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!

Tapper Twins Run for President

The Poppy Lady

The Wall

A Day's Work

The Woman in Cabin 10

Posted

The Seventh Wish

Grimly Jane

A Long Walk to Water

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! :-)

Falcon Wild

The Kingdom of Oceana

The Last to Die

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

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:

• 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! 

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!