#classroombookaday and Vocabulary

This year I'm joining in on Classroom Book A Day fun with my 7th and 8th graders. You can read my first week with Classroom Book A Day post to see what books we read the first three days, what books we're reading this week, and how we've been using picture books to discuss theme.

I mentioned in my first week post that I'm a connector and I love weaving ideas together. Reading a picture book every day offers so many opportunities! I shared that I asked students to turn and talk and discuss theme but I also have been doing some vocabulary and word work.

Vocabulary is so important but especially important to me after working with students who are deaf and hard of hearing and students who are English learners because developing vocabulary is sooooooo important for them. With reading a picture book everyday, I saw an opportunity to focus on vocabulary. I'm also a big believer in learning and working with vocabulary in context so it's perfect! 

I definitely want to say that I'm conscious of not turning Classroom Book A Day into a chore. My ultimate goal is to read aloud to my students so I'm being very careful to not turn it into too much work that it takes away from that. Taking that into account, here's how I'm layering in vocabulary work while still keeping it simple. 

When students come in, they pick up a vocabulary sheet, put it in their binders, and bring their binders to the board. I have vocabulary sheets in English and in English and Spanish because I have English learners in my classroom.

Students then do a quick self assessment, deciding how well they know the words based on Marzano's Levels of Understanding. I co-created this with my students. We brainstormed what emojis would match and then I added them into the chart I had already created.

We're working on getting more and more automatic with this so they come in and do this independently. Then I read through the words so they can hear what the words sound like and I ask students to share any words they labeled as a 1. Students help each other out and we discuss the words a bit before we read. 

For my 8th graders, if I feel like the words seem fairly simple, I've come up with other things for them to do. For example, with Imagine, I asked students to circle adjectives and we noticed that many adjectives end in -y but not all of them. We've also noticed some words have multiple meanings and that's been fun too to see what discussions come up.

Overall, layering in this quick vocabulary discussion has been a simple way to get in some word work while also activating their brains before we read. I already have ideas for how to move forward and for ways this might evolve so I'll be sure to share them as I go!

The Day You Begin

Title: The Day You Begin 
Author: Jacqueline Woodson 
Illustrator: Rafael López  
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books 
Publication Date: August 28th, 2018  
Genre/Format: Fiction/Picture Book 
GoodReads Summary: National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson and two-time Pura Belpre Illustrator Award winner Rafael Lopez have teamed up to create a poignant, yet heartening book about finding courage to connect, even when you feel scared and alone.

There will be times when you walk into a room
and no one there is quite like you.

There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it's how you look or talk, or where you're from; maybe it's what you eat, or something just as random. It's not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it.

Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael Lopez's dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders sometimes-and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway.
What I Think: I adore this book. It's such a simple idea but also so universal which makes it a wonderful book to share with all ages of readers. This book was the first book I read to my students this school year and it was a great way to start. At the end of class, I asked students to write me comments and one student said that he had fun even though we talked about a serious topic and I think it was partly because of this book. The story brings things like insecurity and being an outsider and similarities and differences right into the open. Sharing this book was the perfect way to start the year. 
     As a mentor text, we're going to look at the first page when she walks into the classroom when as we brainstorm and write about doors in our lives. I especially love this book to remind us of small moments connected to the feelings we related to the in book. 
     I also really love the first line (shared below). You could lift it and write your own story from there. We've all walked into a room and had to navigate lots of feelings that would be interesting to write about.

Snatch of Text: "There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you."

My First Week With #classroombookaday!

This year I'm joining in on classroom bookaday fun with my 7th and 8th graders. We started this on day one and after three days are already into a nice routine. It's been so fun to share stories with my students. I missed reading picture books with kids everyday!

If you're new to Classroom Book A Day, you can find all sorts of information that Jilian has curated here. The idea is to read a picture book every day of the school year. To get started, I created a bulletin board with 180 blank squares to represent all of the books we're going to read and I picked out a few picture books. After we read a book, I add the cover of the book to our chart so we can keep track of our progress and we'll be able to look back at the books we've read throughout the year. 

Here are the three books we started the year with:

The Day You Begin

written by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Rafael López

My Teacher Is A Monster! (No, I Am Not.)

written and illustrated by Peter Brown

Imagine

written by Juan Felipe Herrera and illustrated by Lauren Castillo

As a connector, I'm a person who likes to find ways to intertwine learning and to make the most of what we've got. My goal is to keep our Classroom Book A Day simple and fun but I couldn't help but add on a few opportunities that I spotted. One opportunity is to discuss some vocabulary which I'll share in another post later this week. And another is to discuss theme. 

To start, after reading the book we chat a bit and then I ask students to turn and talk to a partner and to discuss what they think the theme or message of the book is. To start, I've been keeping it simple. Students turn and talk and then write what they think the theme is on the board. After students return to their seats, I read out the themes and we see if there are commonalities or differences. I've then been capturing these into a doc so we have them to refer back to.

Here are examples students came up with as the theme of The Day You Begin:

And are some examples after reading Imagine:

To me, asking students to think about theme is simple but also important. Eventually, we'll talk about how a writer incorporates theme throughout the text and discuss it more deeply. 

But even after the first day, just asking students to think about theme, we were able to discuss a lot. For example, one group wrote, "No matter how light or dark you are, or how many languages you speak, you are still a human being." And another group wrote, "Even if you are of a different race, gender or interest you should still be included." In looking at both of these, I pointed out how the ideas were similar but the word choice was different.

I can't wait to keep going with Classroom Book A Day! Here are the books we'll be reading this week:

Nerdy Birdy

written by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Matt Davies

My Name is Sangoel

written by Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed and illustrated by Catherine Stock

Louise Loves Art 

written and illustrated by Kelly Light

Boy + Bot

written by Ame Dyckman and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

The Teacher's Pet

written by Anika Mrose Rissi and illustrated by Zachariah Ohora

Classroom Book A Day is new to me but it's been great and already worthwhile so far. Already, I'm thinking about my thought process as I choose books. I'm being intentional about which books I read when and how I might be able to use them to introduce a topic we might expand upon. It's really fun and I'm sure I'll have a blog post to share about it too. Have you tried Classroom Book A Day? I'd love to hear about it if you have! Or if you are curious and have questions, please ask!