What Are You Reading this Month?

 

"It's always something." (Gilda Radner as Roseanne Rosannadanna) Every day that we show up at school, ready to learn, is a cause for celebration. "...and everywhere was a song and a celebration." (Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. Woodstock, baby.) Seriously, teachers, we can find something to celebrate in class every single day. The biggest celebration, of course, is when the imaginary light bulbs flash with new learning, with a newly converted reader for life, budding author, artist, mathematician, researcher, or maker. As teachers, we are part of those amazing moments all year long. And yet, if we seek other celebrations to bring a learning theme to our students, the calendar is filled with them. Here's year-long resource for an author birthday focus every month.
                
Read Across America Day was originally conceived to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. You might have been wearing out your "Cat in the Hat" striped chapeau for all the Marches for as long as you've been teaching. Maybe your school focuses on Dr. Seuss, or maybe you just enjoy that celebration in your classroom. Maybe your own teacher tied a red bow around her neck every March, and the memories are filled with warm fuzzies. Or...maybe...you are ready for a new idea?

Did you know that Leo Dillon's birthday is March 2 also?  With his wife, Diane, Leo Dillon was the author/illustrator of forty beloved children's books. Many of the books will bring the concepts of diversity and world peace into your classroom. What a beautiful segue from February is Black History Month! Why not celebrate March is Reading Month this year with a fresh focus?

A favorite Dillon book of mine is If Kids Ran the World. My students were so fortunate to have the chance to meet this gentle and lovely couple before Leo's death in 2012, when they visited our school.  The mentoring for our future authors and illustrators was off the charts! If Kids Ran the World was the book they were working on at the time of Leo's passing.

In addition to the beautiful illustrations and words showing how the world would be a better place if we all cared  for others in the way these children do, this book effortlessly becomes a mentor text. This ready to teach resource from Rainbow City Learning will show you how. Happy Birthday, Leo Dillon!

Some other authors whose work will make for great sharing and inspiration any time of the year: Patricia Polacco, Eve Bunting, and Jacqueline Woodson. These are a few of my favorites, and my students have enjoyed many lessons for reading and writing led off by the works of these writers. 

Try The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco to see how the author's own mother was encouraged to love reading!

Share a read-aloud of The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Alsburg to prompt a discussion of all the things we might enjoy if we give up a little screen time. 

Of course, no month-long celebration is complete without a few official school-wide or grade-wide or even class-wide activities. Some of my favorites:

Hold a Read-In

In no way should this be confused with a clean your desk, grade papers, and enter data day. Wipe that thought from your mind. It's tempting for sure, but a read-in day where you participate right along with the kids is a golden opportunity to encourage a lifelong love of reading (like yours!). Only you can be the role model for that in your classroom. Sleeping bags, blankies, jammies, and pillows optional! My kids always liked making little fort areas under the desks for uninterrupted reading bliss!

Who doesn't love a Parade?

Ask your students to bring in their Radio Flyer or Little Tykes wagons to use as float carriers for a Parade of Books! (Think Macy's Thanksgiving or Disney any day, or The Rose Bowl Parade, but with books!)  Kids work in teams to create a float display (think giant diorama!) of a book. The team members dress as some of the characters as they accompany their float in a parade for school and community!

Spotlight on Books

Create a display with a fun place to leave comments/reviews about a book that the class shared as a class novel, book club choice, or read-aloud. Place a book cover in the center of the display, and kids write comments all around. Examples of fun places to leave comments: black construction paper with colored chalks, small white boards with wipe-off markers, plexiglass with window markers, fabric with glitter pens. I know your kids can  help you think of more! 

Recommended in Rainbow City

That's what we called ours, anyway! Start a weekly or monthly newsletter or blog section where kids can review books they have read and loved. It's a great resource for your students to clip and keep on hand for when they are browsing for new books to read. 

Book Trailers

Use your technology (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, your favorite movie creator, or just your phones) to have your students create exciting trailers to "advertise" their favorite books. So many resources, directions, and examples of book trailers for kids in this post. (Just click on the director below!)

