Looking for a Good Read Aloud?

If you are looking for a good book to read aloud to your child, you should take a look at the Gooney Bird Greene series by Lois Lowry. I am currently reading the first book, Gooney Bird Greene, to the crew. Gooney Bird is a quirky little girl who teaches her second grade class how to tell good stories. The books in the series are funny and the chapters are just the right length for a good bedtime (or anytime) read aloud. Gooney Bird teaches other concepts in the other books in the series - things like poetry, vocabulary, geography, fables, etc. She teaches all of this while the reader is laughing and doesn't even notice that they are learning. This series is written at the end of 3rd grade or beginning of 4th grade level so it would not really be appropriate as a "on my own" book for most of our crew yet. Children are developmentally ready and able to listen to books that are about 2 grade levels above their current reading level so this series is just perfect for reading aloud to students in our crew.

Recently we finished reading aloud, Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst. Both of these are great books that we have all really enjoyed. They are also part of a series of books so look for other books in the series to have for your family read aloud time. Your whole family will enjoy them.

Important Dates
4/22 No School ~ Comp Day for Teachers
5/11 Student-Led Conference for First Grade
5/30 No School ~ Memorial Day
6/1 Last Day of School ~ Nooooo!

Crew Authors

The crew has finished writing their realistic fiction books and we are now using them as read alouds and the crew loves this.  There are some fantastic stories in this bin of books. Stop by and check them out.

Homework ~ Read a good book or two. Check out a Bedtime Math story.

Volunteer
Our volunteer today is Ms. Allison. Yes, Ms. Allison works at our school as our social worker but she also volunteers to work with first grade each Wednesday (her day off) during lunch. During Lunch Bunch, the kids work on social skills like taking turns, working together, asking to join a group of friends playing a game and other skills. The crew loves to go to Lunch Bunch. Everyone in our crew has had at least one turn to go this year so far and they are all eager for more turns. Thanks, Ms. Allison!

Anna Hibiscus

Our next read aloud is Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke. Anna Hibiscus is a little girl who lives in Africa with her parents and her twin baby brothers. Anna's father is from Africa and her mother is from Canada. As the book and the series progresses, the reader learns a lot about the cultures of Africa and Canada - a very interesting blend of cultures. This series includes both picture books and chapter books - also a very interesting blend of formats.

Homework ~ Read a good book or two. Check out a Bedtime Math story. 

Reading

 "The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."

  --  Mark Twain

That quote is my reading philosophy in a nutshell. My biggest goal for our crew is that they develop a love for reading and have books and authors that they love. Of course, I want them to be proficient readers, too, but if they are proficient and never actually read then what is the point. If they learn to love reading, then they will put in the time and effort to become good at it. So while I will be teaching reading strategies, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, decoding and phonics, I will also be sharing lots and lots of great books with the crew to get them excited about reading.

How Do I Try to Do This?
1. We read books throughout the day for various subjects and reasons. If you go to our crew blog, you will see a bookshelf on the side of the page. This shelf is updated daily with every book that we read as a whole crew. You can scroll through the shelves to view books we read in the past by clicking on the previous or next buttons at the bottom of the shelf.

2. We have lots of books available in our room all the time.

3. I bring in collections of books from the library to share with the crew. For example, right now I have a large collection of Splat the Cat books and Scaredy Squirrel books. I will soon be replacing these with books by the Australian author, Mem Fox and books about China. Ask your child to tell you about Splat the Cat or Scaredy Squirrel.

4. I talk about books with excitement and share my love of books with them.

5. I have them share their favorites with each other.

6. We learn that it is good to talk to our friends about books - that is how we learn about great new books to try.

7. We fill any spare moments with books and reading.

8. We start our day with reading. As the students come in they sit on the carpet and browse the bins that have our current collections from the library in them.

9. We post pictures of our favorite book characters on the wall and we have some stuffed animals of some of our favorite book characters.

