The Best Laid Plans

After attending #cisdlitcamp, I had the best intentions of reading, blogging, and growing myself as a reader and writer in order to grow my learners in August. I was doing great at first- I was reading books, I wrote my first blog post in over a YEAR, and was doing research for my 2nd one... and then I got the call that my Grandpaw was in the ICU and it was unlikely that he was going to survive.

I took the first plane down to Houston on Friday, June 24, and was there for 2 weeks, until he passed away on July 5th, 2016. While I know one day I will feel ready to write about what happened, today is not that day.

My Grandpaw and I over Memorial Weekend

Today is just simply to say that I'm back and ready to dive back into the world of books and writing. 

While my summer hasn't gone exactly as planned, I did still go on my trip to San Francisco and Las Vegas! If you've never been to San Francisco, I highly recommend it! It's one of my favorite places!

Joe and I with Bay Bridge

Me in a Tree :-)

The PRETTIEST PLANT! IF you know what it is, LET ME KNOW! 

Cassie

Imogene's Last Stand by Candace Fleming

At our #CISDLitCamp, we have been given the opportunity to 'fall in love' with reading and writing again. Reading is NOT a problem. You tell me to read and I am ALL ABOUT IT. 

Writing, on the other hand, is HARD.  I am not the one that can just sit and start writing about anything just because I was told to. I enjoy a prompt, a picture, anything to spark an idea in my head. You can probably tell, since the last time I blogged was over a year ago. OOPS. 

So I figure why not combine the two and write about reading?

As a 4th grade educator, I am constantly reading books and thinking what I can teach my learners from a book. One book that I got to read today was Imogene's Last Stand by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. 

This is a story about Imogene, who is quite passionate about history, and how she stands up for the importance of history in her small town, Liddleville, when the mayor wants to tear down the Liddleville Historical Society to build a shoelace factory.

I love this book because Imogene stands up for what she believes in, even when it feels like everyone is against her and gets quite the surprise at the end of the book! 

This is a great book for a simple read-aloud, but there are lots of other things you can do with it as well!

Some of the ideas I thought of while reading:

• Launch a Biography/Autobiography unit- The end pages have Imogene's "Historical Tidbits" with information about important Americans, and throughout the book she quotes some of these people. You could give the learners the choice to pick one of her favorite people to do more research on or tell them to pick someone that they are passionate about! Many different ways to go with this!
• Write a Paper (Biography/Autobiography)
• Biography Book Clubs (Genre Study)
• Passion Project- Imogene is passionate about history and saved the Historical Society. Learners can decide on something they are passionate about and educate others about it! 
• Transitions- this book is full of ways to move the story along through time in a natural way, AKA not first, next, then, last. :-)
• Word choice- there are so many great words in this text! Some of my favorites:
• snorted, immortal, galloped, snatched, stomped, armed, trudged
• Mentor Sentences- We use the information given in Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson to teach grammar and craft through mentor texts. This book is full of different sentences that could easily be used to teach almost every type of grammar!! :-)

Have you read the book? What ideas do you have? Please share in the comments!