Busy Week

It's been a busy week with District literacy training, Professional Development training, and a field trip to the zoo. I am also getting ready for parent conferences next week. But actually isn't EVERY week busy? This week I did a new lesson about CHOOSING JUST RIGHT BOOKS. It went so well! While surfing the web this summer, I found a new idea to teach choosing just right books. I feel bad I can't tell you the site or give credit where credit is due. I don't know if anyone is like me but I read and see things and then weeks later an idea develops in my brain from what I saw weeks before. That's how it was with this idea. The teacher had 3 different sized t-shirts, very small, medium, and too big and compared them to shopping for books and finding the right fit. I had one of my boys come up and I handed him the very small shirt and asked the kids if this was a good fit for him. They thought is was funny. Then I held up the too big shirt and asked the same question. We even had him try this shirt on. No way did it fit. Then I brought out the medium- just right shirt! Yes way, perfect fit. Next we compared shopping for shirts to shopping for books for us to read. The kiddos decided they needed to shop more carefully for their books. We then made anchor charts for too easy, too hard, and just right books. I must admit I haven't had any low readers picking up Junie B. Jones books and telling me they can read it. I hope that continues. Here's a picture of our charts. If you're wondering why I have two different boys with the shirts it's because I taught the lesson twice-once to my morning small literacy group and again to my afternoon group. We have staggered starting schedules.

 Here is my graph of the week. It's about our families. Click on the picture for a PDF.