10. We laugh out loud and join in with the reading of repeated parts of a books. This makes it more fun.

11. We read books and we also enjoy books on the computer or on our iPads. Tumblebooks is a favorite book reading site. It is on the Resources page of our crew blog. We have a subscription to it through the district and public library. You can access it from home, too. You will just need to enter your library card number and pin number (usually the last 4 digits of your phone number unless you have changed it). Another great source of books is our class Storia account through Scholastic books. We do enjoy reading in a variety of forms.

How Can You Help at Home?
1. Read to your child every day. Yes, even after they can read for themselves. Here is a link to a great article about a dad who read to his daughter every day until she went off to college:
Father-Daughter Reading Streak Lasts Nearly 9 Years

2. Share what you are reading with your child - books, magazines, cookbooks, instruction manuals, blogs, websites, street signs, newspapers, news sites online, etc.

3. Use different voices for different characters to make reading aloud more fun.

4. Have your child read to you.

5. Go to the public library - often.

6. Visit bookstores.

7. Have piles of books all around your home.

8. Enjoy the time you spend reading with your child.

9. Check out this link: Guerrilla Tactics to Get Your Child to Love Reading 

10. Check out this link: Read Kiddo Read

11. Check out this link: The Home and School Connection: Eight Ways to Foster Wild (Lifelong) Reading Habits 

12. Looking for some great new books: The 2013 Nerdy Book Award Nominees

In the future I will write posts about fluency, comprehension, decoding, vocabulary and more but, for now, I want to try to make sure that our crew loves books and reading. Then they will be motivated to read those books that they love so much.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 4.9 My Timeline

Crew News March 21, 2013

Over 300 Books
We have read over 300 books together as a crew. There have been so many great ones. Click here or one the picture below to see some of titles we have read. Once you are on our Shelfari site, click on the blue "next" button to see more pages of shelves.

We keep track of the books we read aloud on our Shelfari bookshelf. Students in the crew take turns adding books to our shelf.

Non-Fiction Titles
The email I sent you last night had lots and lots of fiction titles that might be good for your child to read over Spring Break and Summer Break. Below are some photos of some great non-fiction series that your children love. There are so many titles in each series that there is something for all tastes. The crew is loving all of the non-fiction reading we are doing. We just can't stop sharing all of the cool facts we are learning. Ask your child what books he or she has enjoyed and what they have learned.

The National Geographic Kids series has books in a variety of levels. You can see a number indicating the level of challenge of the book in the upper right hand corner of each book.

The See More series of books by Seymour Simon has more fascinating topics and wonderful photos.

The Weird But True series by National Geographic has loads of odd but interesting facts. The crew loves these books. There are easier books (pictured on the left)  and more challenging books (pictured on the right) in this series.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 8.1 Coin Combinations

Pajama Day
Tomorrow is Pajama Day for first grade. Your child may choose to wear his or her pajamas. He or she will still need to wear regular shoes.

Crew News May 24, 2012

Reader's Theater
We are such avid readers and we all love books by Mo Willems so much that I thought that a fun project for the end of our school year would be to use his books and have a reader's theater. Reader's Theater is when readers read the story with expression and bring it to life. We all chose a partner and a Mo Willems book to present to the rest of the crew next week. Below are some photos of our rehearsal time. Lots of fun!

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 10.5 Geometry Review

Crew News May 7, 2012

Benefits of Reading Aloud
The benefits of reading aloud have really been showing up in our crew lately. There are so many good reasons to read aloud to your child but below are a couple of things that I have seen just in the last few weeks.

1. Reading aloud creates community and gives students things to bond over. For example, we all can share a laugh as we remember something funny in a book we read. On our recent Voyage, the bus driver was going over the bus safety rules with the students. She couldn't see the students when they were sitting down in those big bus seats so she had them stand up so that they could make eye contact with her. After she was done with her short speech she said something about how now they could put their bottoms on the seat. This caused the kids who were sitting around me to think about a Roscoe Riley book that we had read together. In this book, Roscoe thought he would help his teacher manage his class by gluing them to their chairs with super strong glue called Super Mega Gonzo Glue. On the bus, our crew all got the giggles thinking about this and said that they should use some Super Mega Gonzo Glue to glue themselves to the bus seats. Because this was a book we had read aloud, everyone was able to be in on the joke and the fun.

