5 Reasons to Flip Your Math Class

Of all the subjects, math is probably my favorite to teach. But it is definitely not easy. By the time students are in fourth grade, there's often a wide range of abilities. Last year, I had students who could barely add and subtract and others who were working well beyond grade level. Trying to design lessons that worked for them was a real challenge. If I moved too quickly through the lesson, several students would get lost. If I moved too slowly, others would get bored and start causing different problems.

Then I attended the Georgia Educational Technology Conference and heard some sessions about flipped teaching, and a lightbulb went off.

If you're not already familiar with flipped teaching, the idea is that we need to "flip" the traditional way we teach -- lesson at school, practice problems at home as homework. Instead, students should watch a short video lesson as homework to prepare for class, and then the majority of class time is spent working on practice and application while I'm there to guide them.

I did this pretty consistently for the second half of the year, and I couldn't be happier with the results. There were so many advantages.

1. Students became more confident.

For some kids, math can be intimidating. Everyone works at different speeds. What may be an obvious concept for one kid may take multiple explanations for another. There's lots of vocabulary and room for mistakes, and when you feel like other kids are getting it faster than you, your confidence suffers.

All of this went away when I flipped.

Students were watching the videos at home on their own. No one knew whether they needed to replay something a couple of times until they got it. No one knew that they had to pause the video for 5 minutes to try a problem that others would have solved in 30 seconds. They could all work at their own pace, and they came to class more confident and prepared for practice the following day. The attitude shift in my students this year was reason enough for me to continue flipping.

2. Parents were less stressed.

There have been so many times when I've heard parents complain about math or express their discomfort in helping their child because they weren't taught math the way we teach it now. And I get that. I remember thinking in my math methods courses that I could have been great at math if someone had explained it to me better as a child rather than having me memorize algorithms.

Having the flipped model created allies from a lot of math-hating parents. Some would watch the videos along with their children and have those lightbulb moments where concepts and strategies would suddenly make sense. Others expressed a sense of relief that they didn't have to worry about "undoing" the things we were doing in the classroom by just jumping to the standard algorithms. We were all more comfortable with the math.

3. I had more time to see what students could actually do.

While I always tried to keep my in-class mini-lessons short, there were days when they would drag on because some kids just weren't getting it. By the time I felt confident they could try some problems on their own, we hardly had any time left. And by the time they got home to do it as homework, they'd forgotten what we'd spent the morning talking about, so they were back to square one.

Now that I've flipped, I only need 5-10 minutes maximum at the beginning of my math block to do anything whole group. I spend that time answering questions, clarifying any misconceptions, and checking the 1-2 practice problems that I typically include at the end of the video. The rest of my math block was then spent working with small groups, conferring with kids, and getting into richer practice and problem solving than I could ever fit in before.

I also didn't have to worry about students getting the right answers only when their parents "helped" them. When it came time for assessments, I had a much better sense of where my students were at and what to expect from them because I was more deeply involved in their learning.

4. I didn't have to worry when we had a sub. 

In the past, I would write off sub days as lost instructional time when it came to math. Now that I've flipped, that is no longer the case. I include a link to the video I've created in my sub plans, and I have the sub watch the video with the class again to start the lesson. Usually that gives the sub enough background knowledge to help with the learning task, and my students have enough scaffolding from my instruction that they can work through the practice. It made those lost days so much more productive.

This year, I will be on maternity leave for 12 weeks, so I'm nervous about what will happen with my kids while I'm gone. But I'm less nervous about the math because I already have videos made for most of those lessons from last year. My students will have continuity in math instruction because of it.

5. Students were more successful and could tackle bigger challenges.

Last year was my best year ever as far as student performance on end-of-year assessments and benchmarks. I think a big part of that can be attributed to the move toward a flipped model for math. My students had more time and confidence to master the fourth grade standards, and as a result, I was easily able to push them into bigger challenges. When I surveyed the students mid-year about the flipped model, their responses were overwhelmingly positive in support of it, and I knew it was something I need to continue in the years ahead.

Next Steps

This will be the first year that I use the flipped model for the whole year, so I will need to prepare more video lessons and give some thought to how I'll transition my students (and their parents) toward this model. In the weeks ahead, I plan to share more about the tools I use to create flipped lessons and some troubleshooting tips for problems that might come up.

