Organizing Writing Mentor Texts

If you read my recent post about my closet, you are probably surprised that I would title any future post with the word "Organizing". My closet is, of course, an embarrassment I have recently shared with the world, but in general, I'm pretty good at creating organized systems. One of these I just started this year is our writing mentor texts library.  

Not all of these books are writing mentor texts but about half of them are!  

  It's working for us, so I thought it might be the perfect idea to link up with Primary Powers' Organization Blog Hop!

As a Literacy Coach, I help teachers plan for writing. Sometimes, we are desperate for another kind of writing model text for a specific skill or strategy, and we are stumped! To help us plan effectively, I started ordering books based on specific traits. You can find one of the lists I used here at Empowering Writers.      After the books came in, I set to organizing them. I wrote a specific characteristic of writing on each index card and made piles of books.   

From there, I divided them up into baskets and put them on specifically designated shelves:  

 I labeled each basket with the writing skill or strategy that the books were great models of. Some of these are great beginnings, great endings, character development, sensory description with the five senses.

Of course, Patricia Polacco gets her own baskets, as do these other great mentor authors: among them, Tomie dePaola, Cynthia Rylant, Gail Gibbons, and more.

To help us use the books well for planning, I made little stickers that go on the inside cover of each book. The image and label on the sticker correlates with the basket label. I printed the labels on sticker paper.

I cut them into strips to stick inside the books.

Here's how it works. This basket is labeled "Generating Ideas for Writing." In it, I also include books about the idea of writing, like "Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street" and "What Do Writers Do?"

This book, Little Red Writing Hood, tells a story of a pencil character writing a story. It blends Little Red Writing Hood with writing tips. 

 On the inside cover, I include notes: just some ideas about how to use the book to teach writing strategy.

Throughout the book, the tips about writing are interwoven with the story. I used post-its to mark pages where there were writing tips, strategies, or potential for teaching. 

It's still a burgeoning system, and we're adding to our library a little at a time, but it's a start! Want a freebie to get started? Grab the basket and book labels for free!   

  Check out our other organization tips by hopping to the next post - Mrs. Richardson's Class, and learn all about organizing guided reading groups!   

  Or, if you'd rather, start at the beginning of the hop and check out all the great organization tips! Pin It

Five for Friday

This week was chaos. Between early release happening unexpectedly on Thursday (we saw snowflakes. We live in the desert. We apparently don't know what to do about that) and late start on Friday (it was cold), it was hard to get much accomplished! 

 I did try, though. So here is some evidence that things did happen this week at school...or wherever.

I am so excited about this room! We've been working on making a reading lounge; a room full of cozy spots to read! We have the rugs, we have the furniture, and we're working on the lighting. It's almost ready for students!

This picture is so cool because our second graders did such a great job this week on their interesting people museum projects! They researched an interesting person, created a presentation board and presentation and presented them to each others' classes. 

 

 

 I worked with my fifth grade group this week on making meaning out of informational text. We worked on pulling out important ideas and using the text features to gather information.

 

In my Potter Fans Book Club, we started some fun character maps. Each student chose a character they were interested in and started to use the book to record details that help us understand the character. 

 

I modeled expository writing in a fourth grade class this week.We each had to choose a career we would love, so of course, I chose being a writer! Then we had to brainstrom reasons we would love that career. Not surprisingly, the first reason I thought of was... notebooks! I love office supplies.

That's my Five for Friday! Head over to Doodle Bugs to check out other pictures from this week!

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A Real Teacher of Blog County

So, I'm a real teacher of blog county. How can you tell? I drink coffee in the morning and wine all night. I wear comfy shoes that allow me to walk (and run when necessary) all day. I take my lunch because school lunch is yucky. My guided reading table is clean 90% of the time. And I haunt the Target Dollar Spot.
All of these things make me a real teacher.  But there's one more thing.  A dark secret. Something no one should ever see or know. Something...awful. It's dun Dun DUNN my closet. This, seriously, might be the worst closet you've ever seen. It's so bad there could be a child living in there and I would never know. There could actually be a whole Lord of the Flies situation in here and I'd never know. 

I'm really just a secret slob. Honestly, I like a neat desk and a neat guided reading table. I like my pens and pencils in separate cups and I have one notebook and calendar I use ALL THE TIME. But when it comes to out of sight, out of mind, I am the worst offender. There should be most wanted posters with my name on it that say, WANTED: HORRIBLE SLOB. Because my closet, where I stuff and shove all things someday useful but not today, is horrendous.

