Reading Challenge Drought

Use your detective skills and tell me what’s wrong with this picture please.

Don’t see it? Well, let me help you out a little.

DO YOU SEE HOW FAR AWAY I AM FROM MY READING GOAL FOR THIS YEAR???

Oh, my word!

So let me explain. I’ve been busy. With school, family, I wish I could say running, and God. 🙂

And even though I’m not going to give any of that up- I am going to get back on track with reading more. I’m craving it. 🙂

I’m now on book #10 of the Left Behind series and have 2 more to go after this one. And let me tell you- I can’t wait to read that last one!!!!!!!!!!! So this series has taken up my reading time lately.

I’ve got to get my game on with some picture books. And PD books. Oh, my! I haven’t read one PD book this summer!!! Can you believe it?

So- here we go. Maybe I should start a PD book and check some picture books out of the library before I finish this series.

If I could just add about 7-8 more hours into the day!! 🙂

Happy reading!

It’s Monday What Are You Reading?

Here we are with another chance to share wonderful books with each other thanks to Jen and Kellee over at Teach Mentor Texts and Sheila over at Book Journey who both sponsor this great meme each week for young adult/children and adult respectively!

This past week I snuck in an EASY book-a Jigsaw Jones book-The Case of the Sneaker Sneak. It was cute. It was an easy read. 🙂

I also read (for the first time) a Hank the Cowdog book. O to the M to the G! It was so funny! It’s written from Hank’s (you know the cowdog) point of view. I’m wondering if I liked it so much because WE have cowdogs??!!! But a couple of people on twitter agreed with me on how hilarious these books are. There are 50 of them (I think). Maybe I should put that on my bucket list-to read all 50? 🙂 I actually laughed out loud SEVERAL times-much to the dismay of my husband. 🙂

Here Today by Ann Martin

It took me a few pages to get into this one, but then I became interested in it just because I wanted to find out what Doris, the mother, was going to do.

Close to Famous-Joan Bauer

Loved this one. Loved Foster, the main character! A book with real life problems and real life solutions. 🙂

Dairy Queen-Catherine Murdock

5 of 5 stars! Can’t wait to read the next 2 in this trilogy. DJ, the main character, is hilarious!!! See my book review on this one here:

My Dairy Queen Book Review

What it looks like for the upcoming week:

Well, seeing as I have joined the #summerthrowdown reading challenge between teachers and librarians, I have A LOT of reading planned!!! 🙂 Just a friendly little competition. (wink-wink)

You can read all about it and sign up (because you know you want to!) at Jillian’s blog Heise Reads & Recommends. I think the last count was almost 150 people signed up. The twitter hashtag is #summerthrowdown. You need to declare a team-Teacher or Librarian. And the game is on! 🙂

So far I have picked out 3 books for Monday(will I be able to read ALL of them on Monday???):

Out of the Dust-Karen Hesse

Sahara Special-Esme Codell

There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom-Louis Sachar

And if you are wondering why I am planning to read “older” titles-it’s because I have had so many books for awhile that I have never gotten around to reading, and I NEED to get caught up!

So there you have it! My life in books.

What are you reading?

Book Challenge-#50

YEAAAAAAA!! I met my challenge that I made to myself to read 50 books over the summer!!!!!!!!!! This is my last post about it.

I just read a book that I ordered from amazon.com to use in a mini lesson about reading and the different genres. Wild About Books by Judy Sierra was so cute!!! The librarian accidentally drives her bookmobile into a zoo, and the animals end up LOVING to read. If that’s what it takes to make my 6th graders love reading, then I guess I’ll have to get me a bookmobile!!! 🙂

Book Challenge-#49

Woohoo! I’m almost to my goal of 50 books for the summer!! 🙂

#49 was Ruby Bridges Goes to School-My True Story by Ruby Bridges. Yes, I had to read a picture book to keep going. It’s so close to school starting, and I have so much left to do!

This book would make a great little read aloud when teaching about the civil rights movement.

Book Challenge-#48

I just read Laura Candler’s Power Reading Workshop-Step by Step Guide by Laura Candler and loved it. Even though it still had some of the same things that make the reading workshop unique (like reading records, choice of what to read, teacher conferring with students), it also had some new GREAT things that I’ve never thought of.