Now that I have some experience flipping, I'm going to go back and reread Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams. Jon was one of the speakers I saw at GaETC, and he's one of the founders of the flipped classroom movement. I read the book quickly as I started to flip, but I think there are more ideas to be pulled from it.

I'm also starting to think about other areas where I could flip instruction. One possibility might be some of the grammar, vocabulary, and word study components of my ELA block. I consistently struggle to fit everything in to that time, and flipping might be the answer. I've downloaded the book Flipping Your English Class to Reach All Learners: Strategies and Lesson Plans by Troy Cockrum, and I'm hoping that will give me some more inspiration.

Have you tried flipping any parts of your instruction? I'd love to hear more about your ideas and experiences in the comments!

The Best Text for Teaching How to Write and Revise Leads

My fourth graders hate revision. They're often offended by the mere suggestion that they hadn't nailed the perfect lead to their stories in their first draft.

I'm used to this. I see it every year in writer's workshop, especially at the beginning of the year when we're writing in a genre for the first time.

And every time I see this, I become more determined to break them of this thinking.

Today, we were working on the Common Core State Standard W.4.3a - Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.

My favorite story to use for this is standard -- especially with fourth graders -- is The Teacher's Funeral by Richard Peck.

This book, set in a small Indiana town with a one-room schoolhouse, has the best opening line of a children's book ever.

If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it. 

Richard Peck keeps it going from there, building an incredible introduction. You can read the entire first chapter here.

Today, I started our writing lesson by reading this chapter to them. I have the Kindle edition of the book, so when I read it, I can project it on our ActivBoard so the students can follow along as I read. They laughed throughout the intro and were immediately hooked, begging me to choose this as our next chapter book read-aloud. Score one for the objective of "hooking your readers!"

I then asked them how many of them thought that introduction was the one that was in the first draft of his book.

One or two hands went up.

Richard Peck shared in an article called "In the Beginning" (Horn Book Magazine, September 2006, pp. 505-508) that it normally takes him 24 drafts of his lead before he's happy with it. TWENTY-FOUR!

And here I'm asking my students to take a second pass at their writing.

I shared that little nugget with my students before we reread the first chapter. As we read if for a second time, we focused on the characteristics of his writing that made it such a great lead.

Here's what my students noticed, compiled into an anchor chart:

Once we finished the chart, I had them go back to a piece of writing they've been working on and try to write a different introduction. Some students tried changing the point of view, others jumped into the action or started with dialogue. Whatever the strategy, all of them managed to produce a new version of their introduction, and all were at least a little better than what they'd started with.

We'll get this revising thing down eventually...

What are some of your favorite books to use to teach students how to hook their readers? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Authors Are People, Too!

Oh, bloggy friends, I have missed you! This year is kicking my behind! I had high hopes that I'd still be blogging with great regularity this year, but alas...between my 28 awesome fourth graders, the start of my PhD, and my incredible two-year-old daughter, time is an oh-so-precious commodity. By the time my little one makes it to bed at night, I. am. wiped. out. And then I usually have textbooks to read and papers to write. But not today.

Today, I wanted to share with you the very awesome author visit we had at my school.

Granted, it's old news by now. It happened during the Decatur Book Festival on Labor Day weekend, which, by the way, is one of the coolest things you can do in the Atlanta area if you're ever here for Labor Day. But my experience was cool enough that I still wanted to share...four weeks later...

Every year as part of the book festival, 1 or 2 children's authors come and talk at our school. This year, the fourth graders got to listen to Chris Grabenstein. If you're not familiar with him, you should seriously run, not walk, but run to get his new book, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library.

This book is the story of Kyle Keeley, an avid game-player who wins a contest to spend the night in the new library built by master game-maker Luigi Lemoncello. As Kyle explores the library, however, he realizes that winning the contest was just the beginning, and a whole new game with high stakes, twists, and turns is starting. It reminds me a little of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Roald Dahl is just one of many authors referenced in the book. It's very clever, fast-paced, and entertaining. I started it as a read-aloud when we found out that Mr. Grabenstein was coming, and we seriously couldn't put it down. It was one of those books where I've had multiple students go out and buy it on their own because they couldn't handle waiting for us to read it in class. It's way up there on my recommendation list.

Mr. Grabenstein definitely inspired the students as writers. He shared a lot about his writing process, but his overall message was to just let it flow without editing yourself. To illustrate that, he modeled writing a story for the students. Prior to starting, he gathered 5-6 random words that students had written on sticky notes. He stuck those in his back pocket. Then, he projected a crazy picture.

