Tried It Tuesday {Book Clubs}

It's Time for Tried It Tuesday! 

What have you tried at school or home?

My Tried It:

Book Clubs

I FINALLY had my walkthrough observation on Friday!!  We had a formal observation back in the fall and the walkthrough is new this year. It's over and I have that weight lifted off my shoulders!

My principal walked in right before ELA was about to begin and we worked on our Book Clubs!!  I think it went well and I had created these forms that the students already had. One thing is for sure about my book clubs...the learning is DEFINITELY student centered which is a major component on the Danielson Rubric that my school uses for teacher evaluations.

I made a couple handouts  to accompany the Book Clubs.  You can read more about their kick-off here.  I purchased Laura Candler's Classroom Book Clubs and am loving this amazing resource with step-by-step how to videos!  

Click here to download my Book Club modified directions and Tic-Tac-Toe Board in editable powerpoint. The font doesn't show up right unless you have that downloaded on your computer too (I used Oh{Photo}Shoot for the title font).  

For the written assignments, I made a tic-tac-toe choice board (students LOVE choices!) of some of my favorite reading response activities from the amazing Rachel Lynette's Reading Response Worksheets for Grades 3-6.  Here is a picture collage of my Tic-Tac-Toe board and snapshots of Rachel's Reading Response worksheets.

I have used book clubs for the past two years but we had grouped for ELA before and I had the highest ability group. I was nervous about trying book clubs with all three ELA classes of mixed abilities but am so glad I tried it! There were a few students that didn't keep up with their group work, but almost everyone did, including some students who don't usually do their homework!

The students had five choices of books (Warton and the King of the Skies, Because of Winn-Dixie, Skinnybones, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, and Stone Fox). About 80% of students got their first choice and the rest got their second choice. I had four book club groups in each ELA block with 3-4 students in each group. The groups were all reading different books. Here is a picture of some of the book choice slips where students ranked the books by preference:

The students completed a calendar as a group for assignments during the two weeks of book clubs.

Every night they normally have homework (Monday-Thursday), they were instructed to read from their book and either do one tic-tac-toe activity or a sticky note activity. The sticky note questions are on the handouts with the link in the beginning of this post. 

Every day the book club groups have a starting point for discussion. They discuss their sticky note topics or the tic-tac-toe activity. Then, they add the highlights of their discussion to their discussion notes (part of Laura Candler's pack). 

The groups also rate each member on three categories for the day. They discuss this as a group and we also discussed as a class what excellent, satisfactory, needs improvement, and unsatisfactory means.

Student who never does his homework. The first week looked poor but this week he has almost all "Excellents"!!

 Top performing student:

Even if you are already wrapped up for the year, I suggest putting book clubs on your "to try" list for next year. I don't think you'll regret it! :)

 I hope you will link up anything you have tried (new or old!).
Thank you for your bloggy love, whether it is by reading, commenting, or linking up!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Spring to Summer Blog Freebie Hop! Tips to Survive the End of the School Year!

The end of the school year is tough, but don't worry, we can get by with a little help from our friends. Since you are one of my sweet friends, you are in for a special treat. I teamed up with a BUNCH of my best blogging buddies to put together some survival tips and wonderful prizes for you.

Just by hopping along, you have a chance to win:

One of three TPT gift certificates to help you make it to the end of the year and An amazing Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener!

My survival tip for the end of the year is to change up your reading block and offer something different to really excite your students as summer is quickly approaching. I do this by teaching using Book Clubs for the first time. You may use Book Clubs throughout the year, but I usually wait until the last ten weeks of school to introduce them. It takes until about this point of the year to get my students using good reading habits and the independent skills needed for Book Clubs.

In the picture below (from last year), I know it is difficult to see my students' expressions completely but I think you can see the students' overall excitement!  You might be wondering, "What is in the black and white box?"

Answer:  BOOKS for our new book clubs starting next week!

I purchased Laura Candler's Classroom Book Clubs resource.  I really liked how this resource gave me printables and a video guide for introducing the concept of book clubs step-by-step.  This is not your traditional "literature circles" with student roles.  It is a great activity for the end of the year and really get the students motivated to read even more!

I am linking up this idea with my sweet friend Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching and her weekly linky:

This year, I also am going to incorporate some technology centered activities from this pack:

The students complete a survey of their top picks after I discuss each book being offered in the Book Clubs. This year, I will have to be more selective in which books I assign since my students are grouped heterogeneously for ELA (last year they were grouped by ability).  Before writing down their selections, I warned them to not make any gestures or hints to their "buddies" about their top picks.  If they did, they would be sure not to be placed with that buddy for their book club group.  Fourth graders can be very "clicky".  