2. Reading aloud gives us in-depth knowledge about books and characters we love. We are currently participating in a game of Poetry Tag with K-3 classes around the country. (You may have read about this in an earlier blog post.) Anyway, when it was our turn to add a poem, we noticed that the theme was mostly about dogs and the quirky things they do. We were able to write and add our own poem about Mudge from the Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant. The crew knew Mudge well and could really describe his quirks. My favorite line that they came up with was that he is a "cracker eating dog".

The haiku poem about Mudge that our crew wrote and Keanan H. illustrated.

3. Reading aloud exposes kids to lots of books and helps them make judgements about books that they like and want to read. The students in our crew can talk about authors like Cynthia Rylant or Mo Willems. They can talk about different book series like Elephant and Piggie, The Fly Guy, Henry and Mudge, Fluffy, Ready Freddy and many more. They are aware of books and know what books they want to check out when they go to the library.

4. Read aloud is fun and can create these same experiences in families. I know that earlier in the year I linked to this article about a dad who read aloud to his daughter every day of her life from when she was in fourth grade until she started college. I highly recommend that you take a look at this again if you don't remember it. What a great way to bond with your child and to create so many fun memories, connections and experiences with reading. We still read aloud to our middle school aged daughter every night and I have to admit that I still love being read aloud to also. It is so relaxing for me.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.5 Symmetry

Crew News January 30, 2012

Book Buzz
I am trying to create a bit of book buzz in our classroom. I have been reading a couple of chapter books aloud to the crew. Reading aloud is fun and builds comprehension skills. We started with Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry. Next we read Ready Freddy: Tooth Trouble by Abby Klein. The books in this series are so appealing to first graders. In Tooth Trouble, Freddy is the only one in his class who hasn't yet lost a tooth. He is so distraught about this that he creates and carries out several plans to try to make one of his teeth fall out. First graders can really identify with this theme. This illustrator also provides readers with the challenge of finding the word "fin" in every illustration. (Freddy is a shark lover so "fin" is one of his favorite words.) While this book is a "chapter book", it is written at a level that would be "just right" for about half of the students in our crew. So, many will be able to read the books in the Ready Freddy series on their own. Others will enjoy them as a read aloud. Next week we will start Roscoe Riley Rules #1: Never Glue Your Friends to a Chair by Katherine Applegate.   The books in this series are all tales of how Roscoe ended up in the timeout chair - nothing outlandish, just his mishaps and mistakes that will feel familiar to most first graders. All of these books are available at the Douglas County Public Library so check some out on your next visit. Happy Reading!



Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 6.3 Fact Families

Crew News December 14, 2011

Looking for a Good Read Aloud?
If you are looking for a good book to read aloud to your child, you should take a look at the Gooney Bird Greene series by Lois Lowry. I recently read the first book, Gooney Bird Greene, to the crew. They loved it so much that they burst into applause when I finished the book. Gooney Bird is a quirky little girl who teaches her second grade class how to tell good stories. This book tied right in with our story-telling/wordless picture book unit and leads us directly into our personal narrative unit during Writer's Workshop. The books in the series are funny and the chapters are just the right length for a good bedtime (or anytime) read aloud. Gooney Bird teaches other concepts in the other books in the series - things like poetry, vocabulary, geography, fables, etc. She teaches all of this while the reader is laughing and doesn't even notice that they are learning. This series is written at the end of 3rd grade or beginning of 4th grade level so it would not really be appropriate as a "on my own" book for anyone in our crew yet. Children are developmentally ready and able to listen to books that are about 2 grade levels above their current reading level so this series is just perfect for reading aloud to students in our crew. We will be reading other series later in the year but this is a great place to start a family read aloud. Ask your child about Gooney Bird Greene.

Paper Towel Rolls
We are still collecting paper towels rolls. Thanks for continuing to send them in.

Library
We have library tomorrow. Help your child remember to return their books so that they can check out new books.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 5.3 Relation Symbols