He explained the difference between a protagonist and an antagonist, and he encouraged students to "Ask yourself, 'what if...?'" He said that there are always a few questions you need to think about when planning a story.

• Who is this guy?
• What does he want?
• Where is he?
• Who wants to stop him?
• Why?

He then took student suggestions to answer those questions and plan his story.

Next, he had students come up with a starting sentence: "My face hurts," and an ending sentence: "He ate radioactive iridium isotopes" so we would know when his story was starting and ending. And then he just started telling the story. It was hilarious! At various points throughout the story, he would pretend to be stuck and pull a word out of his back pocket, and no matter what it was, he just rolled with it. He has a background in improv comedy, so I suspect that helps. Still, it really hit home the message that you shouldn't censor yourself while you're drafting -- you can always go back and change things later if you need to. When you're drafting, you should just let it flow to wherever creative place you're led. 

 We were pretty inspired by his presentation, and we went back to the classroom to a) write, and b) read more of his book. The kids were so excited! We were totally unprepared, however, when he came into our classroom about an hour later. (So unprepared, in fact, that some of my students were still working on their vocabulary tests on Spelling City!) 

Usually when authors have come to our school, they've given their presentations, signed a few books, and then split. Mr. Grabenstein went above and beyond, happy to spend his day engaging with the kids and taking an interest in what they were doing. They barraged him with questions, and he answered openly and honestly, encouraging the kids the whole time. Needless to say, Mr. Grabenstein has secured quite a fan base in Eberopolis.

In the weeks since his visit, we've had countless conversations in writing about some of the little tidbits Mr. Grabenstein shared with us, but more than anything, I loved that my students got a chance to see that authors are real people, too. They have good ideas and bad, writer's block and inner editors just like the rest of us. But they power through those hurdles, and we get some fantastic books as a result.

Thank you for visiting us, Mr. Grabenstein. It was definitely a highlight in our year.

Word Nerds Book Study - Chapter 7

By the time you read this, I will be officially back to work.

Yes, you read that correctly. My preplanning started today, and I will have students in my classroom on August 1st.

I've been super-busy preparing my classroom and wrapping up summer projects (and lamenting the number of projects that I never even got started). I'm looking forward to sharing more about that in the next couple of weeks. Today, however, I'm excited to participate in the book study of Word Nerds. This book study is being hosted by Sabra at Teaching with a Touch of Twang, and I would definitely encourage you to check out the previous posts at her blog and link up. This is a fantastic book for improving vocabulary instruction.

Chapter 7 - Spreading Vocabulary Wings

This chapter is all about additional classroom activities that can enhance students' vocabulary understandings. The authors make a few key recommendations.

1. Extend Vocabulary Through Morphology

Encouraging students to analyze affixes and roots can build their confidence as they tackle more multisyllabic words. Start with the most common prefixes (un-, re-, dis-, etc.) and build from there. Once students have experienced a few weeks of studying Greek and Latin roots, they can participate in a "Crystal Ball Word" activity in which they look closely at a word's morphology to predict its meaning. For example, with the word "transportation," students can break it up into "trans-," "port," and "-ation" and think of all the words that use the same prefix, root, or suffix. They discuss word connections as they make lists of related words, and from this one word, the students in the book were able to think of 41 words that share a similar morpheme! These sorts of word attack strategies are valuable to students as they tackle new vocabulary on their own.

2. Connect Background Knowledge and Facilitate Comprehension

Drawing on the comprehension strategies of making connections, this section highlights how important it is for students to be able to have a variety of experiences with words when they're trying to make sense of a complex text. For example, as students are attempting to make inferences from the text, they should be explicitly coached to add vocabulary words to make connections based on clues from the text and the student's background knowledge. This gives students an opportunity to practice using the new vocabulary and adds additional layers of meaning to the words they're learning. This could be an especially useful practice if you're trying to connect literature with content vocabulary. The example in the book highlights how some relevant social studies vocabulary (immigrant, culture, destination, etc) could be applied and connected to the book Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say.

