Genre

I have been so busy and haven't shared anything in a long time. Hopefully very soon I can post more often! Today, I thought I would share some genre things that I have going in my room.

I have a genre wall by my classroom library.  Every time I read a book in class or we use a text during a mini-lesson, we add a picture of the book cover to our genre wall. The kids discuss together what genre each book is and where we should add it to the wall. This always starts some great discussions!  These pictures are from the first few weeks of school. Our wall is going to be full!

If you want the genre categories to create your own genre wall....I made these simple signs...

Genre Wall Signs

I also created a few  activities to reinforce our genre lessons.

Genre Scavenger Hunt

Genre Sort Game

I put the game board together like this...

Students sort the book covers and lay them on the correct genre.

Genre Definition Matching

On this game, they match the genre category to the correct definition.

Back to School!

I'm just stopping in to post a quick idea for the first day of school! I made this iPad template that students can use to highlight things about themselves. I plan to have them work on it right away the first day and then hang it up on the bulletin board next to their pictures.

Here's my teacher example. (As you can see I'm not an artist!)

Students can write or draw under the apps.

You can download the pages HERE!

That's all I have for now! Enjoy the rest of your summer!

End of the Year!

I always give my kids a book as their end of the year gift. This year I found the book The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo for only $1.00 at Scholastic!  I was so excited! This is a great book!

I also made these bookmarks to give to them with the book.  I made the bookmarks on Canva.  I LOVE Canva! If you haven't used Canva...you really need to.  I could spend hours making things on there.  It's FREE!  You can check it out here:  CANVA

Bookmarks

 

Here's a quick end of the year page for the kids to do...

End of the Year Poster

 

 

 

If you want to see some more end of the year activities, check out my previous blog posts HERE OR  HERE!

 

 

 

Need some end of the year treat bag ideas?  Here are a couple examples:

 

Mustache Treat Bag

 

 

 

 

Owl Treat Bag

 

 

 

Have a GREAT summer!

 

Making Book Clubs Engaging

My students love book clubs, but just doing the regular old reader's response with pencil and paper can get old after a while.  I have been slowly trying to add some more interesting options for them to choose from to respond to their books.

Balloon Stickies Plus

FREE

Balloon Stickies was a big hit with my book clubs. They LOVED this. The app is so easy to use and I thought they did a great job! I had them find a picture from their book or use an image from Google that represented someone or something in their book. Then, they had to use the Balloon Stickies app to write what their character might be thinking.

Here are a few examples from the Freckle Juice Book Club Group...

One more activity for book clubs is using Flipquiz to get the reading groups talking and writing about the text. This website is so easy to use and can be used as a fun review for anything.

You can create a free account here:

 

Flipquiz

I created a Flipquiz board with thinking stems and questions for students to respond to in their groups and reading logs. I leave the Flipquiz up on the board and students decide what category and point amounts they want. They click on the one they want and respond by talking with their group and writing in their reading notebooks.

Here's my example:

 

When you click a category, your prompt opens up like this:

 

My Favorite Book

I have been reading aloud chapter books to my kids all year and book talking many other books that I thought would be good for them as well. They are really getting into finding a good-fit book for them and sticking with it until the end. 


Today we took a minute to talk about our favorite books so far this year and even a favorite book from when they were younger.  I was impressed with some of their selections and their reasons explaining why they loved these books! 


I asked the kids to get their favorite book. I took a picture of them with their book and they wrote a little about it and why they liked it so much on a little poster page.  We found book trailers for each book on You Tube and linked them to QR codes to add to our favorite book poster. I really wanted them to create their own book trailers....but it is so busy right now!  Maybe after testing season! Later, the kids took an iPad and did a little gallery walk. They scanned the QR codes of the books they were interested  in and thought they might like to read.

Here are a few examples of the finished products:

Click below to download the page!

My Favorite Book