Every year around this time, I start researching what novels to read with my class. I love to read, so this is easy work. As always, I found some gems this year. One of them is “Tin” by Pàdraig Kenny. Reviews are all over the place for this book, but I’m not sure why. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and thought it was full of teaching points, figurative language, rich vocabulary and a solid theme. The story itself certainly lends itself to a less pedantic approach and a more to a holistic, deep discussion, let’s consider large themes and make big connections approach. When I was developing some resources to use for this book with my class, I put less on paper, as I anticipate the meat of this instruction being in class discussion. You can find the materials I put together here.
Sometimes, there is just not enough time for a perfectly curated anchor chart and matching notes. Sometimes its Crayola markers, highlighters and graph paper. Enjoy our “interactive” anchor chart notes on multiplying whole numbers by a fraction today…
Picture books offer rich experiences for readers of all ages. One thing that I LOVE about using picture books as the base to all of my reading plans, is that it offers such great opportunities to study, compare, contrast and make inferences about a wide variety of characters. We get to have real conversations about the “why” behind a character’s actions or motivations, we can dissect how each character influenced the story’s plot etc. I’ve also started including digital/ virtual anchor charts for strategies and skills we cover in class. I currently have 2 students who are full-time virtual learners, and having this resource for them to refer to and contribute input to has been awesome! This is an example of one of the anchor charts on character growth and development that I used with my class.
We followed up this discussion with a week long reading workshop on character growth and development with, you guessed it, a focus on picture book mentor texts. The books that go along with this workshop are some of my absolute favorite!
Day 1: The Raft by Jim LaMarche
Day 2: A Train to Somewhere by Eve Bunting
Day 3: An Angel for Solomon Singer by Cynthia Rylant
As you may know, I teach in a multi-grade level classroom in a hybrid-Montessori school. Let me tell you, reaching the needs of students in 3+ grade levels across all content areas, is a daunting task. I have tried a little of every strategy out there, and just could not find anything that I was truly able to really meet each of my students where they are, and continue to challenge them. So, out of necessity, came invention. I started to create weekly, reading strategy based reading workshops based on mentor texts (I decided on using quality picture books, as they are easily used with multiple grade levels). I put everything I had into these weekly workshops. I included very thorough interactive real-alouds for the books, vocabulary activities on various levels, Interactive Notebook pages for Google slides / classroom (TM). You name it, I included it. Why? Because I needed a completely customizable lesson each day for reading. Not only did I not know day to day whether or not we would be in person or virtual (due to COVID), but I also have the same group of children, sometimes for 3 years in a row! I NEEDED a way to quickly customize my lesson and bring new, fresh and challenging content.
Over my years of experience I have found that theme can be one of the most difficult concepts for students to grasp. This is where I dug in and created an entire week-long reading workshop centered on this skill.
Mentor Texts and Essential questions covered:
The Invisible Boy- What is the theme of a story?
Those Shoes- How do characters influence theme?
Last Stop on Market Street- What is the difference between theme and main idea
The Important Book- What is theme?
The Most Magnificent Thing- What do this character’s thoughts and actions reveal about the theme of the story?
What Do You DO With a Problem?- How can details in a story support the theme?
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