3. Extend Vocabulary Development with Children's Literature
Picture books, with their shorter texts, less complicated plots, and amazing artwork, can be tremendous resources for teaching reading strategies. The authors highlight why this is also true for vocabulary instruction, and they highlighted several vocabulary-rich children's books that could be used. Here are a few of my favorites:

Pirate Pete's Talk Like a Pirate by Kim Kennedy tells the tale of a pirate who is looking to build a crew. But while Pirate Pete talks in "aargh's" and plank-walking language, the rascals he's recruiting talk in very sophisticated sentences with eloquent vocabularies. This may be used as a metaphor for how we want to elevate our students' writing and speaking away from "pirate-talk" and into the more elevated words of the rascals. Students practice revising sentences from pirate sentences into rascal sentences, and after several days of study, students can have a "Pirate Party" where they compete to "Talk Like a Rascal."

13 Words by Lemony Snicket takes 13 seemingly unrelated words and interweaves them into an amusing story. This could be a template for a student writing assignment which would require students to select 13 unrelated content vocabulary words and tie them into a story in the style of Lemony Snicket. I'm looking forward to trying this activity with my own students.

Baloney (Henry P.) by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith tells the tale of a boy in space who is late for school and needs to come up with an excuse for his teacher. As he describes his adventures, he inserts a bunch of words that sound like nonsense words (szkola, zimulis, etc.), but they're actually words from different languages. This is a great book for introducing strategies for teaching context clues.

Max's Words by Kate Banks is a great story for building word consciousness among students. It tells the tale of a boy who begins collecting words cut out of magazines and newspapers. He eventually realizes he can rearrange the words into stories, and he becomes the envy of his siblings.

The Odious Ogre by Norton Juster tells the tale of an ogre who has an extensive vocabulary that he uses as he terrorizes the town. Given the number of multisyllabic words incorporated in the text, it could be easily incorporated into studies of Greek and Latin roots and morphemes.

Word Nerds has so many great suggestions for easy ways to incorporate vocabulary instruction. These books were just a few of the ones mentioned, so I would recommend reading this chapter for some additional ideas. And be sure to visit Teaching with a Touch of Twang for additional suggestions and insights in this fabulous book.

Back to pre-planning! Thanks for visiting!


Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and/or believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Math Resources for Teachers

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks! I went on a mini-vacation to a wedding in Nashville, and then I attended a 3-day workshop on The Role of Mathematics in the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. I think this is the summer of math learning for me! I love attending workshops because I almost always leave with new ideas and new resources to explore. Even if you don't work at an IB school, there were lots of useful resources worth exploring.

(Apologies in advance -- this will be a long post!)

Book Resources

A Mathematical Passage: Strategies for Promoting Inquiry in Grades 4-6

This book was featured because of it's Mathematician's Bill of Rights on p. 139. The Bill of Rights lists the "rights" that all mathematicians have -- things like "solve problems in ways that make sense to me" and "capitalize on mistakes as sites of learning." I'm definitely interested in reading more from this book. I've read other things by David J. Whitin before, and they've been great.

Math Matters: Understanding the Math You Teach Grades K-8

I had a chance to browse this book during the workshop, and it looks like a good one for understanding how to approach math conceptually. May not be the most exciting read in the world (would you look at that front cover?!), but it looks like a very useful book if you're going for an inquiry oriented math classroom.

Good Questions for Math Teaching

This book is great for creating open-ended questions that will really get students thinking about the math involved in problem solving rather than just looking for a specific answer. It uses questioning techniques to develop more sophisticated mathematical thinking, and it has a wealth of information.

Number Talks

I was a little surprised how many teachers at the workshop were already familiar with this book and using it given that I'm usually up on all the latest and greatest math books, but nevertheless, this book had rave reviews. Of all the books that I'm reading this summer, this is the one that I suspect will have the biggest impact on my teaching this August. I've really enjoyed reading it, and I have so many ideas about how I will put it into practice this year. If you haven't gotten it already, I couldn't recommend it more!

Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction

I know I've talked about this book before, but we spent a lot of time talking about open questions and parallel tasks at the workshop, so I had to share this book again. I used this book non-stop at the end of the school year, and I loved how it was so perfectly aligned to Common Core in math. It couldn't be more teacher-friendly.

Online Resources

Visible Thinking Routines

I've been introduced to the Visible Thinking Routines from Harvard's Project Zero before, but it was good to be reminded about them. These are some great activities to prompt student discussions and thinking. One example of this is "OTQ - Observe, Think, Question." For this activity, students see a picture and spend a few minutes describing what they see/observe. Anything they observe has to be rooted in the picture and not based on inferences. Step 2 is "Think" - what does this make you think about? This is where students can share their inferences and cite evidence in the picture to support why they think that. Finally, students "question" and share what they wonder about based on the picture. I like that these routines slow down student thinking.

