Lucky Ducklings

Lucky Ducklings by Eva Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An adorable story about 5 little duckilings and their mother. When the ducklings get trapped many people come to their rescue. Beatiful illustrations help tell the story.

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Scary Tales: Home Sweet Horror

Home Sweet Horror by James Preller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ghostly Tales at their best. James Preller does an excellent job of keeping children on the edge of their seats, crying for more. The book is a nice legnth giving children a chance to get into a book without feeling overwhelmed. My students are fighting over this book.

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Exclamation Point

Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Book Trailers

My principal and I wrote a grant proposal for NYSCATE last year.  We won it!!!

With the grant money we bought some professional development books:

• The iMovie '11 Project Book
• Reading and Writing Genre with Purpose in K-8 Classrooms
•   The Digital Writing Workshop

3 iPads 2 and 3 iMovie 11 apps


After reading the books we created a book review/book trailer unit. We taught these units in 5th and 7th grade English classrooms.  

The students watched this instructional template video we created using the iMovie 11 trailer app, then had to storyboard their own trailers.

The 5th grade students worked in groups, using books they had read in Literature Circle groups.  The 7th graders read books I have been receiving for consideration for the NYSRA 2014 Charlotte Award nomination list. They wrote and directed the trailers alone.  We had a trailer review event with judges from the school and a local news station.  

Here are the 3 of the 4 winning entries (the Charlotte preview books):

Out in Left Field

Best Direction

Take What You Can Carry

Best Acting

Without Tess

Overall Winner

and one of my other favorites (but no award) 

Chasing the Nightbird

How many books did You read this year?

Last fall I posted an entry about the fantastic opportunity I had to see Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer).  She showed us a video in which she had taken pictures of her students hold a piece of paper with the number of books they read in the last year.  She challenges her students to read 40 books a year.

Felling inspired, I did the same.  I created a chart with the following requirements:

• 2 Poetry anthologies
• 2 Traditional literature books
• 2 realistic Fiction Books
• 2 Historical Fiction Books
• 2 Fantasy Books
• 2 Science Fiction Books
• 15 Informational Books
• 2 Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographies
• 1 Graphic Novel
• 10 free choice books

I chose 15 informational because one of my class requirements is 1 nonfiction book every 2 weeks.   These nonfiction books could be the shorter guided reading books, or "readers".  Students were asked to read good fit books, so some of my 6ht graders may of read Brisinger, while others were reading I Survived...Katrina.

My Common Core based lesson can be found here, along with the handouts.  It was one of my first CCLS units, so forgive my mistakes please. 

Here is one of  my videos (the others seem to be too big :-( ) with my student's totals and their graphs. 

Winter arrived

We had a winter day in New York.

The Book Whisperer

I had the chance this week to attend a conference with Donalyn Miller, the Book Whisperer.  What an inspiring day.  You can read about her in this National Writing Project article, and see a short video on how to encourage your child to read as a parent.