Category: Daily Five and Cafe

Positive Reinforcement in the Kitchen

I’m a laughable cook, but a pretty proficient baker. That doesn’t mean I don’t still have sizable lapses in my knowledge. This morning, I engaged in a Twitter conversation with MJ, a representative at King Arthur Flour. Here was my takeaway:

Not only did MJ provide fabulous customer service, our conversation also mirrors what I hope a writing / math / literacy conference looks like in my class.

Walk with me through our exchange. I’ve bolded critical moments that we both took as student and as teacher.

First, I took a risk. I started with a vanilla scone mix and made the choice to cut up some fresh raspberries. I also ran out of regular milk, so I used almond milk instead. Struck with a lack of confidence, I Tweeted:

Often my Twitter appeals are made to the ether, but I received this:

It was a timely response from MJ, which offers a suggestion with “as long as the dough is not too wet,” as well as encouragement, “nice and tender and light.” Both comments are immediately practical and specific.

I recognized my error, but I persevered and shared my results:

And bam:

There’s the positive reinforcement. MJ recognized my effort with a specific compliment, “I love the pink color,” and she also nudged me further and gave me next steps with “just a little cream on the side.”

Then, she gave me this Lucy-Calkins-esque “off you go” statement:

Finally, as I was typing this post up, surprised that just three tweets could have such a huge impact on my baking experience, I realized the last key to this effective conference was that MJ kept it brief.

Here are my scones!

Where do you find conferring moments in your extracurricular activities?

Book of the Week: The First Story Ever Told

Every Monday, I highlight a book from our school bookroom along with lesson plan suggestions. I hope you find this useful, and please leave a comment with any suggestions or additions!

The First Story Ever Told, by Eric Jendresen and Alberto Villoldo

The legend is told as a story within a story, with Grandmother Fire visiting a modern-era explorer in a dream to share with him the first story ever told.

The story-within-a-story structure is elegant, but I’ve received feedback from 3rd grade teachers that it’s a lot more effective if you read the book at least twice with students.

Anyway, the lesson of the story is basically not to spend your life looking for one mythical place, because what matters most is the journey that you took along the way.

If you know me, then you know that I believe “Ithaca” is the most brilliant, lyrical poem ever written. Toby and I had it read at our wedding. And if you think your students are ready for it, it might be a great companion to this book. Listen to James Bond read it here:

The Wildwood third grade team (2012-13) used this book as a mentor text during the launch of Daily 5/CAFE, so you can talk with any of them if you’d like feedback.

There is a CAFE menu included with this mentor text, and I’ve highlighted these as suggested lessons:

Bulleted list begins. Then tell about the strategy

Bulleted list begins. Then tell about the strategy

Bulleted list begins. Then tell about the strategy

Bulleted list begins. Then tell about the strategy

Please add any lessons or supplemental materials to the book bag so future teachers can utilize your good thinking!

Comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed. Please let me know if these lessons were useful in your class!

###

Ms. Koyama’s Classroom Library

This summer I undertook an enormous project with an inspirational, equity-focused, growth-mindset colleague. We labeled, organized, catalogued, and PIMPED OUT all the books in her classroom library.

I say “all.” When I say “all” I mean “on the way to all.” She has a bazillion books, many acquired from a retired teacher, and we’ve still got a dozen or so boxes that we’re continuing to process.

This is me with Ms. Emily Koyama, taking a break from crazy room setup at the end of the summer. Emily inherited a mess of a room, through no fault of its most recent inhabitants (the talented and much-missed Shauna Iseri and Bree Howle). She was hired three days before students came to Wildwood in September 2011 and signed a one-year temporary contract, so she wasn’t really at liberty to clear out the room.

So she had books. They were everywhere. And yet nowhere at the same time, because they weren’t effectively getting into kids’ hands.

Emily is a strong woman. She isn’t afraid of big change. Or big projects. Or insanity. So this summer, we decided to give her library a makeover.

First we needed to know which books were hers. We put her name in every book. All of them. Hundreds of them. We recruited students. We returned missing library books to the school library (oops) and borrowed books to their rightful owners (oops).

We had a bajillion piles. Here’s what Emily’s room looked like. Sort of. A visual for the tl;dr crowd.