Math Class Needs a Makeover

We watched this video in the workshop, and if you've never seen it, I highly recommend that you take the 10 minutes to watch Dan Meyer's TED Talk. In it, he talks about the problems with current approaches to math instruction -- largely fueled by larger textbooks and math programs -- and how to turn those materials into the types of problems that will challenge your students to become patient problem solvers. I was really inspired by this video, and I hope that you will be, too.

Have a great weekend! I'll be back to blogging more regularly next week!

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and/or believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

The Secret Knowledge of Fourth Graders

As I was reminded in reading all of the June Currently's, not everyone is on summer vacation yet. So for those of you who are not yet enjoying time off, I wanted to share a fun creative writing activity that works well for the end of the year.

One of my favorite books to share with students is The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups by David Wisniewski.

In this highly-entertaining book, Wisniewski takes several "rules" that children often hear -- like "eat your vegetables" -- and explains the real reason that rule exists. For example, we don't eat our vegetables because they make us healthy. The real reason we eat them is to stop them from rising up and taking over the world! Or, we don't brush our hair to help us look neat, we do it to stop the hair from growing back into our heads and crowding out our brains. The book is filled with hilarious examples and colorful illustrations that my students loved.

I read excerpts from this book over the course of a couple days, and several of my students looked at it in their free-time. We then set out to write our own examples for a class book entitled "The Secret Knowledge of Fourth Graders."

Here are some of the "rules" students wrote about:

• Why you need to read "Just Right Books"
• Why we use number 2 pencils on tests
• Why you can only check out 2 books from the library at a time
• Why we take AR tests
• Why it's important not to be tardy
• Why we return library books on time
• Why we have homework
• Why we use pencils instead of pens
• Why we don't bend the pages of a book
• Why we stack chairs at the end of the day
• Why we take standardized tests

The creativity in the "real" reasons why we do these things was fantastic. Here's an example from one of my students:

We wrote our final drafts on our iPads in Pages using the Visual Report template. That helped tremendously with the formatting.

I'm planning to share several of these examples with my students next year, and I will definitely do this activity again. My students enjoyed it so much that several of them were talking about making other "spin-off" books such as The Secret Knowledge of Minecraft Players or The Secret Knowledge of Readers. I'm sorry that I didn't get to see how those turned out as well.

If you've never read The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups, I highly recommend it. It's great for sparking creative writing ideas, and it can provide a fun writing activity in the late stages of the year.

What are some other school rules you can envision your students writing about? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments!

Number Talks Chapter 1 - Thumbs Up for the Silent Thumb

I'm linking up with my friend Misty over at Think, Wonder, & Teach for her summer book study of Number Talks: Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Strategies, Grades K-5

Given that I'm wrapping up a K-5 Math Endorsement this month, this is a timely book for me. I love to teach math far more than I ever anticipated that I would when I entered this profession, and I really enjoy getting students to share and discuss their mathematical thinking. I've noticed, however, that many students lack strong mental math and computation strategies, relying instead on memorization to get them by. By the time they get to 4th grade, that's not really a viable strategy anymore. They're starting to work with much larger numbers, and they subsequently have more parts and steps to keep straight in their heads. If they don't have great mental math strategies going, then it's likely to become a mess pretty quickly. They can always solve problems on paper, but unless they have the good number sense that goes with doing mental math, they'll never be able to gauge the reasonableness of their answers. In those regards, this book seems like a great idea.

Chapter 1 really just introduces the concept of a number talk, and Misty does a great job summarizing it, so I won't go into that here. One of my favorite teaching ideas from the book so far, however, was the idea of the "Silent Thumb." When students are given a mental math problem, they need some "think time." But every class has 2-3 students who are super math-letes who have the answer before the rest of the class has even processed what problem they're being asked to solve, and those kids with their proud "I know! I've got it!" hand-waving typically end up dominating the conversation. The "silent thumb" solves that problem. All students hold their hand in a fist over their chest as they solve the problem. When they've got an answer, they move their hand from a fist to a "thumbs up." They then think of another strategy to solve it while the other students are thinking, and for each additional strategy they come up with, they extend a finger. Awesome, right? I love how this gives all students some think time without creating pressure for some kids to hurry up because the fist is held close to the body -- not waved in the air for everyone else to see. It also validates those super math-letes for their mathematical thinking by allowing them to communicate to the teacher that they have multiple strategies for solving the problem. And if they don't have multiple strategies, then they have something to think about while the others are working.

