade Mixup

Sideways Stories from Wayside School

My Weird School #1: Miss Daisy Is Crazy!

Matilda

My Teacher is an Alien

The Homework Machine

Never Slow Dance With a Zombie

Do you have a favorite "school" book?  What do you like about it?  

If you come to school and can tell me about your favorite "school" book or which one of my favorites you would like to read, then you will earn one sticker towards a reading reward!

What Are You Reading Good? (02/24/2011)

Today is a teacher institute day so the students aren't in school.  Hopefully they are resting up for ISATs next week!  AND, I hope they are doing lots of reading on their day off!

I feel like I've been encouraging kids to choose a book, stick with it and finish it lately.  I believe it's okay to abandon a book when you aren't enjoying it, but at the same time it's important to stick with a book and finish it.  This week I had started reading Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie Tolan.  I was interested by the story, but at the same time realized that every time I picked it up I wasn't that excited to read it.  I decided to put it aside for now and to come back to it another time.  Instead, I decided to read Vordak the Incomprehensible: How to Grow Up and Rule the World and it was hysterical.  I'm so glad I switched books but now I'm ready to stay with this book and read all about Vordak.  

Here's the slideshow of what my students have been reading this week.  I especially like the biography that Jodie is reading called Who Was Amelia Earhart?.  It's part of an entire series of autobiographies and I love how the book is written.  I'm excited to read more from the series.  Happy reading this weekend!!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Author Spotlight - Tim Green

This weekend I was so excited to go to a Children's Literature Breakfast hosted by Anderson's Bookshop.  Anderson's is an independent bookstore in Naperville, Illinois.  I met Suzanne Collins, who wrote The Hunger Games, there in the fall.

On Saturday, they had four keynote speakers who are authors or illustrators.  I was lucky enough to meet Trent Reedy who wrote Words In The Dust, Kathryn Lansky who wrote The Capture (Guardians of Ga'hoole, Book 1), Weird Al Yankovic who wrote When I Grow Up, and Tim Green who wrote Football Genius.  I get so excited to meet authors because I love the books they have written.  I love the characters and their stories and it's so interesting to me to learn about the author who wrote them.

Meeting Tim Green was probably the highlight of the day for me.  He sat at our table for breakfast so we were able to ask him questions about his book and about football.  He was so nice and ready to talk about books and sports.  He played for the Atlanta Falcons but is now a lawyer and is writing some great kids' books about sports.   I recently read Football Genius and absolutely loved it.  We love football in our house, so I loved reading about a boy who gets to meet and help one of his favorite football players win games.  I'm excited to read the rest of the series and also read his more recent baseball series.

Tim Green told me this about being an athlete in the NFL and now writing books for kids:

"I feel like I’m able to shine a light on a world that is incredibly interesting and violent and fightening and heart-warming.  I think it is such a rich, rich backdrop and I’m the only one who’s doing this...I think that’s the thing that I am most proud of about my own work, that I am able to shine a light on a place that no one else is so that it’s sports but it digs so much deeper than any sports books that are out there."  

I'm always curious about where readers like to read, so I asked him about his ideal reading spot and this is what he had to say:

"In the summertime down on my dock, at the end of the dock on a chair.  I love sitting in the sun and be out right on the water and just reading a book."

Here's a picture of me with Tim Green!

The next book in the Baseball Great series comes out on March 22, 2011.  I'm excited to be able to recommend these fun football and baseball books to any kiddo who loves sports - whether they play sports or not.  

If you can come to school and tell me the title of Tim Green's book that is coming out in March, then you will earn one sticker towards a reading reward.

What Are You Reading Good? (02/18/2011)

This has been a fun week as far as the books we've been reading.  I finished up One Crazy Summer (Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction (Awards)) by Rita Williams-Garcia that I was listening to on audio and started listening to The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy (National Book Award for Young People's Literature (Awards)) by Jean Birdsall which I am absolutely loving.  The four sisters who are the main characters in this book are really fun.  It makes me wish I had more and more siblings!

