Jordan’s Comments (group member since Mar 01, 2017)

Jordan’s comments from the Collaborating Teachers group.

Sounds excellent. Can’t wait to read it!

Refugee
Inquisitors Tale
The Witch’s Boy
Conspiracy 365 Series
Box of Shocks
The Maze Runner
Our of my Mind
The War The Saved My Life
Holes
The Dogs

Stick Cat
The BFG
The Twits
Narnia Series

What books are must shares with students in your classroom? Share the title and author below. Titles can be new or old. The goal is to have a list of 180 titles - enough for a book to be shared/advertised to the class each school day!

What books are must shares with students in your classroom? Share the title and author below. Titles can be new or old. The goal is to have a list of 180 titles - enough for a book to be shared/advertised to the class each school day!

What books are must shares with students in your classroom? Share the title and author below. Titles can be new or old. The goal is to have a list of 180 titles - enough for a book to be shared/advertised to the class each school day!

Adding this one to my TBR list! Thanks!

A colleague is seeking some engaging and informative picture books as an entry point for her inquiry unit on Space. Any and all suggestions welcome!

Yes that’s a great one! Scholastic Canada shared this list with me as well.

http://www.scholastic.ca/books/season...

Any suggestions for powerful picture books around Remembrance Day that I can read aloud with Grade 2 readers?

Thanks so much for all the book recs!

I am working with a group of Grade 2 students who are part of a K-2 split class several times per week to work on reading. My plan is to be doing guided reading/conferring with students during this time. Borrowing from the daily 5 model, I’d like the students I’m not working with to read independently and read with others while I’m working with a student or small group. I have never worked with early readers before and am very unfamiliar with engaging book titles for this age. In their reading boxes, most are reading very dry books that follow simple sentence structures on topics like “All about me” and “Things we do at school”. I find that engagement and motivation to read independently is very low and I have a hunch it has to do with these types of books.

Any recommendations or suggestions for engaging titles at this early reading stage would be appreciated!

I’m not too familiar in this area so this is a shot in the dark but perhaps the Narnia Series might work? The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe definitely is definitely full of religious allegory, despite C.S. Lewis’ denials.

Great idea to share some awesome podcasts! Another one I enjoy is The Nerdy Bookcast co-hosted by Donalyn Miller. They do a lot of book talks of books to use in the classroom.

Wow I finally got around to reading this and completely see why it was chosen for the Global Read Aloud! Salva's story is very inspiring and I can see students curiosities going wild to learn more about Salva, The Lost Boys, Sudan and what impact they could have in helping refugees.

I also found this Google Lit Trip which looks pretty cool to use with the book!

http://www.googlelittrips.org/litTrip...

Haven't read it yet but I'm hearing amazing things about the new book Refugee as well.

I've set it up with my class also and completely agree that Reading in The Wild goes into much more specific detail on how to implement a reading workshop successfully. One of the first activities I did with my Grade 5/6's at the start of the year was having groups go through stacks of books in our class library and sort them into genres. At the same time as they are doing this they are adding books to their Want to Read list in their readers notebooks. After the initial sorts we agree on some certain genres as a class to sort the books into. The each group becomes experts in one genre and creates a poster for that section of the library. All books are always sorted by genre and not level. I've found this initial activity a great way to get kids excited about reading and even get reluctant readers a chance to preview books. It also gives students ownership of our class library. Not to mention they also learn about different genres and have a list full of readily available books to read. That usually takes up the first 3 days of class to complete. I start doing book commercials immediately as well and then schedule the kids in so we have one book commercial every second day. I highly recommend Donalyn's second book and her style of readers workshop!

I just came across another book that also tackles this topic but is geared for younger students aged 9-12. It's called George by Alex Gino. Haven't read it yet but hear it's really good.

I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this but I quickly got pulled into this Wild Robot survival story and I'm very excited for the second book to come out! I loved it and I know so many students will too. Can't wait to hear students thoughts next October for the GRA. This book would tie in nicely with some science units too, like the Grade 6 Diversity of Living Things cluster.

I honestly can't believe I only recently discovered this book. I'm just glad I did in time to share it with my class before they move on next year. I definitely agree it's an absolute perfect start of the year book as it can be referenced all year long when middle graders act as middle graders tend to act! We started it today, I scrapped my other plans and I'm tying it into our health as well. Students absolutely loved the first 20 pgs (especially the gassy nurse) and we had some good discussion on whether Auggie should go to school or not.