We had an assembly line.

1. Books lived here when they weren’t ready for any of the following steps because they needed their hardcover dust jackets laminated. We’re poor. We didn’t have book covers. So we laminated them. And then taped them on.

2. Here were the books that needed old owner’s name crossed out and Ms. Koyama’s name added. Neatly. Legibly. Kids get super excited to help and before long, you can’t read anything. Or spine labels are stuck on the wrong side and the books are taped closed. So, as always, setting expectations and creating exemplars is critical.

3. Books stayed here until one of us could find the AR level. Now. Before you scream at me, Wildwood uses AR. Although I admit that it’s a flawed system, I see NO PROBLEM in giving kids ONE tool to help them zero in on POTENTIAL good-fit books.

4. Books that were already leveled and taped (or didn’t have an AR level) waited here for Emily to enter the ISBNs into Booksource.

5. Books sat on a table off to the side while they waited for AR tape.

6. After everything was labeled and catalogued, I sorted the books by genre, series, or author.

Finally, we made book basket labels, numbered the backs of the books so they matched their corresponding baskets, and straightened everything up!

One wall of books.
Closeup of book buckets.

For a more detailed(!) account of setting up a classroom library, check out my sweet five-part series, culminating in a tour.

Classroom Library Instructional Series
Part 1: Supplies
Part 2: Getting Started
Part 3: Filling the Shelves
Part 4: Library Upkeep
Part 5: Adding to Your Collection

Classroom Library Tour

Oh, also, I just rediscovered this tip video for library book sales.

Phew. What have you found that works in your classroom library streamlining process?

Reader’s Workshop Trading Cards

I recently led a mini-PD on reader’s workshop for my district’s new highly capable teachers. I was concerned about making the material relevant for them, as I knew they were already familiar with a five component model of literacy instruction.

I also know that personally, when I receive a handout on white paper, it will get lost. If it’s hole punched, that chance is reduced by about 30%. So I try to make sure any information I give out is either on nonstandard-sized paper or is on colored paper.

Back when I did SFA, I shamelessly bribed my students into being interested in texts they’d already read 289365 times by making and handing out trading cards related to the books they were studying. So the day before the HCAP training, inspiration struck! Literacy resource trading cards!

The document is available here: HCPguidedreading

They’re not the most beautiful cards ever, but they suited my purposes just fine. I was also able to use them as a mini-assessment when I asked teachers to hold up the card they were most excited about using and a card that didn’t strike them as particularly useful.

Let me know if these were helpful! Comments make me smile.

Book of the Week: Red-Eyed Tree Frog

Every Monday, I highlight a book from our school bookroom along with lesson plan suggestions. I hope you find this useful, and please leave a comment with any suggestions or additions!

Red-Eyed Tree Frog, by Joy Cowley

Nic Bishop is a brilliant photographer. Joy Cowley does a nice job of using pretty basic text to create a quick narrative of a tree frog’s day. There aren’t any text features, but there is a “Did You Know?” section in the back.

There’s an !OFFICIAL! FWPS lesson plan around main idea and details included in the bag. It focuses on activating prior knowledge.

I love everything Anita Silvey does, and you should definitely check out her Red-Eyed Tree Frog essay.

If you yearn for the days of scripted minute-by-minute lesson plans, this might be right for you.

Additionally, there’s some extra content available on Houghton Mifflin’s website.

There is a CAFE menu included with this mentor text, and I’ve highlighted these as suggested lessons:

  • Use main idea and supporting details to determine importance. As mentioned above, there’s a pre-designed FWPS lesson plan for this in the book bag. You might also talk about how nonfiction books are sometimes intended to be read out of linear order — for example, reading the Did You Know section at the end of the book first won’t spoil the story like it would if a fiction book were being read.

  • Cross checking… Do the pictures and/or words look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? Because the comprehension lesson is about activating prior knowledge, this might be an opportunity to explain a time when cross-checking might NOT work. If a student has never seen or heard the word “katydid,” for example, no matter how many times they look at the text and picture, it won’t magically make sense.
  • Flip the sounds. There’s a point where the frog is stalked by a “hungry boa snake.” If students pronounced the word correctly on the first try, ask how they knew they didn’t need to try flipping the sound first. Explain that as they become better readers with more strategies, the slower, more cumbersome strategies like flipping the sound won’t be as critical for them on a regular basis.

