Potter Fans: Harry Potter Book Club Activities

Harry Potter Fan Club!   Is that not the best reason to go to work? Every Wednesday, from 3:00 to 4:00, an adorable group of students arrives at my room to read Harry Potter. They are the cutest, because they are staying after school, by choice, to read!    I started out by inviting any interested Potter Fans:  

After we started reading, one of the early activities we did was making bookmarks to mark our books!

  After Harry got his wand at Ollivander's, we logged on to http://www.pottermore.com to see what wand we  would receive!

When we read about Harry and Ron on the Hogwarts Express, we made these chocolate frog boxes using this template I found at The Leaky Cauldron.

I had students choose their most interesting character and we started these character maps, using evidence from the text that shows us what the character is like!

 

 

We started a couple handy charts based on the kids' observations after reading a few chapters.

We hunted for characteristics of each Hogwarts house.

 After they noticed the connections between Harry and Voldemort, we started a Venn diagram.

We used an online quiz to figure out which house each student is in (BTW, I'm totally down with Hufflepuff).

 And then we worked on creating our house crests!

We took pictures and put it all together for a nice little display outside my classroom door! The Potter Fans are in!

We made some fun golden snitches using these materials: styrofoam balls, spray glue (which I managed to spray pretty much all over my table, and papers stuck there for weeks), glitter, sparkly pipe cleaners, and sparkly gold foam fun felt.

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Historical Fiction: Accessing background knowledge with Goin' Someplace Special

With Black History Month underway, I wanted to share a successful lesson I delivered in a fifth grade class that might help your students understand the historical context of some African American literature. 

In our fifth grade classes, our bilingual students are spending the whole day in English for the first time in their school careers. We have a wide range of levels of English acquisition, from students who just arrived from Mexico to students who have spent their entire school careers in our school. 

To help the kids think about what they already know as well as develop their English speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, one fifth grade teacher and I planned some specific activities for students while supporting their historical fiction unit.

If you haven't read this story, you should. It's a sweet story of a girl who wants to go someplace special by herself. Because of segregation laws, she isn't allowed in many places in her town. She finally reaches "someplace special," and it turns out that it's a library. Sob sob sob. 

I figured that, if students didn't understand the historical context for a story, they wouldn't be able to explain how the event created the situation for the story. So to help students as we read Goin' Someplace Special by Patricia McKissack, we started out with some pictures.

I scoured the internet (it wasn't actually that hard) for photos that depicted segregation. I wanted actual photos so students could reflect on actual historical events and understand that this story was based on true events in American history.

We divided the kids into five groups and gave each group a specific colored marker. The photos were glued on to construction paper and taped to the walls around the room. Each group went to one of the photos and had three minutes to write everything they noticed and thought on the construction paper. They used these speaking and writing stems:

I noticed...

I think...

This makes me think of...

This reminds me of...

Then they rotated to the next chart and read what the previous groups said. After reading and discussing this, they added their thinking in their colored marker.

By the time they'd been through several charts, they started picking up language from each other! They were using each other's words such as "discrimination", "strike", and "privilege."

We gathered some very interesting and enlightening background knowledge. They had a lot of concepts and were able to connect historical events and people (such as segregation, Martin Luther King, Jr., strikes, Ruby Bridges, and Rosa Parks), but they didn't have specific vocabulary. 

We worked on giving them words to express their specific ideas. A few that came up were "segregation," "African Americans" as a replacement for the outdated "colored people" phrase they were using, and "separate but equal".

After visiting each chart, I told them that the historical events pictured in the photos would be the context for our story, so we had to have a good understanding. The teams worked on writing a single sentence that would explain the historical event. 

Then we started to read the book. Each student had a copy of the story and a post-it. I asked them to read to find examples of how the historical event was represented in the story. Students marked several places where we saw the conditions of segregation affecting our story.

Using the ideas that students marked with their post-its, we created a simple cause-effect map to explain how the historical events affected the story. Then students chose another event from the story and used the sentence stems on the bottom of the above chart to record their thinking about the historical event and the story.

Students were really able to explain how the historical events affected the story! The above student obviously has a stronger handle on English written expression with errors common to English Language Learners, but even our newcomers were able to produce some response.

One student even explained, "She wanted to get to the library because all were welcome there." Awww, what a message!

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Sequencing and Summarizing in a Folktale

Gosh, I miss having a class of my own. As a literacy coach, the teachers are my students...and the students are our students, but they're not MY students. I have to share them with their teachers. It's hard, sometimes.... and then sometimes, when I see a teacher filling out an office referral, or submitting grades, or doing anything else I don't like to do, I don't miss it so much. But most of the time, I do.

Anyway, this past week, I've been a modeling fool. My modeling career is really taking off in fourth grade, where I'm modeling reading and writing lessons for a teacher who just had to close her kindergarten section and move to fourth grade three weeks after school started.

Don't ask.

She's been great, and I've been loving modeling in her room! This week, we worked on sequencing and summarizing the plot's events in a folktale. Some folktales are great sources for this kind of plot teaching because there's a clear lesson supported by the problem and the solution. To teach this, we chose The Little Ant, by Joe Hayes. He's kind of a local favorite.