On the day of the reveal, I place the students in their assigned groups and give each group a box that they were not allowed to open until I gave the okay.  They were SO excited! 

Here are some more pics before opening the boxes last year.  Check out their body language!!

This is what happened last year...I told them that their group could start reading the novel (no more than 20 pages!) over the four day Memorial Day weekend or wait until next week to start.

Guess what?  EVERY group decided to start reading!!  I know my class loves to read in general but I thought there would be a couple groups that would wait!  Boy, was I wrong!

There was only one boy who was reluctant because his group chose to read to page 20 and his teammate told him, "You only have to read five pages a day."  

I was thinking, "Hallelujah!"  The students are going to encourage each other to read to stay caught up with the book club and I don't need to say a thing!

Have you ever used Book Clubs and did you find them motivating for your students?

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Here is a FREEBIE for you with two pages that are editable to use with Book Clubs in your classroom. 

I chose the word in the image above as my secret code because I love my summer naps! After entering my secret code in the above image in the rafflecopter below, continue on the freebie hop by checking out my sweet friend Christy at Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday Made It and Must-Have! (Cupcakes, Book Clubs, and Monday night TV!!)

I am linking up today with two awesome Monday linkies!!  

First, the amazing Tara from 4th Grade Frolics is beginning her WEEKLY Monday Made-It series today for the summer!  I LOVE this linky and it kept me going all summer last year on my to-do list!  Although I am not on summer vacation yet and I blogged about many Made-Its here on May 13th, I have a couple Made Its to share:)

Home Made It:
I already posted about my 6 year-old daughter's diva birthday party 

(think nails done, face painting, and dancing!).  

All I had to do was bring the cake to the party!  So stress free:)

I decided to make cupcakes and found this awesome rainbow cupcake on Pinterest from CosmoCookie.

Since my daughter's favorite colors are pink and purple, I decided to go with those.

I followed the directions and bought a white cake mix (I do love to bake from scratch but who am I to argue when the directions say to stop overachieving and go with the box mix?).

I divided the cake batter and colored half of it pink (with just a touch of red food coloring) and the other half purple (half red and half blue food coloring).

I poured each color one at at time into the middle of the cupcake paper cups.  I layered it pink, purple, pink, purple.  Here is a picture of the first two layers.

Here they are baked:)  So pretty!

 My daughter had a fairy theme for her "diva" party and I bought fairy cupcake holders, toppers, invitations, thank-you notes, and gift bags from the 

Meri Meri Flower Fairies line.  

Isn't the pink and purple layered in the middle so fancy?

 I thought they turned out super cute and they were super easy and inexpensive!  The moms were also so impressed and asked all about how I made cupcakes this way:)

Classroom Made-It:

I made a couple handouts (that counts, right?) that I wanted to share with you to accompany the Book Clubs I am doing in my ELA class right now.  You can read more about their kick-off here.  I purchased Laura Candler's Classroom Book Clubs and am loving this amazing resource with step-by-step how to videos!  

We just started Book Clubs last week and were only able to meet two days due to Memorial Day, Science State Testing, and a Field Trip.  However, my students have finalized their calendars as groups for reading their books and when to complete their reading response assignments by June 11th.  I made these guidelines for groups to know what is expected on full meeting days and daily quick checks.  The written assignment directions are also provided.  

For the written assignments, I made a tic-tac-toe choice board (students LOVE choices!) of some of my favorite reading response activities from the amazing Rachel Lynette's Reading Response Worksheets for Grades 3-6.  Here is a picture collage of my Tic-Tac-Toe board and snapshots of Rachel's Reading Response worksheets.

Click here to download my Book Club modified directions and Tic-Tac-Toe Board in editable powerpoint (minus the cute border that needed to be removed due to copyright...but you can add your own cute border!).  The font doesn't show up right unless you have that downloaded on your computer too (I used Oh{Photo}Shoot for the title font).  We will be continuing Book Clubs this week and I am anxious to see how it works out!  I will update and share more soon:)

I would also like to share a Must-Have and link up with the wonderful Sabra from Teaching with a Touch of Twang.

I apologize for another personal link up here but since it is Monday, and my Must-Have just makes Mondays super special, I have to share my guilty pleasure of the Bachelorette/Bachelor.  Currently, it is the Bachelorette (with Des?) and I am THRILLED that Monday night TV over the summer will be so entertaining!  Seriously, I have watched every season of Bachelor/Bachelorette and will be super sad when it doesn't continue anymore (all good things come to an end eventually, right?).  

