Wednesday, September 7, 2011

first day of school read alouds

Here are the two read alouds I chose for the first day of school for my 4th and 5th graders. Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth is a cute story of a first grader who thinks her new  teacher is a tooth stealing alien with a purple tongue! I got the idea to read this story from

www.lifein4b.blogspot.com Its great for teaching about how rumors spread. The theme: Think for yourself, makes this story of a first grader applicable to every elementary grade. I also used the speech bubbles that are throughout the story to introduce the new concepts of dialogue and monologue for the first time.
My 5th grade read aloud is the beautiful book: The Golden Rule. We had a wonderful first day of school discussion about treating others like you want to be treated....A simple rule that is sometimes very hard to follow. I pinned the book jacket up next to our new behavior chart as a reminder. Happy first day of school. Christine

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

What I am reading right now

This is a great professional book for K-6 writing teachers. I love to use mentor texts when teaching writing but it is hard to find a picture book  which matches the skill you are trying to teach. . This book contains lists and lists of good choices when you are teaching writers craft elements like alliteration, flashback, onomatopoeia, point of view and many others . It also contains lessons using the specific book mentioned. While reading the lessons I found I needed to have some of the recommended books in front of me so I took a bunch out of the library. None of them were a disappointment. Here are a few I really liked:
This picture book is recommended for teaching personification or point of view. I also like that it was full of facts about our ocean.

This cute story could be used to teach hyperbole, similes or voice in a writing lesson.

Good choice for teaching creative language, metaphors, and repetition.

Funny story that is a great choice for teaching voice and alliteration

I am so happy I found this new resource to help me teach writing. Now the next step is to find copies of some of these books. Christine