I loved sharing ideas for March is Reading Month with my podcasting friends, Tracy, Deann, and Kathie. Tune in to "We Teach So Hard" Episode 28 to hear what we came up with!

Happy, happy March! Hope you get to read something you love this month, too!

Read more about it!

March is Reading Month

Great Books to Use with Your Social Studies Curriculum

Celebrate Reading Month!

3 Ways to Keep Your Sanity for March is Reading Month

For more great ideas for the month ahead, be sure to visit all the blogs of Teacher Talk!

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts

that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials (to make your teacher life easier) at TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

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Teacher as Life Mentor

 We've all had that "favorite" teacher. The one we remember throughout our life, the one whose name conjures happy memories of days gone by. Some of us were fortunate to have had more than one. Some of us are also fortunate to have become "that" teacher to our own future students. I've written two previous posts here about two of my most important life mentors, Miss Jean Brooke, and my Aunt Harriet. A life event in my home has brought back memories of another teacher, who I know has also become a part of the teacher I was, and the human that I am today.

My husband is currently in the midst of a health scare, and of course we are hopeful for having a positive outcome. However, he has been engaged lately in getting his stuff in order. Several weeks ago, he came downstairs with a pile of old pictures. Among them was a pencil portrait of me as a seventeen year old. He was fascinated by this portrait, and wanted to hear its story (as, I'm sure, do you!). Get a cup of coffee or tea, or a fresh mason jar of Kachava, and take a seat. 

In high school, I discovered a very special oasis amidst the chaos of finding my way as a freshman. I bought an "elevator pass" on the first day, thinking that the price was well worth the amount of my lunch money for the week, considering that my homeroom was on the third floor. (Our building had zero elevators, and I had zero lunches that week.) Just figuring out how to get to each class on my schedule, and how to deal with the ever increasing homework assignments were chaotic and difficult for me as well. The usual teenage angst of meeting new friends was there as well. I had signed up to take Ceramics as an elective class, not knowing what a life-changing choice that would turn out to be. 

When I entered the Ceramics classroom for the first time, I was greeted by a man with a beautiful wide grin, and a soft and gentle voice. He never needed to raise his voice, as he was a master of "wait time" long before I arrived. He was quiet, and his "people" easily matched his volume level. He called us "people" or "class", never "boys and girls", despite that being the most common way that we were addressed in most classes. 

I quickly learned that this was more a class in living life as an artist, rather than just a focus in Ceramics. Of course we learned to create slab pottery items, and to throw a pretty decent pot or bowl on the wheel, but we were led to discover art and its creation is so many additional ways. I developed a love for collage and stained glass mosaics. Three of my mosaic pieces can be found in our garage today! At the end of freshman year, and each succeeding year, I found a way to continue choosing Ceramics as an elective class. I took advanced tests to skip a year in French language, decided to forgo the study of shorthand and typing, and ended my participation in Home Economics. I became a master of persuasion in the Guidance Counselor's office, and managed to stay a student of Mr. K for a full four years. 

Mr. K's Ceramics classes were mixed grade, comprised of students from all grade levels. This was likely due to the fact that students chose other art electives more frequently. I remember that my sister and several of my friends took Jewelry Design as an elective. Mr. K's class became a microcosm of our school and the surrounding communities. As a parting gift to seniors who took his class, our Mr. K created a pencil sketch portrait of each departing senior. (Remember when it was cool to be a senior? Sigh. IYKYK.) Here is mine:

Mr K was an accomplished artist apart from his teaching career, and sold his work. He had a degree in art from Carnegie Mellon University, and brought that background as well as all that he was as a person to our high school ceramics class every day. After finding the above portrait, I did a deep dive on Google to discover an old interview he had done on his role as a holocaust liberator before he was my teacher. This interview occurred 20 years after he was my teacher, showing once again that each of us is so much more than who we are in the classroom. 

The link to this video is here, if you are interested. Interview With Edward Kosewicz

During my four years in "Ceramics" with Mr K, here are a few of the things I learned. I carry each of these lessons in my heart and in my very soul today, Thank you, Mr. K!

Lessons from Mr K

If you haven’t tried it, how do you know you won’t be good at it?

Although his class was officially, ceramics, Mr K shared his vast artistic background with us, using ceramics as an entry point. His example, I believe, led me to share my whole authentic self with each of my students. I found Reading and Writing to be great opportunities for sharing. You may find this resource useful during reading/writing conferences to share your authentic self! Just click!

Imagine the possibilities

Mr. K taught us to start somewhere, and then to explore and dream! Each class began with a short demo, bringing in new materials and fresh techniques, along with an invitation to soar! He also highlighted some of the projects other students were working on. Having a multigrade class enabled him to use the work of other students, as well as his own, for mentorship. 

You don’t know everything

My high school years were filled with turmoil on the world stage, with protests and political activism at home. The war was raging in Viet Nam, but the time period could be any time, including the present. In his quiet way, never revealing to us his own involvement in WWII, he listened, said something like "Hmmm." Or "Ya think?" "Tell me more." and then invited us to think things through before forming our opinions so quickly. He basically taught us not to be know-it-alls while preserving our dignity.

Be part of a community

Mr K taught us that our class was a community, our three or four distinct neighborhoods were actually one community, and that the world was a community as well. We treated each other with respect, critiqued each others projects honestly and fairly, but kindly, and we learned from each other as well as from our amazing teacher.

I guess I've reached a point in my own life where I am considering who I am, who I was, and what my own legacy will be. If any of the lessons I've learned from my own teacher mentors and life mentors are helpful to you, I will be grateful.

If I can do anything else to help make your job easier this year, please let me know in the comments below! If I use your idea for a new blog post, you will win a TpT $10 gift card. If I create a new resource for Rainbow City Learning based on your idea, you will win a free copy of that resource to use in your classroom! (Note: all comments are reviewed before appearing on my blog. It may take a few hours for your comment to appear! Thanks for your patience!)

For more great December teaching ideas, be sure to check out these Teacher Talk bloggers! 

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials at TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

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Finding Life Mentors in Mentor Text

The post below is another blast from the past, and it's been on my mind lately. As my honey and I have been setting up our home for the next chapter, we sink exhausted into the couch each evening and have been binging on "Atypical" on Netflix. As we watch, we often pause the show and discuss. (We do this with most shows we watch - he's been married to a teacher for too long!) We ask each other if we can identify at all with each of the unique characters in this brilliant portrayal of a neurotypical family living with a family member who is on the Autism Spectrum. 

Our favorite character is Sam, who is the family member on the Spectrum. I have always had students who were on the spectrum mainstreamed in my classroom. This was not because I had specialized training, but because I had the heart to connect with every student. Making a personal connection has always been job one for me. Sam is a life mentor for me as I watch "Atypical". As someone with an over the top reeling imagination, I love the clearly black/white manner in which Sam views the world. He reminds me to slow down and realize that different people react to the very same situations in very different ways. 

Watching "Atypical" each evening has also reminded me of the many forms that Mentor Text can take. Characters in TV shows and in movies, even in songs, can all be life mentors for us in so many ways. I hope you will enjoy reading the post below, and will find something useful to take back to your own classroom this year! 

Here it is:

I've been thinking a lot about mentor text lately. Mentor Text. Another piece of education-speak. Sounds official, important, and perhaps a bit daunting for a new teacher or a seasoned one like me, who may not have attended a training or researched  the term. The first time I heard the term, it sent me running to Google for a definition. I found that mentor text is a piece of literature that teachers and students can study, imitate, and apply to other texts and for different purposes.

Wait! What? So using mentor text is the same thing that I (we) have been doing for years: teaching a reading or writing strategy by using a picture book or short piece of text as a model or example. So my favorite mini-lesson practice of starting with a picture book or a passage from a favorite author is using mentor text? Yes! Got it!

As with all trends in education and in life, this idea of using mentor texts in the upper elementary classroom has me asking once again.... What if? What if, as we work through a text to determine a character's motivation and emotions, to learn more about a character, might we also learn a little more about ourselves. I think we might! Think back for a minute to some of your all-time favorite characters from your own reading and/or movie and tv viewing. What if we could apply the positive character traits and emotional intelligence that we find in character study to our own lives?

