I had so much fun recording an episode of Molly Ness’s End Book Deserts Podcast with my friend Donalyn Miller. Anytime that I get to talk books, teaching kids, and book access I feel blessed.
Check out the episode by clicking on your favorite podcast listening app.
Partially Proficient is back! Alaina had been pretty sick the last handful of weeks, so we were unable to record an episode of our podcast. Excited to be back! In this episode we discuss the impact that school sports have on kids.
To listen to the episode in your web browser click here, or click on one of the images below to subscribe to the show.
I have had so much fun using The Creativity Project with my students. They LOVE responding to the prompts, and I have been blown away by what they are creating.
Please check out the video (below). In the video I share 5 of the prompts from the book that my students have LOVED this year.
I love reading my students picture books! In this video, I share 10 books that I read them in September. To see the first ten picture books I read them click on the link below.
I am a huge fan of Jamie Sumner’s Roll With It. As soon as I finished it, I gave a passionate book talk to my fifth graders. When I asked them if anyone wanted to read it, a whole bunch of hands shot up in the air. I cannot wait to find out if they liked the book as much as I did.
Book description (from the publisher):
The story of an irrepressible girl with cerebral palsy whose life takes an unexpected turn when she moves to a new town.
Ellie’s a girl who tells it like it is. That surprises some people, who see a kid in a wheelchair and think she’s going to be all sunshine and cuddles. The thing is, Ellie has big dreams: She might be eating Stouffer’s for dinner, but one day she’s going to be a professional baker. If she’s not writing fan letters to her favorite celebrity chefs, she’s practicing recipes on her well-meaning, if overworked, mother.
But when Ellie and her mom move so they can help take care of her ailing grandpa, Ellie has to start all over again in a new town at a new school. Except she’s not just the new kid—she’s the new kid in the wheelchair who lives in the trailer park on the wrong side of town. It all feels like one challenge too many, until Ellie starts to make her first-ever friends. Now she just has to convince her mom that this town might just be the best thing that ever happened to them!
If you’d like to purchase the book you can find an affiliate link here.
I am trying to do a better job of making reading notebooks part of what we do in class. We have a long ways to go, but I feel that we are off to a pretty good start.
If you have any tips for helping my readers more authentically write about their reading, please let me know in the comments below.
In this video, I share some of the things I learned about my readers when I read through their reading notebooks.
I love taking a closer look at the books my kids are reading each month. In the video below I share all the great books that my readers are currently devouring.
Let me know in the comments what your kids are reading!
I’m so glad my sixth grade daughter talked me into reading J.J. and Chris Grabenstein’s Shine. I LOVED it, and I think middle grade readers are going to love it too.
Book description (from the publisher):
Everyone deserves to shine in this sparkling new book from the New York Times bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library , Chris Grabenstein, and coauthor J.J. Grabenstein–just right for fans of Word of Mouse and The Fourteenth Goldfish. “Who do you want to be?” asks Mr. Van Deusen. “And not when you grow up. Right here, right now.” Shine on! might be the catchphrase of twelve-year-old Piper’s hero–astronaut, astronomer, and television host Nellie Dumont Frisse–but Piper knows the truth: some people are born to shine, and she’s just not one of them. That fact has never been clearer than now, since her dad’s new job has landed them both at Chumley Prep, a posh private school where everyone seems to be the best at something and where Piper definitely doesn’t fit in. Bursting with humor, heart, science, possibilities, and big questions, Shine! is a story about finding your place in the universe–a story about figuring out who you are and who you want to be.
If you’d like to purchase the book you can find an affiliate link for that below: