Mystery Readers

Happy Sunday Everyone!


Amanda here!  I just wanted to start your week with one of my FAVORITE additions to my classroom, MYSTERY READERS!  Having mystery readers come into the classroom was without a doubt a favorite for all. 


Now, having mystery readers isn’t a new concept by any means but I wanted to make sure it was as meaningful as possible. This lead me to revamp the idea to include having parents choose from a list of books that addressed character building, and life lessons. I also asked them to write a letter to the class inside the front cover as a reminder of what they learned from the book. 

After we finish with a Mystery Reader, I take a picture of them with their child (that we hang up), and we place their book in a special book bin in our library.  These by far are the most popular books for the kiddos.  It warms my heart that my students are being reminded of so many important  lessons each time they open them up.

Now the logistics is something I had to figure out, but I'll break down the way I do it.  

      1. Read through the list of books.  If there are some that you already have, don’t feel are appropriate, or simply don’t want on the list….delete them. 

      2. Print a packet for each parent with the letter and book descriptions.

      3. Put each packet in a manila envelope, and glue a “TOP SECRET” label to the front of each one and give them to families.

      4. Use the website, Sign-up Genius, and create a sign up for the books  available so that you don’t have more than one person reading the same book.

     5. After you have parent’s signed up, send a sign up genius to those parents with dates/times.

      

     6. A week before a parent comes, have them send you 5 clues you can read to the class before they walk in.

This is what the envelopes look like with the labels on them.  This was also a book that the kids LOVED.  

Here is an example of a letter a parent wrote inside their book.  It's so special for the kids to look back on throughout the year.

Want a way to get started?  We will have you all set up with this product from our TPT store!

I hope you all can find the joy with your students and families that I did through this program.  We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas as well!

:) Amanda

Classroom Library

Hello bookworms, Amanda here!

Today I’m so excited to talk to you about the heart of our classroom...the library!  This library was my
giant undertaking a few summers ago. For the first week of summer I dedicated my days to
re-organizing this massive section of our classroom.  There are so many ways that this can be done,
but I’ll share what worked for me!

Last spring a group of us teachers did our own book study with the book “Reading in the Wild” by
Donalyn Miller.   This really gave me insight on how I wanted to go about not only teaching reading, but
also organizing.  In this book, Donalyn Miller gave some guidelines of how to decide what books to keep,
and which to part with.  I then set forth on my quest to sift through the thousands of books I had. I ended
up getting rid of about 20 bins of books in this process and offering them to new teachers in the building.  
Although 20 bins of books sounds like a lot, my library didn’t have any less “bins”. I found that the bins
were just thinned out and much more manageable.

After the purging of books, it was time or decide how I wanted them organized.  I decided to get these
adorable and clean labels from Maria Gavin. I bought the black set, but there is also a white set if that
better suits your classroom decor.  For bins I used simple, white, Sterilite bins for themes with many
books, and these book bins from ReallyGoodStuff for themes with less books.

My library is in a corner of my room so I divided it into three sections.  On the left were all of the fiction
books. I have them sorted by theme, as well as some favorite fiction author bins.  What I did with these
bins is I took the labels I bought and backed it with green construction paper to wrap around the bin.  
This way some of my struggling and more visual learners could associate green with fiction. In the
middle I have one taller shelving unit that has all of my chapter books that are mostly sorted into series.
The right side mirrors the left, but instead of fiction, they are all non-fiction books and are backed with
blue rather than green.  Now there are some themes, such as transportation, that have both fiction and
non-fiction books. These bins I backed with both colors to help students understand. **Learn from my failure! I used construction paper for these labels originally and due to the windows in my room, they faded horribly. I'm currently remaking them with fadeless paper. :(

As far as how we use the library, the list goes on!  These are a few ways:
1. We have a First Grade Book Club.  We will share more about this in a future post, but the theme
of our book club is Dr. Seuss.  Each summer we keep an eye out at Target for their Dr. Seuss
dollar section items to come in. They have bags that we buy and label with the students’ names
for them to use as their “book bag” throughout the year (great use for the Target gift cards we
receive at the end of the year).  Students check out a book for home daily, or as they finish their
current book.

2. As students come in each morning they go through their check in routine and morning work.  
5 students each day have their name on the smart board reminding them that it is their day to
“shop” for books.  Rather than do their morning work on that day, they get their book boxes and
switch out their books.

3. Mystery Readers!  This year we started this fun tradition and it all takes place in our wonderful
library.  Mystery readers is not a new concept, but our spin on it is! Look for a future post on this
topic, you’ll love it!

4. General read alouds and read-to- self time.  This is a favorite cozy spot for everyone!

As I'm switching up the decor of my classroom this year, the concept of this organization will stay the same, it just may look a little different.

How do you all organize your library?! We'd love to hear about it!

Flexible Seating in the Classroom - Introduction to Students

Flexible Seating in the Classroom - Introduction to Students

Hello again!

We’ve been going through each phase of switching over to a flexible/alternative seating classroom.  
If you’ve missed any of those posts, click below to catch up!

The Start

Continuation

Organization

Today I’m going to explain how I introduce this new style of classroom arrangement and management
to my students.  When my students came in for the first time, it was funny to see them look so confused
as they noticed there were no name tags on specific spots.  I then explain that they will get to choose
their own seat when they find out what works best for their body! For the first week I do assign spots.
I have their names on name tags that I simply set on the desks before they’d arrive in the morning.  I
explain to them that I am doing this to make sure that everyone gets to try out all of the options. I hand
each child a check off sheet that has a chart on it. The chart has a column that shows a picture of each
seating option, as well as a column with “This is a good fit for my body”, “This is not a good fit for my
body”, or “I’m not sure yet”.   We would pause twice a day to sit and discuss as a class, sharing students
outlooks on good fits, and not good fits and how their body was telling them that.

Through this discussion, it’s really helping students to take ownership of their own self-awareness and
learning.  Helping them to further understand and accept that no two people’s bodies are the same is a
vital part of our classroom community.  This all is also giving them the opportunity to build their ability to
think flexibly. Flexible thinking is an important building block to future problem solving and decision
making.  It is also letting the students know that I trust them to make the right choices for them and they
appreciate that trust and responsibility.

Initially for classroom management, I had on the board 3 columns.  One said “Student Choice” and had
all of the student numbers under it.  The second said “First Notice”, and the third said “Teacher Choice”.
I told the students that they all start in “Student Choice” but if they are not making responsible choices in
their seat, I will ask them to move their number to “First Notice”.  If it continues, it would get moved to
“Teacher’s Choice” and then I’d choose where they’d sit. Although this was an easy system, I ended up
taking it down due to lack of need. I really never had a student get to “Teacher’s Choice” because the
students didn’t want to lose the responsibility of making their own choice.  Now I can just simply tell them
that they have a warning verbally and they change their behavior without having to physically move their
number.

For my students with more significant needs, I sat down with my special education teacher to discuss
what would be best for them.  For my students with more severe autism we find that it is beneficial to
have them at one consistent spot that is “theirs”. For some of my students with issues focusing or
processing, I talk with them and “guide them” into understanding that certain spots or seats are best for
them.  You’ll decide what’s best for your students in this case, and this is going to be different from year
to year.

I hope this helped your insight! Join us next week for my favorite part of my classroom….the library!  
Find out how I organize it and how we use it each day.