I'm definitely interested in learning more about Number Talks, and I'm excited to delve into this book a bit more. I'll be posting more about this book in the weeks to come as I link up with Misty's book study.

If you don't currently have a copy of Number Talks, you can still read the first chapter online. The book is a little bit pricier than most professional development books, but it comes with a DVD full of examples and it has a lot of resources packed in the text. If you're looking to increase students' mental math abilities, then this could be a great resource to use.

Be sure to check out Misty's Number Talks chapter 1 linky party where you can add some ideas of your own or read what other teacher bloggers are saying about the book. I promise you'll find some great ideas there!

And click here to see my review of Chapter 2!

Have you ever done Number Talks in your classroom? I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments section!

Thanks for reading,

How to Organize your Summer Reading

Summer is the perfect time for me to make some progress on the massive stack of books that I accumulate throughout the year. You know that stack -- and if you're like me, that stack may have spawned offspring and multiplied into several stacks around the house. And given the number of summer book studies I keep reading about, I know the stack will continue to grow. Like last week, when I saw that Misty was going to read Number Talks, and I had to get the book.

Or this morning, when I read that Beth at Thinking of Teaching and Brenda at Primary Inspired are hosting a summer book study of Building Mathematical Comprehension: Using Literacy Strategies to Make Meaning by Laney Simmons. I want to read that, too!

With all that I'm currently reading, want to read, and have finished reading, I needed a way to keep track of all these awesome books. Then I remembered GoodReads (this is very distinct from the GoodReader app that I've blogged about before).

GoodReads is a social media site focused on reading. I first started using it in 2010 after I finished reading The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (if you haven't read this book, it is a must-read).

She referenced the site in the book, and I used it through my computer for quite a while. Eventually, as I got busier, I started using it less. I recently got an email update about a friend who was using it, however, and it reminded me that I should revisit the site. My how GoodReads has improved since I used it last! First, GoodReads has mobile apps now to help you keep your reading interests up-to-date.

Now, I'm not such a bibliophile that I need to give status updates of what I'm reading non-stop. But these mobile apps have a fabulous feature that I love: a scanner. (Here's the view of the app from my iPad. The iPhone version is very similar.)

The scanner allows you to scan the barcode on books and then add it to a virtual shelf. Your GoodReads account has 3 default shelves: read, currently reading, and to-read. Shelves are like tags, and you can create your own shelves based on topics or any other organization you'd like. Books can also be housed on multiple shelves at once.

I love using the scan feature to quickly organize the books that I'm reading or plan to read. Given the iPhone app, it's also a dangerous helpful feature when I go to bookstores and see books that I'd like to read someday. I just scan them in, and it pulls all sorts of data for me about reviews of the book, average rating of the book, page count, etc. For eBooks I've purchased that don't have a scannable barcode, I can also search by title or author.

In addition to using this to manage my summer reading, I expect to use this app more in my classroom library to inventory my collection, identify books that I've read or want to read, write recommendations for my students, and so on.

If you decide to give GoodReads a try, feel free to connect with me there. I'd love to connect with other teachers to see what others are reading.

What are some books that you're planning to read this summer? Any other ideas for ways to use this app? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments section, and I hope to connect with you on GoodReads!

Happy summer reading!

The One and Only Ivan

I try to read the Newbery Award winner each year, and this morning, I finished reading Katherine Applegate's beautiful story, The One and Only Ivan.

I knew very little about the story going into it, but a few of my colleagues had been raving about it, so I had high expectations. The story did not disappoint. The One and Only Ivan tells the tale of a western lowland gorilla who lives in a shopping mall as part of a circus-themed display. While he's close friends with a stray dog named Bob who has made his way into the mall and an elephant who is also part of the circus act, his life is largely characterized by loneliness. He's never really had the chance to live among other gorillas, and he realizes that he and his elephant friend, Ruby, deserve a better life than what's available in the shopping mall. It's a touching tale of love and understanding and the sometimes misguided ways we express that.