Please add any lessons or supplemental materials to the book bag so future teachers can utilize your good thinking!

Comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed. Please let me know if these lessons were useful in your class!

###

Book of the Week: Annie and the Wild Animals

Every Monday, I highlight a book from our school bookroom along with lesson plan suggestions. I hope you find this useful, and please leave a comment with any suggestions or additions!

Annie and the Wild Animals, by Jan Brett

Before you get started on anything Jan Brett related, you’ve got to stop whatever you’re doing and go straight to visit Mrs. Eltrich or Mrs. Burn. They’ve put together a pretty fabulous Jan Brett author’s study that might be useful.This book has post-its with open-ended questions attached to several pages to use during reading.

This book was originally paired with Caldecott-winning book The Big Snow, but that text hasn’t been added to the mentor text library as of this posting.

You can see Annie and the Wild Animals read aloud here:

I’m pretty impressed with the literature guide here. I honestly don’t know that there’s much I can add beyond that!

There is a CAFE menu included with this mentor text, and I’ve highlighted these as suggested lessons:

  • Compare and contrast within and between text. Spoiler alert! Annie’s cat has kittens. In the past, before Bob Barker’s daily reminders to spay and neuter our four-legged friends, this text might have been a great one to make predictions and confirm them at the end. Older students can discuss how the book would be different now that it’s nearly thirty years after it’s been written.
  • Infer and support with evidence. This strategy could be used regardless of whether students predicted Taffy would have kittens or not. If few or no students are familiar with the signs of a cat about to have kittens, it’s a great opportunity for a discussion of how difficult it is to infer if you don’t have much prior knowledge and how important it is to have heightened awareness of the world around us. If students DO pick up on the signs of Taffy’s pending delivery, proceed with a regular inference lesson.

  • Ample easy reading. If students have read this book (perhaps with Mrs. Eltrich or Mrs. Burn! :)), remind them that in a book as complex and detailed as Annie and the Wild Animals, there’s plenty to return to and explore, particularly if they first discovered the book a year or two ago.

  • Ask someone to define the word for you. Mrs. Eltrich has already printed out vocabulary cards for several challenging or uncommon words in the text. Talk with students about how if you know a word is particularly unusual and you don’t anticipate many will know it, you choose to give them the word ahead of time.

Please add any lessons or supplemental materials to the book bag so future teachers can utilize your good thinking!

Comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed. Please let me know if these lessons were useful in your class!

###

Book of the Week: I Wonder… About the Sky

 

Every Monday, I highlight a book from our school bookroom along with lesson plan suggestions. I hope you find this useful, and please leave a comment with any suggestions or additions!

I Wonder… About the Sky, by Enid Field

This is an older book, and it seems like it’s out of print, but our bookroom has a copy, so let’s go with it. I think it can anchor a couple of pretty critical thinking skills. Consider pairing it with one of these resources:

Wonderopolis. The name pretty much speaks for itself.

I Wonder Why… New series on our local NPR station.

There is a CAFE menu included with this mentor text, and I’ve highlighted these as suggested lessons:

  • Ask questions throughout the reading process. This is pretty self-explanatory. The entire book starts with “I wonder…” and then some element about the sky or weather. For example: 
  • Predict what will happen, use text to confirm. I notice that often when I make KWL charts with my students, we neglect to follow up on them. (whoops) Consider copying a few of the pages, posting them around the classroom (or the hallway — the photographs are pretty neat), then letting students add answers or new learning as they find them.

Please add any lessons or supplemental materials to the book bag so future teachers can utilize your good thinking!

Comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed. Please let me know if these lessons were useful in your class!

###

Book of the Week: The Judge

Every Monday, I highlight a book from our school bookroom along with lesson plan suggestions. I hope you find this useful, and please leave a comment with any suggestions or additions!

The Judge, by Harve Zemach

Cumulative stories are one of the six main types of predictable books, perfect for early readers. Apparently, “children get comfort from repetition,” although I can’t put my finger on the official research-y studies to back this up. This one offers some insight.

