HAPPY READING!
Cassie
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Ms. Knight Reads- August and September 2017
I had one blogging goal this year, and that was to post once a month about the books that I've read each month. FAIL. Try, try, try again though right? Since I'm so late on getting these out, I'm not going to do my normal review of each, but I loved ALL of them!
Monday, July 31, 2017
Ms. Knight Reads- July 2017 Edition
While I had a FUN and busy July, I was still able to get a lot of reading in this month! If there are any books you want to know more about, please let me know in the comments!
To learn more about Global Read Aloud, check out the website. This is a great way to connect your class with others through the love of reading. I would love to talk with you about GRA and help you get started if it's something you're interested in! :-)
To learn more about Global Read Aloud, check out the website. This is a great way to connect your class with others through the love of reading. I would love to talk with you about GRA and help you get started if it's something you're interested in! :-)
As always, please let me know if there is anything you would like me to differently/add to make this a better resource for you! What did you read in July? Share below!
Cassie
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Ms. Knight Reads- June 2017 Edition
To say it's been a long time since I posted a blog would be an understatement. The one about Follow the Moon Home? Yeah. That one was written last year, and I forgot to publish it. OOPS!! I did update it with information about it being a nominee for the 17-18 Texas Bluebonnet Award though, so I feel like that counts for something.
If yo've ever had the chance to talk to me about books or follow me on Twitter, you know that I'm a part of an amazing group called #BookVoyage. We are a group of 10 educators across the country that read books, share our thinking on post-its (our Post-It game is STRONG), and use Voxer to share our love of reading and our lives with one another. While I've never met them in person, I consider them some pretty great friends! It's nice to know how many people love to read as much as I do! This has given me the opportunity to read and review some fantastic books before they are published, but I wanted to have a way where you could go back, see what I've read, and not have to scroll through 1,000 tweets to find something. As I move forward, I'm open to suggestions to improve, so always leave feedback in the comments!
For the month of June, I didn't read near as much as I planned to. I spent 2 weeks in Italy (swoon), and then came home to move 6 days later! As I write right now, I am surrounded by boxes and bags that I just can't bring myself to unpack just yet. ALL OF THAT TO SAY- here's what I read this month, that I think you should read, too!
Let me know if you want me to continue doing this once a month, and how I can improve it for YOU! :-)
Cassie
If yo've ever had the chance to talk to me about books or follow me on Twitter, you know that I'm a part of an amazing group called #BookVoyage. We are a group of 10 educators across the country that read books, share our thinking on post-its (our Post-It game is STRONG), and use Voxer to share our love of reading and our lives with one another. While I've never met them in person, I consider them some pretty great friends! It's nice to know how many people love to read as much as I do! This has given me the opportunity to read and review some fantastic books before they are published, but I wanted to have a way where you could go back, see what I've read, and not have to scroll through 1,000 tweets to find something. As I move forward, I'm open to suggestions to improve, so always leave feedback in the comments!
For the month of June, I didn't read near as much as I planned to. I spent 2 weeks in Italy (swoon), and then came home to move 6 days later! As I write right now, I am surrounded by boxes and bags that I just can't bring myself to unpack just yet. ALL OF THAT TO SAY- here's what I read this month, that I think you should read, too!
Cassie
Follow the Moon Home by Philippe Cousteau & Deborah Hopkinson
When I go to public library, I love to pull out random picture books to read, because you never know what you're going to find! This book, Follow the Moon Home, did NOT disappoint! To make it even MORE exciting?! It's a Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee for the 2017-2018 school year! Here are some resources for the book (and others) compiled by the TBA Program Committee!
I love how this book perfectly aligns with Challenge Based Learning, which is the initiative that my school has taken on! It shows that, yes, even kids can make a huge difference in our world and encourages learners to become environmental activists!!
Here is how Goodreads describes it:
"Acclaimed Activist Philippe Cousteau and renowned author Deborah Hopkinson team up to offer a story of the powerful difference young people can make in the world. Meet Viv, who has a new home and a new school by the seat, and follow her as she finds her way in a new place and helps bring together a whole community to save the sea turtles of the South Carolina coast.
When I read picture books, I want to 1) enjoy the book and 2) think about how I can use it in my classroom! Here are my thoughts:
Challenge Based Learning (CBL) Idea:
Big Idea: Environment
Essential Question: How can we protect our environment?
Challenge: Be an Activist
While you never know all of the guiding questions your learners will come up, you typically have a good idea, so you can start pulling some resources and creating guiding activities to help them!
Science Ideas:
I love how this book perfectly aligns with Challenge Based Learning, which is the initiative that my school has taken on! It shows that, yes, even kids can make a huge difference in our world and encourages learners to become environmental activists!!
Here is how Goodreads describes it:
"Acclaimed Activist Philippe Cousteau and renowned author Deborah Hopkinson team up to offer a story of the powerful difference young people can make in the world. Meet Viv, who has a new home and a new school by the seat, and follow her as she finds her way in a new place and helps bring together a whole community to save the sea turtles of the South Carolina coast.
When I read picture books, I want to 1) enjoy the book and 2) think about how I can use it in my classroom! Here are my thoughts:
Challenge Based Learning (CBL) Idea:
Big Idea: Environment
Essential Question: How can we protect our environment?
Challenge: Be an Activist
While you never know all of the guiding questions your learners will come up, you typically have a good idea, so you can start pulling some resources and creating guiding activities to help them!
Science Ideas:
- Learn more about Sea Turtles
- The book offers several resources for further investigation in the topic!
- Life Cycles
- Tides
- Adaptations
- Animal Research
ELAR:
- Types of Print
- Predicting
- Questioning
- Making Connections
- Inferences
- Drawing Conclusions
- Summarizing
- Sequencing
What ideas do you have for this book? Share in the comments!
Sunday, July 17, 2016
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.
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!
Cassie
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.
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| 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!
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| Joe and I with Bay Bridge |
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| Me in a Tree :-) |
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| The PRETTIEST PLANT! IF you know what it is, LET ME KNOW! |
Cassie
Thursday, June 16, 2016
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:
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!
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Currently- February
Listening- Currently watching/listening to the Super Bowl. I'm still bitter that the Cowboys aren't in it, but I'm rooting for the Seahawks! I'm also QUITE excited for the Katy Perry halftime show. No shame.
Loving- My plans for the week! They involve some of my favorite books to read aloud and talk about, and we are starting new stations to maximize my small group time!
Thinking- I REALLY need to get my running life together. I have my next 1/2 marathon in ONE month, and I do NOT feel prepared for it.
Wanting- To sleep in. It's a permanent want. I love sleep so, so much!
Needing- a maid or the desire to clean. I have a ridiculous amount of clean laundry to put away... but I just can't bring myself to look at it.
Pageant Title- I am GREAT in front of kids... put me in a presentation situation with adults? HOT MESS.
I hope you have a FABULOUS week! Tomorrow is a good day for a GOOD day!
Cassie
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