Books Bloggers Love {October Edition}

Welcome to the October edition of Books Bloggers Love! Here's a little preview of all the books my blogger friends have written about this month.

I just want to say admit that I might have chosen this book partly because the spider is saying "howdy." I mean, seriously y'all. My Texan heart was won before I even opened the cover!

I love this book for so many reasons. I like that it's an informational text about spiders but doesn't look like the typical expository kind. My students always struggle with identifying texts that look like they would be fiction but are actually non-fiction.

This will be a great book to use in writer's workshop as well. It is full of speech bubbles and large fonts, something I want to encourage my students to use more of in their writing this year. 

Can I be honest here for a sec? You know when you go to a kid's movie and the writers throw in a line here and there that the kids laugh at but have no idea what they really mean because it was really meant for the adults in the audience? (< --- Sorry for that insanely long run on sentence.) This book has a couple moments like that in here that made me giggle. Teachers need to have a little fun too, right?? 

Before you head off to read more of the posts, I want to let everyone know that this is the last month for me in the Books Bloggers Love linky. I have some personal goals outside of teaching I will be spending my free time pursuing. I will certainly still be supporting these wonderful ladies every month (and you'll just love my replacement- but you'll have to read the November editions to find out who it is!). 

Follow Stephanie's board Books Bloggers Love on Pinterest. 

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Leave a Comment books bloggers love, halloween, insects, october, read alouds, response to literature, spiders

Books Bloggers Love {September}

It's time for another edition of Books Bloggers Love, brought to you by all the wonderful bloggers below. We hope you get some more great ideas for your classroom and hopefully win some books in the process!

Since the beginning of Kindergarten is all things alphabet, letters and sounds, I chose this popular book by Lois Ehlert.

First, I usually just read through the book, pointing out all the different foods and occasionally asking students if they'd ever eaten any of them. Some of their reactions are quite hilarious!

Then we go back and create an anchor chart sort of like this, using one food for each letter (trust me, my illustrations don't come CLOSE to these). I will incorporate some interactive writing with this and have students write the upper and lowercase letters on the chart (with help of course).

How can you read a book about food and NOT eat any? I'll bring in several different foods from the book for the kids to sample (I always check for any food allergies and get permission from parents first). 

I'll have students write letters on index cards, spread them out around the room and then have them help me sort the food according to its beginning letter. After sorting, we eat!

To incorporate some math, I'll choose 3 or 4 of the foods we sampled and we'll vote on which one we like the best. Then we'll analyze the graph together. 

There are so many activities you could do with this book but these are just a few!

Here's your chance to win some books! This month, Jessica from The Teacher Talk, Meredith from Creativity to the Core, Jen from Sparkling in Second and Emily from Third in Hollywood, are giving away a copy of each of their books! Just fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter. As always, good luck!

Stephanie has also created a Pinterest board dedicated to all the books we love, so make sure to follow!

Follow Stephanie's board Books Bloggers Love on Pinterest.

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1 comment alphabet, books bloggers love, letters, read alouds, response to literature, sounds

Books Bloggers Love {August}

I'm so excited to be teaming up with some of the best teacher bloggers out there to bring you this brand new monthly linky, Books Bloggers Love. Check out all these amazing bloggers who are contributing!

Instead of choosing one of my go-to picture books I use during the first week of school, I decided to share something I'm going to try next year.

 In years past, I've had the tradition of reading one chapter of an age appropriate chapter book to my Kinders at the end of the day. Ok, confession- it's always been Junie B. Jones, since I have so many of those. But this past year I read the first Magic Tree House book to my class (it was the first time I'd ever read one too). I know, I know, "Where have you been?!" you say. 

They absolutely LOVED it! When I thought back to the reactions from my classes when reading Junie B. and compared them to those when reading Magic Tree House, I realized I had the attention of a higher percentage of my class (boys AND girls) for a higher percentage of time. 

This year my goal is to read one Magic Tree House book per week, two chapters a day. I want to really maximize the learning my students get out of this so I created my first (of what I hope to be many) Magic Tree House unit. 

One of the most important things we as teachers do is reflect on and analyze student data, then make a plan on how to improve said data. One of my students' weakness last year was comprehension--they knew a ton of sight words and were great at decoding but couldn't retell a story to save my life. I'm hoping this new, yet quick, activity will help this coming year's class start strengthening their comprehension skills- right from the first week. 

In my unit, there are comprehension questions for each chapter, two chapters at a time, since they are pretty short and easy reads. I've also included a visualization activity for every two chapters as well, as that is another skill I want to focus on more next year. 

Click HERE for a free sample of my unit (the sample is in the preview download in my TpT store). It covers the first two chapters of the first Magic Tree House book, Dinosaurs Before Dark. I'll have my unit on sale until Friday!

Now the best part! You can WIN a copy of Dinosaurs Before Dark, as well as a copy of the books Stephanie from Mrs. D's Corner, Ashley from Teach Create Motivate and Amber from Peppy Zesty Teacherista have blogged about! All you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter below!

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Now go read all about the other books my friends have blogged about! Good luck and make sure to come back next month!

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3 comments back to school, books bloggers love, BOY, read alouds, response to literature