Category Archives: Fluency

This Plus That: Life’s Little Equations

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This Plus ThatNot only is this week’s picture book a fun way to teach some of the Common Core State Standards in Reading, it is also the best inspiration for your “welcome back to school” classroom bulletin board.

This Plus That: Life’s Little Equations written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Jen Corace is sheer brilliance. It starts with:

1 + 1 = us

I love it! Not only will your students know how to read math symbols after sharing this book, but they’ll look at math much more creatively.

Smile + wave = hello
Smile + ocean wave = beach

Some are compare and contrast (I love what does and does not equal a sincere apology!), some are stand-alone sentences. Most are addition, but other math ideas come into play as well:
cozy + smell of pancakes – alarm clock = weekend

This would be fun to pair with 1 + 1 = 5 by David La Rochelle and Brenda Sexton if you’d like to hit Integrating Knowledge & Ideas, but all on its own This Plus That teaches Print Concepts and works beautifully to build Fluency.

After you share This Plus That, brainstorm and write equations with your students. In the book:

leaves + hot soup = fall

What things add up to fall for your students? And I’d love to make a welcoming bulletin board with:

1 + 1 = us    and       Joe + Gabriel + Julia + Matt…. = our class

This Plus That + your students = a whole new way of writing with math symbols!

For more information about the author, please visit whoisamy.com.

For more information about the illustrator, please visit jencorace.com.

 

All the Water in the World

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All the Water in the WorldSummer in Michigan means swimming in lakes, running through sprinklers, diving into pools. It’s a good time of year to share  All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson.

Science, poetry, and art swirl together in this gorgeous picture book.
“That rain
that cascaded from clouds
and meandered down mountains,
that wavered over waterfalls
then slipped into rivers
and opened into oceans,
that rain has been here before.”

All the water in the world is all the water this world will ever have, so it’s our responsibility to keep this precious resource clean. George Ella Lyon has a free teacher’s guide on her website: georgellalyon.com  with plenty of extension activities. I think it’s cool to recreate the water cycle with your students by putting hot water and a glass in a clear bowl, and covering the bowl with plastic cling wrap so they can see evaporation and condensation (for a much better explanation, go to easy-science-experiments.com). Talk about the lyrical language Lyon chose as well as the facts of the water cycle and you’ll hit the Core Standards of Craft & Structure plus Key Ideas & Details (love the two-fer!) Pay homage to Tillotson’s flowing art by pulling out the watercolors to illustrate the water cycle or why water is so important. And if it’s as hot where you are as it is in Michigan, get out the sprinklers as well!

 

How I “Found” Out How to Keep my ‘Tween Reading

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found-margaret-peterson-haddix-book-cover-artMy daughter has been a voracious reader since birth, but my son – not so much. Joe reads well, but rarely would he pick up a book for pleasure. It wasn’t until I paid more attention to how he learns that I found how to hook my 12-year-old son on reading.

Joe is very social and he learns best when he’s talking about his process with someone else (in multiple intelligences lingo, he’s an Interpersonal learner, or People Smart.) Reading by himself doesn’t interest him much. When he was little I read aloud to him every night, but I made the mistake of stopping this bedtime ritual once he could read well independently. Not surprisingly, his reading dropped off.

Then I was lucky enough to hear Margaret Peterson Haddix speak at a conference. She described her book Found, the first in a series called The Missing. I knew Joe would love the exciting plot. I checked out Found from the library and booktalked it to my son. He seemed interested, and yet it still sat. Then I suggested I read aloud the first chapter to him at bedtime.

Joe and I curled up on his bed to read, and within a few paragraphs, he was hooked on the story. When I put the book down, he immediately picked it up and kept reading. The next night, Joe wanted me to read more, and he couldn’t wait to tell me what he’d read from the point where I’d stopped. Together we’ve flown through the first book and we’re onto book 2, me reading a bit aloud, Joe reading on his own, and Joe filling in the gaps for me.

So this week, rather than recommend a specific picture book, I’m recommending my favorite reading technique. If you have a reluctant reader, try curling up and reading a book aloud to him or her. Make it purely for pleasure. You may find you are both hooked.

Farmers’ Market Day

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farmersmarketdayI am counting the days until my local farmers’ market opens. Until then, I’m glad I found this perfect pick: Farmers’ Market Day written by debut picture-book author Shanda Trent and illustrated by Jane Dippold. This rhyming book is a quick read that can easily be turned into an interactive “imagination” station or a fun math center for students to practice counting money.

A little girl and her family go to the farmers’ market on Saturday. The little girl has her own money from her piggy bank and she’s not sure what to buy – maybe a basket of cherries, a jar of honey, freshly-baked bread or flowers for the garden? Each enticing item is labeled with a price tag, like $2.00, or 12/$3.00, or 50 cents. Reading aloud this short rhyming book will have your little listeners eager to choose what they’d buy for themselves, and that’s where you can extend the book in ways to draw your students back to rereading.

Younger students can make their own farmers’ market in a pretend-play area. Plastic fruits, vegetables, and flowers can be bought and sold. Students can use Farmers’ Market Day to decide what should be for sale and how much to write on each price tag. (Using the information found in both the text and the pictures is a way of Integrating Knowledge and Ideas. Woohoo!) Older students can use the book to practice money skills. Ears of corn cost $3.00 per dozen – how many ears of corn do you need to feed your class, and how much will it cost? If you have $10.00, what items would you buy? Show your shopping list! With summer and real live farmers’ markets just around the corner, Farmers’ Market Day is a real treat.

Oh, No! Where Are My Pants? and Other Disasters: Poems

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wherearemypantsPoetry doesn’t have to be “roses are red, violets are blue…” As David Lubar wrote in his young adult novel, Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, “There are as many types of poems as there are types of food. As many flavors, you might say. To claim you don’t like poetry because you hate ‘mushy stuff’ or things you don’t immediately understand is like saying you hate food because you don’t like asparagus.”

April is National Poetry Month, but don’t relegate poems to just one month – share all kinds of poetry all year long! (If you do, you can check Range of Reading off your Common Core Standards list!) One of my go-to poetry books is Oh, No! Where Are My Pants? and Other Disasters: Poems edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins with pictures by Wolf Erlbruch. These “disaster” poems range from funny to poignant, and your kids will find at least one to which they can totally relate.

For example, here’s one titled “Oh, No!” by Katie McAllaster Weaver:
“Hello apple!
Shiny red.

CHOMP. CHOMP.

Hello worm.
Where’s your head?”

and here’s part of one called “My Friend is Gone” by Lillian M. Fisher:
“A hug, a tear, and you are gone.
Your swing is missing from the lawn.
Your house is silent, dark and lone.
Your window says no one is home.”

Poetry is meant to be read aloud, so read Oh, No! Where Are My Pants? and Other Disasters: Poems to your class and then choose one or two of your favorite poems to read aloud again. Talk with your students about why you liked that particular poem. Encourage your students either to choose a poem to practice reading or to write a disaster poem of their own. Then, have a disaster poetry slam where you and each of your students read a poem aloud expressively to the class. You can bring a stool for kids to sit on, and a beret to wear, and students can snap for each other instead of clap (I like to teach them phrases like “cool cat” and groovy, man” because it makes me giggle.) Your students will build their reading fluency (another Common Core Standard checked off!) and find that poetry isn’t just mushy love stuff.