My greatest personal life mentor was my Aunt Harriet. I was born three days before her eighth birthday, a fun birthday present for a little girl. She gave me countless gifts as my guide through life as we grew up together. She was out-going, chill, fun, and loved to learn and try new things. She was beautiful and a great dancer and baton twirler, to name just a few of her talents. We went to the library together every week and she helped me to pick out books, some of which I remember to this day. I joined her many friends at her house every day after school to dance to American Bandstand, making me most likely the world's youngest teenager at the time! (I'm now probably the world's oldest one!) She continued to serve as an example to me as she raised her family and volunteered so often to help others in her community. She passed away so young, leaving me without her guidance for as many years now as the years that I was lucky to spend with her. I miss her more than I can say, and hope that some of who I am as a human can be traced to her mentoring.

Some of my personal literary life mentors are Francie from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (placed in my hands by Aunt Harriet), who can find joy in the smallest and most ordinary seeming things, Professor Dumbledore from (you guessed it- Harry Potter), whose famous words hung on my classroom wall from the first day that I read them ("It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."), and Professor John Keating (played by Robin Williams in "Dead Poets' Society"), who encouraged his students to find their own voice. This serendipitous mentoring that occurs when we find a richly drawn character who touches our soul is, to me, the best kind. It's the way a book or movie that you have fallen into stays with you forever. It's the reason you ask yourself at times of emotional duress what that mentoring character would do in a similar situation.

There are endless opportunities in our Reader's Workshop lessons to set up a character as an emotional mentor at the same time that we are teaching specific reading and writing skills. As teachers, we have minds on, heart touched moments to explore how a character is feeling in a particular situation, and to closely watch how that character responds and gets on with life. It's something to recall over and over with your class throughout the year. Along with internalizing a character's emotions and responses, some of those strategies naturally find their way into our own emotional tool boxes.

My favorite grades to teach have always been grades 3-6. My suggestions here will be focused on reading that will most appeal to students in those grades, but all can be used in other grades as well depending on your lesson focus, reading levels in your class, and whether it will be read-aloud, partner reading, or independent. I hope this list will inspire you to make one of your own, listing life mentoring examples that might be found in some of the texts that you are already using. It can slip into your lessons and conversations as smoothly as fudge slides down the side of a sundae.

My favorite characters for a little life mentoring (no affiliate links - just making it easier for you to find these):

Quila from Gifts From The Sea (strong under pressure, nurturing, mature)
Zoe from A Crooked Kind of Perfect (flexible, looking at life with humor)
Brian from Hatchet (resourceful, innovative, strong under pressure, self-reliant)
Rob and also Sistine from The Tiger Rising (owning your feelings and dealing with bullying)
Claudia from The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (adventurous, lover of learning)
Meg (of course) from A Wrinkle in Time (persistent, brave, caring)
Rosie from Granny Torelli Makes Soup (valuing friendship, empathy)
Opal from Because of Winn-Dixie (developing understanding, nurturing friendships, learning to let
go of emotional baggage)
Comfort from Each Little Bird that Sings (dealing with the unexpected, having a positive outlook)

I could add ten or twenty more to the above list, but you get the idea. Life mentors can be found in countless books. When I've added life mentoring to our discussions of read-alouds and book club choices, I have found over and over that my students start to identify the life lessons in their own reading. They bring those discoveries to reading conferences, making that discussion even richer.

If you like the idea of adding life mentoring to your readers' workshop and would like a little more direction on how to do it, I have placed some of my favorite lessons doing just that into this year-long program for character development and behavior improvement! Hope you'll click and explore!

For some easy to use forms to keep track of your Reader's Workshop results, check out Rainbow City Learning's Conferring Notebook! Just click here!

For more September teaching inspiration, be sure to take at look at some of the posts below. If you are a blogger and interested in joining Teacher Talk, please contact me at retta.london@gmail.com and I'll explain how to get started!

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