I have been doing all sorts of reading otherwise.  I read The Girl in the Green Raincoat: A Tess Monaghan Novel by Laura Lippman which is an adult novel that my book club was reading this month. I also just finished reading Reading Ladders: Leading Students from Where They Are to Where We'd Like Them to Be by Teri Lesesne tonight.  This book gave me some really great ideas for helping students find books to read.  For fun I've read Keena Ford and the Secret Journal Mix-Up by Melissa Thomson and the first book in The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner.  I remember loving the Boxcar books when I was growing up and I still love it today.

I was really excited about talking to the students about books and I think I got sidetracked because I don't really have as many pictures as I should for the slideshow this week.  Here are some books the kids were reading that I don't have pictures of!

We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)

Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)

Surf's Up, Geronimo! (Geronimo Stilton, No. 20)

Allie Finkle's Rules For Girls

The Naked Mole-Rat Letters

Next week I'll make sure to take more pictures!  Until then, keep reading, kiddos!

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February 2011 Reader of the Month

It's time to celebrate our February Reader of the Month: Nathan!  Nathan is an 8th grader who has just recently started reading Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy and he's loving it.  I'm excited to be able to share Nathan's reading life with everyone this month!

Mrs. Vincent: What is your favorite book?  Who would you recommend it it?

Nathan: Hunger Games, Anyone

Mrs. Vincent: Where do you like to read?  Can you describe your favorite reading spot?

Nathan: In bed, on couch.  Has lots of pillows.

Mrs. Vincent: When do you like to read?

Nathan: At night or when it's quiet.

Mrs. Vincent: What are the last three books you have read?

Nathan: The Hunger Games, The Rescue (Kidnapped, Book 3), The Search (Kidnapped, Book 2)

Mrs. Vincent: Do you prefer paperbacks or hardcover books?

Nathan:  either

Mrs. Vincent: How do you choose a book?

Nathan: When someone suggests it

Mrs. Vincent: Reading is...

Nathan: Fun, Relaxing, Exciting

You can't see the cover of the book Nathan is reading in his pictures, but it's the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset, Catching Fire.  This series is one of my favorite series and I'm excited to see Nathan reading it.  

If you can come to school and tell me what book Nathan is currently reading you will earn one sticker towards a reading reward!  

What Are You Reading Good? (02/11/2011)

It's been a long time since I posted a slideshow of the books we've been reading!  We have definitely been reading.  It's fun to see how excited my students are about reading and about sharing books with me.  I've had so many great suggestions for new books to read like Justin Case: School, Drool, and Other Daily Disasters and Jake Drake, Bully Buster.  

I've been working my way through my To-Be-Read pile and have read some really great books lately.  A Whole Nother Story by Dr. Cuthbert Soup was a fun read that reminded me a little of The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1) and the Series of Unfortunate Events series.  Another book I read and really enjoyed was Sugar and Ice by Kate Messner which I think is an interesting book about a girl who is training for ice skating competitions and features a strong female main character.  Don't stop the reading, kiddos! 

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What Can You Infer?

Good readers use reading strategies when they read.  This means they are using reading strategies to really think about what they are reading.  Making an inference while you read is one reading strategy a good reader might use.

You might not even realize you are making inferences as you read, but there are really so many things to infer while you are reading that you might be doing it without even knowing it!  You infer when you stop and think about what the author has said and are able to make a statement about what you read.  You might infer how a character feels.  You might infer where a character is.  You might infer what the author is describing.  Any time you read something and can use what the author has given you to create your own ideas or understanding, you are making an inference.

Inferring can be tricky because sometimes kids confuse it with making a prediction.  When you make a prediction, you use what they author tells you to guess what happens next.  Making an inference is using the clues that author tells you to make a statement about what is happening in the story and what you know now.

If you can come to school and tell me which good reading strategy this post is about, you can earn one sticker towards a reading reward!