My favorite “new” reading power tool was the Magazine Power Hour idea. You let the students read magazines once a month-they get in their non-fiction reading (which is what tests are usually dominated by), and it’s with high interest text! 🙂

There are several more reading tools in Laura’s book-check it out for yourself. The only thing that disappointed me was the lack of assessment ideas, but I have found this to sort of be across the board for reading workshop routines. The assessment pieces that they discuss are usually reading response letters(which I agree with), but mostly just “participation” type rubric grades. I feel that being responsible and on task DOES need to be addressed with the students and parents, but not as part of their report card grade. These types of grades can inflate a student’s grades which can be misleading where their true reading ability is concerned. (Just my opinion) 🙂

Here is the link to buy your copy of this book.

http://www.lauracandler.com/prw/digitalprintcombo.php

Book challenge-#47

Although this book is essentially a light read about the antics of a 6th grader, it still touches on a very real issue that we face each day in our schools-when a child can’t read or is behind grade level in their reading. This is something we see every day-it would be nice if there was a magic prescription that we could give students when they have reading problems. It sometimes seems like we are spinning our wheels.

Helen, a 6th grader with a reading problem, is the focus of this story. She acts out (because of her disability) a lot in school, gets in trouble quite often, and is the target for cruel children.

This will be my 1st read aloud this year (at the suggestion of Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer). Although I will use this book to set the stage for our own reading instruction, it will also be an opportunity for a lot of context clue work and compare/contrasts since it is an older book with references to things that the students won’t get. It will also be a good way to work in some character education development.

This is a must read for all teachers to truly understand the embarrassment that we can cause with whole class oral reading. Eye-opener.

 6th Grade Can Really Kill You by Barthe DeClements

 

Book Challenge-#46

Only 4 more books to go to meet my challenge for this summer! Will I make it before school starts next Thursday??? I wonder if book titles count??!! 🙂

I read this book last night after working in my classroom all day (and not really feeling like I got much done!).

The Boy Who Loved Words by Giselle Potter

 

This would be a GREAT read aloud for a mini-lesson on word awareness (word study) OR word choice in their writing!

Book Challenge-#45

I am almost there- My goal for this summer was to read 50 books, and I just finished #45. Well, actually I have read a few more than 45, but have not blogged about them yet so I’m not counting them. 🙂

I just finished The Lemonade Club by Patricia Polacco.

It would make a great read aloud to 6th graders to teach text to self connections-it does cover some sensitive issues. Of course, I cried so not sure if “I” could read it aloud! 🙂

5 stars definitely!

Book Challenge-#38-#44

I am trying to get caught up on my book reviews-I went to the beach last week and read 7 books!!! I know-I’m patting myself on the back as I type this!! It was soooooo relaxing! 🙂 Got a tan, ate good food, read some great books, slept late, and spent quality time with my mom!

#38-The Cabin by Carla Neggers-I like this author-she writes suspense stories with a love twist to them. I enjoyed this book, but it seemed a little drawn out to me.

 

#39-The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney-I loved this book and no, it’s not a typical beach read. It captures an event that can happen to anyone-believe me, tears were shed! And Caroline better be glad I had the companion book ready by my side when I finished this one-that’s all I’m gonna say! 🙂

 

#40-Whatever Happened to Janie? by Caroline B. Cooney-I loved this one as well and found out there is another companion book to these two-The Voice on the Radio-gotta put it on my list to read.

 

#41-Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli-I’ve been meaning to read this book all last year since I see it discussed on the web so much-I even recommended it last year to one of my reluctant readers(boy), and he LOVED it so I knew I had to read it. I was very satisfied.

 

#42-Who Ran my Underwear up the Flagpole? by Jerry Spinelli- I must love Jerry Spinelli-I’ve been buying his books like crazy lately! This was a funny read and will recommend it to ALL my 6th graders!

 

#43-Bunco Babes Tell All by Maria Geraci-I just had to buy this one since I loooooove playing bunco with my gals each month! I loved it-beware though, it’s a little explicit in places! 🙂

 

#44- The Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook- This was the BEST one of the week! It caught my eye when I bought it a couple of months ago because I really want to start walking-it will inspire you to walk even if you hadn’t thought about it! It is hilarious!!! I was laughing out loud!!!! This is one of those books that I might read again (and I don’t usually do that)! Definitely a beach read!!!!!!!!!!!

Book Challenge-Book 37

I bought this book after reading on one teacher’s blog that her intermediate students loved Gordon Korman‘s books. This book was the 1st in a series-The Island Series. Book#1-Shipwreck- was a fun book, but it did have A LOT of description/language about ships. Listen here-I don’t think my schema bank on ships has ANYTHING in it!!! 🙂

The majority of the book was detailing the journey, and if you’re like me-you will have to continue the series to find out more and stay with the characters. Remember how you used to spend the night with your friend, and when it came time to leave you didn’t want to? Well, that’s how I am with books, and especially the ones (like this one) that DON’T END!