Book Club

In order to get more of the class up to grade level, I've revamped my Workshop time. Now I have all the children split up into four ability groups. The high kids (the ones who are already past where they need to be by the end of first grade) are doing independent work, while the rest of the class rotates around three stations. Each station is run by a teacher or a parent helper. Every station is doing some sort of reading activity/game. I really like this change, because it is helping boost the lower children up to where they need to be. I have a ton of activities for the rotating groups, but struggled finding things for the higher kids. They can only do so much reading/taking AR tests. That being said, I was thrilled to find Mrs. Bates' idea for book club packets. I decided these would be fun for the high kids to do together. Our school didn't have any of the books she posted, so I made a packet for a Junie B. Jones book. Our library has a class set of these, so each child will be able to have their own copy to use. And of course, they all LOVE Junie B. Jones books! I can't wait to introduce it to them. Thanks for the great idea, Mrs. Bates!

Junie B. Jones Is Not A Crook

12 comments

Jenn Bates said...

Thanks for the shout-out. You are welcome! :-) You did a great job. I got my books with points from Scholastic. I don't have enough copies of this Junie B but I'll see what I can scrape up to try this one next. THANKS!!
Jenn Bates
http://finallyinfirst.blogspot.com/

Brandy said...

Go here: http://notjustchildsplay.blogspot.com/

This blog is by a 1st grade teacher who teaches gifted/talented children. She comes up with great ways to challenge minds. I'm sure she could offer you some ideas. She seems very passionate about GT/highly academic children.

I used to do book clubs when I taught. I loved them. I did them different ways, but the way that worked the best in my classroom was this. There were several jobs in each group: travel tracker (kept up with the setting of the book), illustrator (illustrated key parts of the story), word smith (found new/interesting words to look up and define), discussion director (created questions about the days reading), summarizer (summarizes) and connector (made connections like text to self or text to text). Anyway, you can add more jobs or fit the listed ones to whatever you are studying. When we studied synonyms the word smith focused on that. When we studied inferences the discussion director worked on that. You get the idea. I created pages that I stapled into little workbooks that they kept during the duration of the book. Sometimes I let them switch jobs each day they met and other times they kept the same job through the whole book When the group finished reading the assigned part for the day and completed the work, they met together to share what they had done. Another thing I loved about it was that it was so flexible. The illustrator can use different mediums to create their art. You can assign special kinds of words to look for (like homophones or contractions) for the wordsmith to look for. The travel tracker can find real places on maps or create a fictional map. The summarizer can act out the most important parts. So much to do! Can you tell I love book clubs?! LOL!

I can't wait to look at what Ms. Bates has created. Thanks for the link! (and sorry this is so long)

Lindsey said...

what a cute blog you have here!!

btw, i have a lot of friends who went to byu-i... but i stayed here in ut!

-lindsey
http://theteacherwife.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your new book club ideas! I would love to learn more about what you do in your stations... I am trying to find new ways to help my struggling readers. :)

Thanks!
Lindsey
lindseyadp@yahoo.com

Chanty said...

Hi! I know this is completely off topic with what you posted but I am not sure yet how to send emails on the blog website. I'm new to blogging and I saw your blog and noticed that you used shabbyblogs to create your background. I used the same website but I am having a problem loading the background all the way to the top behind my header. If you go to my blog you'll see what I mean, I can't get the polka-dot background to reach all the way to the top behind my title. I would really appreciate it if you could explain to me what you deleted or added to your html code to get your background to cover the entire page. Thank you so very much for your help in advance. :)

www.theteachingbug.blogspot.com

Janae said...

For my three reading groups, I do various levels of these main activities:

-fry phrases
-blending
-dictation
-sailboat reading
-SWAT!
-BANG!
-word sorts
-decodable books
-around the world
-phonics board games
-bingo
-games made from www.fcrr.org

Feel free to email me with anymore questions! :)

janaevanorman@gmail.com

Ms. Morgart said...

This is wonderful! Thank you!
Curls and a Smile

Learning with Mrs. Parker said...

I awarded you the Stylish Blogger Award. Thanks for inspiring others.

www.learningwithmrsparker.blogspot.com

Ms.M said...

I too named you a stylish blogger on my blog. Go check it out for details.

Ms. M
www.msk1ell.blogspot.com

kinderpond said...

I don't do guided reading per say that everyone reads the same book. I have two reading groups that meet in my room at one time. We gather teachers at one time to do reading groups, so we all have small reading group number. My top group does a guided reading by self-selection books from the author bin. Here is my post about it: http://kinderpond.blogspot.com/2011/01/author-studies.html

They love to do this.

Here is my reading block schedule:

groups enter and work on blue books- worksheets that cover different reading topics

then we gather together and brainstorm word chunks from Deanna Jump

then I teach them a Cafe strategy

Then I send the top group to practice the Cafe strategy. My other group we do the tradtional choral read- but we also look for razzle razzle words, and word chunks :)

Jennifer

Hi, I'm Harmony said...

I've given you the Stylish Blogger Award!

Click on over to my blog to check it out.

~Mrs. Beck

Mrs. Beck's Got CLASS!

Unknown said...

I am awarding you the stylish blogger award! Thanks for sharing so many wonderful ideas!

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1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
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