We read The Little Ant to students and gave them little cards with the main events of the story.

 

After the reading, during which students each had a copy, the students used the text evidence to sequence the events in the story. We had them identify the important elements: the main character, her motivation, the problem, solution, outcome, and lesson.

 

After students sequenced the events, we checked them together using the text evidence from the story. 

Then, we gave each pair of students a fiction story map. They decided on the elements and glued them on.

 From there, we gave each team a blank sentence strip and told them the element they were responsible for. Students in the group wrote a sentence describing their element from the story. They created them in complete sentences. We put them together on our five summary elements of fiction pocket chart to create a super summary of the story.

This scaffolding has really supported students in summarizing and thinking about the important elements in most fiction stories. By generalizing the learning, I'm hoping we've helped them make connections to their own reading!


To help kids practice the work we've done during Reader's Workshop to students' independent reading, I created this Fiction Lapbook. It includes folded flap books for students to use when reading their own stories or novels. The skills included are the five fiction summary elements, different types of questions, character analysis, character relationships, cause-effect relationships, and comparing characters! I'm so excited to use it with our kids!

You can get it at TPT!       Pin It

Bright Idea: Creative Writing Response for Any Book

It's another Bright Ideas Link-Up! I'm so excited to participate in one of the best link-ups I've seen. Teachers share great ideas from their classrooms, and not a product in sight. Just lots of super ideas for the classroom! 

My post today is a simple strategy to help students respond to any text, whether it's a poem, a story, or even informational text. We used it last year to respond to this book: A Perfect Season for Dreaming by Ben Saenz. 

The beauty of this strategy is how accessible it makes writing to kids with limited vocabularies. Here are the steps:

1. Set your purpose for reading: to notice and record interesting words. As you read the book aloud to the students, record the interesting words they enjoy on index cards. Each group of students can create their own set of index cards, if you'd like, or you can make a class set. 

2. Sort the words. To help students understand their new words and their usage, sort them into different groups. We sorted into different parts of speech: verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

And then we sorted into different tone words: positive and negative. 

4. Use the words to create a poem. Students can use the words on the cards to create lines in their poem. They can also add words to help their poems make sense.

This was the poem that we made out of these cards:

Summer arrives, bursting into flame.

Colors escaping from every bloom.

The cloudless sky

is shot with yellow sun.

How easy is that?! And yet, the kids really took off and shared some beautiful writing! One of our third grade teachers had students use the words to write about a special relationship they shared with someone else, because the book, A Perfect Season for Dreaming, describes the relationship between the grandfather and the granddaughter. Through using these words, students were able to describe their relationships beautifully and with complex language. 

I hope you try it! If you do, I'd love to see pictures! If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or TPT! For more bright ideas from more than 100 different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a grade or topic that interests you! Thanks for visiting the Bright Ideas Link-Up!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Reader's Workshop MiniSeries: Episode Five: Independent Reading & Reading Responses *Freebie!

It's Episode 5 of my Reader's Workshop miniseries! One of the most difficult things for me to monitor in my classroom was independent reading. That's why it gets a whole special day during my MiniSeries!

The purpose of independent reading is to have students practice reading! Beyond that, they have to practice reading strategically. We want them to read for a purpose so they read closely and make meaning out of the text. These are some important points to consider when thinking about your Independent Reading

Build Up Your Time Let's say that I decided to start running a marathon. Tomorrow, I'm going to lace up my shoes and head out. For the first few minutes, I'll be motivated. I'll be excited that I'm gonna do it this time! After about a mile, I'm going to start thinking things like, "When is this going to be over? How long is a marathon? Should I be coughing up blood? Is that normal?" Needless to say, that will be the first and last "marathon" I'll ever attempt. It works this way with kids. If, on the first day, we throw kids into 45 minutes of independent reading, we're asking for it. They'll try for a few minutes, and then they'll look around the room curiously. Eventually someone will make eye contact, and you will have giggles. The giggling will grow with a series of interesting faces and gestures. Interest in the book will be lost. 

We have to build kids up a little bit at a time. I start the first day with a goal of six minutes, and I establish a few ground rules. We talk about what independent reading should look like, and we create an anchor chart.

At the end of the six minutes, I use the chart to have each student evaluate themselves with a fist of 5 (Kagan). 5 fingers = I did each thing on the chart. 3 = I did some things. 1 = I only did one or two things. Then we talk about how to make the next day better. I 

I increase the time 2-3 minutes each day, until we are up to 40 minutes of independent reading time.

Set a Purpose
Before students read independently, I set a purpose for them to focus on and to respond to when they're done reading, or during the reading time. This could be... - a foldable to complete - a question to respond to in their notebooks or on a post-it - a graphic organizer to fill out - a verbal response they will have to share with their neighbor after reading.  I post this on the board in the front of the room so each students can see the purpose and recall it during their reading.

This is a sample item from my Reading Skills Pack: Context Clues! 

Check it out on TPT.

The strategy/skill I want students to practice during independent reading aligns with the strategy we are currently practicing or we have already practiced, so students are able to practice it independently.