Barely anyone I work with watches this show (they look at me like I am crazy when I start trying to talk about it!).  I don't think they know what they are missing!  Haha!!  If you love this show, you have to check out Teeny Tiny Teacher's Talk About It Tuesday.
She is a huge fan and her reviews of the show are hilarious:)

Definitely a MUST-HAVE for me!  

Oh, I almost forgot to update you on the Tried It Tuesday survey for continuing over the summer!

I was actually surprised by how many readers and bloggers wanted to continue the linky WEEKLY over the summer!  Yay!!  It wasn't unanimous though (about a 75/25 split).  

So, I have worked out a little plan in my mind.  I would like to:

Continue hosting WEEKLY FOR JUNE (Yes, check back tomorrow for reading or linking up!)

Host JULY ONLY ONCE on the 2nd Tuesday of the Month (July 9th)...

"TWOSDAY"...get it? :)

Go back to hosting WEEKLY IN AUGUST.

Thank you all for your support and I think July will be a good break since just about everyone is off this month.  Of course, as always, you can link up ANYTHING you have tried (NEW or OLD) and it can be classroom or home related!  I love reading about them all and have learned so much.  I will need the summer to sort through all the new pins:)  Thank you again for your bloggy love, whether it is by reading, commenting, or linking up!!

Spark Student Motivation Saturdays (power of CHOICE!)

Happy extra long weekend Saturday!  I am linking up a Student Motivation strategy with the amazing Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching.  I just love this gal and she has the best ideas for motivating students!  I have found that weekly linky parties have really challenged me to blog about topics that I might not have thought to mention.  It has helped me stay focused.  I might not always link up with all my BBB's but I try to as often as possible:)  I also love the networking that linky parties generate!

I didn't have any idea what I would be blogging about this Saturday until Thursday in my ELA class when THIS happened:

I know it is difficult to see their expressions completely but I think you can see the students' overall excitement!  You might be wondering, "What is in the black and white box?"

Answer:  BOOKS for our new book clubs starting next week!

A few months ago, I purchased Laura Candler's Classroom Book Clubs resource.  I really liked how this resource gave me printables and a video guide for introducing the concept of book clubs step-by-step.  This is not your traditional "literature circles" with student roles.  We haven't started officially yet but I think this will be a great activity for the end of the year and really get the students motivated to read even more!

We began a unit called "Animals are Characters Too" in ELA last week and read a nonfiction piece about wild horses while working on the skill cause and effect.

Last year we read a whole class novel, Misty of Chincoteague.  I LOVE this book.  Although I would love to have every student read it again this year, I decided to try book clubs with five different animal themed novels.  

I chose novels with animal characters from what we had available in our multi-copy room:

For those of you who don't know, my grade switches by ability grouping for ELA and I have the top readers in the grade.   The longest novel, White Fang, was actually the top pick in the class.  The students who were chosen to read White Fang have all earned over 250 Accelerated Reading points individually this year from independent reading.  

Anyway...the students filled out a survey of their top picks after I talked about each book.  Beforehand, I warned them to not make any gestures or hints to their "buddies" about their top picks.  If they did, they would be sure not to be placed with that buddy for their book club group.  Some of the 4th graders are very clicky this year.  

Then, I took the surveys and made the groups.  It worked out beautifully because I split the students up, separating behavior problems and all the students were able TO GET ONE OF THEIR NUMBER ONE CHOICES (I told them to pick two possibilities)!

On the day of the reveal, I placed the students in their assigned groups and gave each group a box that they were not allowed to open until I gave the okay.  They were SO excited! 

Here are some more pics before opening the boxes.  Check out their body language!!

Next, I told them that their group could start reading the novel (no more than 20 pages!) over the four day Memorial Day weekend or wait until next week to start.

Guess what?  EVERY group decided to start reading!!  I know my class loves to read in general but I thought there would be a couple groups that would wait!  Boy, was I wrong!

There was only one boy who was reluctant because his group chose to read to page 20 and his teammate told him, "You only have to read five pages a day."  

I was thinking, "Hallelujah!"  The students are going to encourage each other to read to stay caught up with the book club and I don't need to say a thing!

I think I am really going to love this method to motivate my students!

I will blog more about it after it gets underway next week.  I plan on finishing these books in two weeks.  Next week we only have ELA three days because of Memorial Day and the NYS science performance test.

Have you ever used Book Clubs and did you find them motivating for your students?

I would love to hear your thoughts!