While most of the events in the story are completely fictitious, there was a real Ivan who lived in the B & I Department Store in Tacoma, WA for nearly thirty years before eventually being relocated to the Atlanta Zoo. I live in Atlanta, so I've seen Ivan a couple times, but he passed away last fall. You can learn more about the real Ivan at Zoo Atlanta's website. They also have this amazing YouTube video of Ivan at the Zoo.


I would highly recommend this book to teachers and students, but I have to give a warning if you're considering this as a read-aloud. I cried off-and-on for the last third of the story and went in to full-on sobbing mode when I finished the book. It was so touching and beautiful! Even though I know what's coming, I doubt I could hold it together in front of my students in a read-aloud. I'll probably introduce this in a book talk, but the students will have to read it independently from there. I should also point out that it's a very quick read. I'm a slow reader, but I was able to finish this in 2-3 hours.

If you haven't yet read The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, you should definitely give it a read. I promise you won't regret it.

What children's books have you been reading lately? I'd love some recommendations for next reads in the comments!

Favorite Read Alouds for the Start of the Year

I have finished my first six weeks of school. Six whole weeks! As in 1/6 of the school year! (Ok, technically, we are 3 days shy of that milestone because of starting school on a Wednesday and losing Monday to Labor Day, but our first grading period is over...). I am absolutely adoring my class this year, and I'm enjoying my job in a way that I haven't in a long time. Life is good in Eberopolis.

One of the highlights of the last 6 weeks was the read aloud that I chose for the beginning of the year. If you haven't already read Fake Mustache: Or How Jodie O'Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind by Tom Angleberger, then you are missing out on a real treat.

This is the story of a boy named Lenny and his best friend, Casper. Casper purchases a very real looking fake mustache -- the Heidelberg Handlebar Number Seven -- from Sven's Fair Price Store in downtown Hairsprinkle, and suddenly, the town erupts into chaos due to several strange happenings and criminal activities. Lenny quickly deduces that Casper's fake mustache is responsible, but he and teen TV sensation Jodie O'Rodeo are the only people who seem to be immune to the mustache's mind control. Will they be able to stop Casper from taking over the world? You'll have to read the book to find out!

The book was very witty and fast-paced with exceptionally short chapters (often 2-3 pages). It was the kind of book that I could pull out when we had only a minute or two to spare between transitions, and the students were constantly begging me to read more of it. If that's not the mark of a good read aloud, I don't know what is! I also liked it because the book unexpectedly changed narrators about half-way through, moving from Lenny's perspective to Jodie O'Rodeo's point of view. This led us to some great conversations about point of view, and segued nicely into our learning about Common Core RL.4.6. (Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations.)

Angleberger is also the author of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, and I got to see him speak at a book festival last weekend. Not surprisingly, his presentation was also very funny and kid-friendly, and I think he would be a great speaker for a school author visit.

Next term, I think I will read my all-time favorite children's book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. I have read the book several times, and without fail, I always choke up when I read the last chapter and the epilogue. I hate that I do that, but I can't resist sharing the book with my students. It's just such a beautiful story full of rich language and interesting characters, and it will work nicely with our focus on literary texts next term. If you haven't read that book, I would highly recommend it as well. I'm not a very fast reader, and the first time I read it, I finished it in one sitting. It was so good that I immediately insisted that my husband read it, and he never reads children's books. He gave in quickly and less than 2 hours later agreed that it was an amazing book.

What are some of your favorite read alouds at the beginning of the year? Please share in the comment section!

Weekend Reading - June 23, 2012

From the blogosphere...

I was about a month behind on my blog reading. It seems that the reading and writing go hand-in-hand for me, but I'm getting back in the groove of things. Here are some of my favorites from this week...

• Christi at Ms. Fultz's Corner had some great tips for dealing with classroom paper clutter. I'll definitely be using her "rainbow" idea when I go back to school.
• Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics shared her experiences with KidBlog -- one of my favorite tools for writing with students. 
• I'm completely jealous of the book sales available at Nancy's public library. She gives several other great tips for stocking the classroom library over at Teaching My Friends. 

From the bookshelves...

I'm giving a lot of thought to how I'm going to be teaching writing next year with the Common Core, and I'm pulling this book off my bookshelf.

I read it a long time ago, and it's time to revisit it. Hopefully it will give me some new ideas and inspiration to share next week. I'll also be attending a three-day conference about The Written Curriculum in International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. Who knows what creativity that will inspire?! :)

Have a great weekend!