Reader's Notebooks

Students record their responses to reading (usually) in their Reader's Notebooks. I have a special section dedicated to reading responses. Students date and title the entry as the title of their book. They record their pages read on their independent reading log and they write their response in their notebook. 

What does the teacher do?
During independent reading, you are busy! There was a lovely school of thought that, during independent reading, the teacher would read too, and set the model for reading. This would have been great, but realistically, kids need more support than that. We have to take the time to interact with them in a small group or individual setting to help them grow in their reading comprehension and book choices.  For the first couple weeks, I usually do conferences to help kids choose books carefully. I also complete the DRA assessment on each student to identify a beginning of year level and some areas of concern to focus on. During reading conferences, I start my anecdotal notes about each student on index cards. Each student has a card and I record some preliminary notes. 

After a couple of weeks, when I'm done with the DRA, I create a few schedules. I put together my Guided Reading schedule, a library schedule, and a carpet schedule. Kids love to sit on the carpet to read, but I find it wastes less reading time if they know which day is theirs. I also find kids are more responsible with their library books if they have their regular day to go to the library. (Ideally, I schedule library visits at another time during the day, such as breakfast if the library is open. I'd rather kids spend their time reading & practicing their comprehension skills during independent reading time, if possible).  Consistency helps kids be organized (and me, too.)  Check back on August 17 for more details on Guided Reading!

To help you get your Reader's Workshop ready & rolling, here's a seven-page Reader's Workshop Freebie Sampler from my Rolling Out Reader's Workshop!  
Check out the other "episodes" in the Reader's Workshop MiniSeries:

August 3: Scheduling Your Day! How to spend your time in Reader's Workshop

August 6: Classroom Libraries

August 8: Read Alouds

August 10: Shared Reading

August 13: Independent Reading & Reading Responses

August 15: Word Study

August 17: Guided Reading

 

For my complete Reader's Workshop Pack, visit my TPT store!

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We came back with a comeback

We came back this week.
Boo.
My couch missed me; I could tell.

So this week was one of those, "Uh oh. I thought I had planned slightly better than I did. So now...we're gonna...ummmm...shoot."

I had plenty to do. I just wasn't quite ready to do it.

But it turned out pretty great. One of the things that went the best this week was our nonfiction response. We've read lots and lots of nonfiction and practiced strategies with it every week.

But I hadn't started doing nonfiction responses with the kids yet; at least not in a structure anyway. This was because of one basic reason.

They didn't make any sense. They, being the kids and their reading and writing thoughts.

I have a group of kids this year that really struggles in reading. A few non-readers (I hate reading. I hate school. I hate people who make me read at school.), a group of struggling readers (I love reading. I think I'm better at it than I am. I'm going to pretend to read Harry Potter for ten minutes when I should be reading Clifford.)

This makes me sad. Kids in third grade shouldn't hate reading. It should be their best friend.
I consider this one of my primary jobs. To make kids better at reading, and to make them enjoy it more. It's hard to like something you stink at. I think I might enjoy modeling, but it turns out I don't have the figure.
Or demeanor.
Or walk.
Or butt.

So if kids can get better at reading, they will be more likely to do it, not only when I ask them to, but for fun. (maybe. someday. I can dream.)

I just can't imagine my own life without the benefit of being a reader. I picture myself smacking gum with a 1960s hairdo and answering phones for a series of balding men who smell like curry.

I don't know why.

You know this about me if you've read my (only) post at The Best Endings. I need to get back in the game. More to come.

Sorry for the departure.
This is what we did.

First, we previewed nonfiction features, predicted, read (and discussed, and re-read over a period of three days) a 3rd grade Scholastic News article about endangered species making a comeback.

We have practiced asking different types of questions, reacting with an opinion, visualizing, and using background knowledge, among other strategies. We started charting some of our reactions.

Then we created a structure to respond in. I try to keep it simple (usually the best bet when starting out) by using a four-sentence response. This is the chart we made. (My charts are never very lovely- they are usually pretty spontaneous and rarely without errors.

I'm impressed I remembered to use two different colors.

Hey, it's called a teachable moment.

So then I modeled writing a response, one sentence at a time. I believe that the most valuable tool we have to help kids make their thinking about reading, math, science, and social studies into more sophisticated thoughts is writing. They have to write all day. (I'm a bit of a crazy about it, but I believe we don't only write to explain or demonstrate knowledge. We write to find out what we think about things sometimes.)

My favorite part of this process is the last sentence - the Take-Away. It's what we call the idea, new thinking, or revelation that you now have, thanks to reading whatever you read.

These are the kids' responses. They used the sentence stems that I modeled. They're simple, but I'm pretty happy with them. For the first attempt, they really looked great!

As you can see, we need a little work on their, they're, and there, but other than that, we've made some progress! Yay for progress. Every painstaking step.

If you're looking for a way to support and scaffold your students with their reading responses to informational text, you might be interested in my Scaffolded Reading Responses for Informational Text.  35 pages of responses!

and the Writing Process Posters at my TPT store and Teacher's Notebook.

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Happy Teaching!