I’ve been thinking a lot about cumulative stories. Why they’re so catchy, why they’re so timeless, and why the Caldcott committees seem to ADORE them (Drummer Hoff, House in the Night). This isn’t limited to just their selections of the Caldecott medal winners, as evidenced by this week’s honor book. The Judge follows a pompous counsel as he rejects the excuses and warnings of a creature whose eyes are scary, tail is hairy, etc. etc.

There is a CAFE menu included with this mentor text, and I’ve highlighted these as suggested lessons:

Please add any lessons or supplemental materials to the book bag so future teachers can utilize your good thinking!

Comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed. Please let me know if these lessons were useful in your class!

###

Book of the Week: No Problem

Every Monday, I highlight a book from our school bookroom along with lesson plan suggestions. I hope you find this useful, and please leave a comment with any suggestions or additions!

No Problem, by Eileen Browne

You can see a preview of No Problem on Google Books.

Start typing here

There is a CAFE menu included with this mentor text, and I’ve highlighted these as suggested lessons:

  • Make a picture or mental image. Part of the trouble the characters in No Problem run into is that they’ve never seen the contraption they’re supposed to be building. Talk with students about how they’re being alert in their readerly lives so they can continue to build their schema, which is particularly critical for our students in poverty.
  • Ask questions throughout the reading process. The author and illustrator made some deliberate choices in how they placed text in this book. It reminds me of the way David Wiesner shows movement over three panels in a row. Why did the author/illustrator make these choices? I’ve been thinking that some of the panels make the text look like an instruction manual, but I wonder what students think?
  • Use text features (titles, headings, captions, graphic features). Related to the mini-lesson above, you could discuss the position of text in a fiction book versus a nonfiction piece, such as an instruction manual. Here’s an excerpt of a Flip Camera instruction guide to use as a comparison. A copy of this is included in the No Problem book bag. Not satisfied with that example? Head over to Manuals Online until you find exactly what you’re looking for.

Please add any lessons or supplemental materials to the book bag so future teachers can utilize your good thinking!

Comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed. Please let me know if these lessons were useful in your class!

###

Author’s Purpose Performance Task

Wildwood’s literary focus of November and December is author’s purpose, so I used some of the ideas I got from our district’s Standards-Based Assessment team.

For the fiction task, students are picture book publishers trying to convince elementary school teachers to purchase books for their lessons. For the nonfiction task, students are interns at National Geographic trying to score a top photographer to shoot images for a new nonfiction text. Students have a variety of ways to show their understanding of both the surface-level author’s purpose as well as their deeper themes or messages.

I designed this assessment for my 2nd/3rd GATE class, but I think it could be modified for 4th and 5th grade just by changing the text grade levels. I’m basing the end-of-the-year Fountas & Pinnell grade levels off district standards, with an eye toward our future adoption of Common Core Standards. If your students aren’t ready to be assessed at the end-of-the-year reading level, no worries — just give them more appropriate texts.

Here are the books I’m using for the fiction task. I picked books we had multiple copies of in our school library, so I could get a few extra copies checked out from the public library and then have enough for my whole class.

2nd (Guided Reading Level L-M)

  • Alexander, who’s not (do you hear me? I mean it!) going to move, Judith Viorst (M)
  • Barn Dance!, Bill Martin (L)
  • A Chair for my Mother, Vera B. Williams (M)
  • Cinderella’s Rat, Susan Meddaugh (L)
  • Galimoto, Karen Lynn Williams (M)

3rd (Guided Reading Level O-P)

  • Animal Snackers, Betsy Lewin (O)
  • A Bad Case of Stripes, David Shannon (P)
  • Legend of the Bluebonnet, Tomie DePaola (O)
  • Mrs. Katz and Tush, Patricia Polacco (P)
  • Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt, Lisa Campbell Ernst (P)

4th grade would use level S-T, and 5th grade would use U-V.

There are rubrics included with both the fiction and the nonfiction tasks. Download and enjoy; I always appreciate comments and feedback!

Author’s Purpose Fiction Performance Task — Book Publisher

Author’s Purpose Nonfiction Performance Task — National Geographic