Class Dismissed!

Ms. Bryce has been teaching FOREVER, but this class is the WORST she's ever had to deal with!  One day, a science experiment goes wrong and Ms. Bryce gets fed up and quits...right then and there!  The only problem is that only the students of class 507 know she's gone!

Class Dismissed, the latest book by author Allan Woodrow, is one of my favorite new books this year!  The comedy of events that lead to the students of class 507 having full control of their class for TWO WHOLE WEEKS before the principal or any other adult finding out their teacher quit is hilarious, yet somehow believable!  

There is a cast of main characters who tell the story from their multiple points of view.  Kyle is the troublemaker; the student who is considered the class clown and never does any work.  Samantha is the spoiled, rich girl who is more concerned with fashion than learning.  Adam is the resident creative mind.  Eric is the quiet, studious kid who is afraid to stand out in class.  Maggie is the resident "know it all" and outspoken leader.  Brian is the class bully. Each chapter has a different character as the speaker, which is a GREAT way to explore point of view and narrator with your students!  Each of the main characters change throughout the story, as they learn about themselves as students, grow as leaders, and realize that their way of doing things is not always the only way or the best way.

This middle grades (3-5) novel is the PERFECT back-to-school read!  It works well as a read-aloud, but it's even better as a novel study!  Your students will love reading about how the class figures out ways to hide their secret from parents and administrators, and how the kids negotiate roles in the group to "teach", keep guard, and manage the class.  You will love that the students soon realize that they actually do need a teacher and that teaching is not an easy job!  

If this sounds like a book your students would love (and I promise they will!), I've created a print-and-go novel study unit that is perfect for grades 3-5!  This unit includes vocabulary words, comprehension questions, character study, point of view exploration, figurative language practice, stages of plot, narrative and opinion writing prompts and more!  You can use all of it, or some of it, whatever best suits your students' needs and your time.  Click on the picture below to find the unit in my TpT Store!

This is an 40+ page study guide and includes answer keys for each vocabulary word, comprehension question, character chart, and plot diagram.  

Here are some sample activity pages...

Happy Reading!

One Little Thing Wednesday Link Up!

Laura, at Enchanting Elementary, does this fun thing each week called "One Little Thing Wednesday".  She asks a question or offers a topic and asks other bloggers to link up with their responses.  This week's topic is Book Reviews...one of my FAVORITE things to talk about!  So, I linked up with my Book Review tab where I've shared review about Tangerine, Gooney Bird Greene, and But I Read it on the Internet.  Click here or on the "Book Reviews" tab above to read the reviews.

Check back soon for new reviews...now that summer is almost here, I'm stocking up on new books!  Hopefully, there will be a lot of new book blog posts coming from me soon!

Don't forget to check out Enchanting Elementary to read all the reviews posted by many different bloggers!

Gooney Bird Greene - Book Review and Lesson Ideas!

Hello, elementary writing teachers!  This post is for YOU! I have THE book for you!  Do you know Gooney Bird Greene?  The girl with the "absolutely true stories"?  The girl who wears wildly mismatched clothes or even pajamas to school each day? If you don't know Gooney Bird, you must meet her!

Lois Lowry, acclaimed author of The Giver, Number the Stars, and  Anastasia Krupnik, has written the best book for blossoming writers.  Gooney Bird Greene is a master storyteller...yet she is only in 2nd grade!  Her stories are always wild and unbelievable...yet somehow "absolutely true", as she always assures her teacher and classmates.

This short novel is a great read-aloud for grades 2-5.  Your students will be completely hooked by Gooney Bird's stories and will beg you to keep reading.  Better yet, Gooney Bird's stories make for great creative writing brainstorming sessions!  You can encourage kids to think of stories they can write about their own lives, but with a twist.  Gooney Bird is the master of "hooks"...and this is something I know most kids struggle with (even my current 8th graders!)  I've had lots of success using this book in my upper elementary classrooms at the beginning of the year to launch my writer's workshop!

And guess what?  This is not the only Gooney Bird book!  You can find Gooney Bird writing poetry -all types!- in Gooney Bird is So Absurd.  I LOVED reading this to my class during April because it's Poetry Month!  After Gooney introduced a style of poetry, I'd have my students write a poem, just like Gooney Bird.  We invited parents in to have a poetry slam at the end of the month, too!

In Gooney the Fabulous, Gooney Bird introduces her classmates to fables.  When I taught 3rd grade, one of our district-mandated writing assessments was for kids to write a fable.  This book was the PERFECT read-aloud before we began writing!

Gooney Bird on the Map has Gooney and the rest of Mrs. Pidgeon's class learning about U.S. geography, as well as celebrating Valentine's Day and President's Day.  This one is great to read in February or whenever you are teaching U.S. geography.  My students and I had fun finding cities on a giant map and telling stories about vacations we've been on.

I'm not kidding...you can literally use a Gooney Bird Greene book with just about any unit you are teaching! Your students will never tire of Gooney Bird...I promise! She is one of my all-time favorite literary characters.  Happy reading!

Get Your Students Excited about Reading Novels!

Tangerine, by Edward Bloor, is my absolute FAVORITE novel to read with my 8th graders!  Even though our district uses an anthology-based curriculum, I plan my year to allow for 3-4 weeks to spend on this novel!