This is why it got so bad. I run a lot of school events. So I house the materials for those events along with my other personal junk. So I bought these handy storage drawers.

I filled them up with the supplies for the school programs I ran last year. And then I ran out of space. Syrup, goldfish, crayons, and scissors were stuffed in here.

So then I filled up this tub with other stuff from the schoolwide programs. Bags, yarn, pencils, glue, and more found their way to this tub. And when this tub was full, I made stacks and stacks and stacks. I can't seem to make the time to clean it! Something else is always more important.

This might be the best part. I had a bag of plastic spider rings for Halloween and one fell out and landed right inside the door. Every time I open the closet, my heart leaps and I think, "EEK!" and then I remember it's only plastic. But do I pick it up? No. I'm too busy for that. 

So now you know my dark secret. You should share yours! Or, if you don't have one, just check out everyone else's and be smug about how tidy and perfect you are. Visit Second Grade is Out of this World to check out the link-up!

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

Several years ago, I wrote about some activities my students and I did on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. You can read about that series of lessons here.

This year here are some new activities to try!

 

This is my favorite project: Martin Luther King mobile! On each little piece, students write about what King thought, said, saw, did to change the world, and more. It's a cute craftivity and a good way to have kids write in little bits about his life.

 I think this "I Have a Dream" bunting would make such a lovely decoration - string your room up with the kids' dreams for the future!

A few years ago, we made Martin Luther King fact cubes. These are fun and an easy way for students to think about what information is important about King's life.

 

To round out your unit, here are some great book titles to read aloud! 

 

Martin's Big Words

I Have a Dream

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

(I like Adler's books - they always have a lot of information)

 My Brother Martin

 

 

You can grab the above activities at TPT! Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! 

 

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Five for Friday Link-Up, holiday style!

This week has been insane. I think I've overestimated how much I can fit into a day. Apparently, it's only about 16 hours worth of stuff, not the 28 hours I'm trying to squeeze in. It turns out, I am an ordinary human, like you. I'm not Wonder Woman. I'm kind of depressed to find this out.

Anyway, these pictures represent some of the things I've actually managed to accomplish this week. As you can see, Christmas is kind of a big priority.

This is our little library book tree! My librarian buddy and I made it out of boring reference books :)

 

And these are our Poet-Trees! We typed up poems on ornaments and copies them onto construction paper. Then we decorated each ornament with glitter paint and hung it out the tree. We made three trees: Grades 3 - 5, English for grades K - 2, and Spanish for grades K - 2. When the kids come to the library, they can choose a poem from the tree and keep it!

 

On Wednesday I met with my Harry Potter book club. We meet once a week to read Harry Potter and do some fun stuff. This week, we finished our bookmarks with glitter paint!

This is our little book tree in the library! 

 

 Each year, my school has a family night for the faculty. My dad has played Santa for the last two years - he greets the kids, does some ho-ho-ho-ing, and hands out the gifts the parents have brought for their kids. I always get my little brother a gift from Santa. He's 18 years old, and he's about 9 inches taller than our dad. So this, to me, is hilarious.

My hunnybun is a photographer, and he needed some holiday photos for backgrounds. So he took pictures of our Christmas tree! I love our tree. It's blue and silver and old-fashioned-y.

 Head over to DoodleBugs to check out the other Five for Friday posts or to link up yourself!
 

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Movie Themed Bulletin Boards and Displays!

I love a good theme, don't you? Two years ago, my school did a camping theme for our Camp Read-A-Lot Family Night. Last year, we extended our theme - Reading is Our Super Power - into bulletin boards, our Family Night, and our 25 Book Campaign. This year, we're having a BLAST with our latest theme! Movies!    Now Showing: Featured Favorites

To start our year off right, I made this display in our glass display case in the front of the school. I took pictures of the teachers with their favorite books and asked them to write about why that book was their favorite. I added the little stars and copies of the books to the inside of the display.

Pop Into the Library and Read a Good Book

My librarian buddy and I made this book recommendation board outside the library. We added covers of books that have been made into movies!   Lights, Camera, Read!

This Book of the Month board is a simple display that I update each month to feature our new schoolwide book of the month! It's hard to read the letters in this picture - they read "Book of the Month."   Meet the Reading Stars of the 25 Book Campaign

Here's our 25 Book Campaign Wall! We recognize the students who participate in the 25 Book Campaign each month!   Roll Out the Red Carpet for Literacy Night

And this display features the student products and pictures from our Fun Family Literacy Night: Roll Out the Red Carpet for Literacy Night.

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