Tangerine is about a boy named Paul Fisher, who moves with his family from Texas to Tangerine, Florida.  Paul is legally blind due to some mysterious accident when he was younger...this mystery is a big part of the plot!  Paul also happens to be a great soccer player, but he can't play on his school soccer team because he has an IEP.  Paul's biggest problem, though, is his terrible - some might even say evil - older brother, Erik.  Erik is a bully, a criminal, but also a star football player.  Paul is rightfully afraid of Erik and has suspicions about him that no one else seems to see. Paul and Erik's parents are pretty clueless about their kids' problems, which makes this book really interesting for middle school students!

This novel teaches irony in a masterful way...Paul, who is legally blind, is the only person who sees the truth clearly!  The themes of "good vs. evil", "seeing isn't always believing", and the "truth shall set you free" play out in suburban and rural areas. Special needs and IEPs are given the spotlight in a positive "you can overcome this" way.  Socio-economic differences and racial tensions are highlighted in a way that helps kids understand and be sympathetic to the characters.  The author even manages to toss in a science lesson along the way!

Even my reluctant readers end up LOVING this book.  It is fast-paced, and the mystery of how Paul lost his eyesight keep the kids enthralled.  They also get personally invested in the unfairness of how Paul is treated, and they get angry about how rotten Erik is.  This book sparks amazing discussions between students and really makes them think about social topics.

One of my most reluctant readers and writers, who told me, "I hate books", when I assigned this novel, ended up getting so involved with the story that he wrote me this -wait for it!- without being asked!  He did this writing, on his own!  When I shared that with his mom, she was shocked and thrilled to find out he wrote willingly! (Keep in mind, this is from one of my most struggling, least-interested-in-school students ;)

Another student's final response: "I would read the book again, it was that good.  It was also that good that it was the best book I've read for school, maybe even ever!"

Because I knew how much my students would love this book, I didn't want to drag them down with a bunch of questions to answer after every few pages.  So I created a Novel Study Guide that would help them process the book, without nit-picking it apart.  After doing a few pre-reading activities together in class, I gave my students a week to read each of the three parts of the novel.  (Each part is about 90 pages.)  Then, once a week, I gave them time to talk about the book in small groups and to complete a few activities and answer a few questions about the part they read together.  

Kids LOVE being given time to talk...and this book gave them lots to talk about!  Doing the response to reading activities in small groups also helped my struggling students feel successful and helped them understand the plot better through discussion with others.

After finishing the book, there were a few after reading discussion questions and a plot diagram to complete, which could be done whole-group or independently.  Finally, as an assessment, I gave the students a choice of two writing prompts to complete.

If you've got reluctant novel readers (especially in grades 6-9), you have to introduce them to Tangerine!  It would make a great read-aloud, too!  Click the picture below to get your own Novel Study Guide for Tangerine.  I promise you and your students will LOVE this book!

Teaching with Picture Books - For BIG KIDS!

I am a book addict.  I admit it.  I read ALL. THE. TIME.  Picture books, children's novels, young adult novels, adult novels...it doesn't matter!  I read them all!  Now that my own kiddos are older and I am teaching middle school, I don't read as many picture books as I used to, which makes me kind of sad. Picture books have a special place in my heart...someday I hope to publish one of my own!
Whether I'm teaching elementary or middle school or I'm at home, I surround myself with books of all types!

But, I digress... my point is I LOVE books!  I especially love TEACHING with books and raising readers! Any chance I have to talk to kids about books or read books with kids, I jump on it!  The district I teach in has gone away from novels studies (insert sad face here) and bought an anthology series.  It's not bad, but anthologies suck the joy out of reading in my opinion.  So, I teach the curriculum I'm given, but I still squeeze in a few novels throughout the year because kids get absorbed in full stories- not just excerpts! They also love being read to, so I do that as often as I can, too.

One way I squeeze in books at school is by using picture books in my lessons...even with big kids! Middle schoolers probably won't admit it, but they still like picture books.  Since I don't get to read picture books as much as I'd like to with my own kids at bedtime anymore, I read them with my middle schoolers as parts of bigger lessons!

For example, I start my year off teaching elements of plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution).  But instead of jumping into a novel right away, or just having kids copy down definitions, we read a variety of picture books and create plot diagrams!  It is really easy for kids to see the elements of plot in a book that is only 32-pages long!

I especially like using Owl Babies by Martin Waddell for this lesson. It cracks me up when middle schoolers start repeating Bill's line: "I want my mummy!" over and over again!

Just recently, I read But I Read it on the Internet by Toni Buzzeo to my 8th graders.  It is a great book to read before starting an Internet-based research project! This book tells the story of a boy named Hunter who believes that the only place to find true facts is inside a good old-fashioned book, while his classmate, Carmen, is a believer in anything she sees on the Internet. They enjoyed the opportunity to be read aloud to - a few even came up and sat on the floor like younger kids do!  I chose to read this book to my kids as a kick-off lesson to teach about evaluating websites.  The students have been learning about argumentative essays (arguing comes SO naturally to 8th graders!), and will soon be crafting their own research-based argumentative essays.  We head into the library tomorrow to begin our research on various topics, so before I set them loose on the Internet, I want them to know how to determine which sites are reliable and which aren't so good.

Check out my full review on my "Book Reviews" tab!

Don't be afraid to use picture books with your older students!  There are so many great books out there and a clever teacher can find ways to tie them into larger lessons! Happy reading!