Fables

This week I read fables to Third and Fourth Grade. Fables can be a little difficult to “get”. Finding the moral or lesson of the story can be hard for students. According to Scholastic Teaching Resources, “fables are moral tales, often involving animals that represent people. They reveal human experiences and/or show conflicts over issues. They are generally short and concise stories.”

For Third Grade, I read from Aesop for Children. Since the fables are so short, I read four different ones. I read City Mouse and Country Mouse, Fox and the Grapes, Lion and the Mouse and Tortoise and the Hare. Most of the students did a pretty good job of conveying the moral of each story.

For Fourth Grade, I read The Ant and the Grasshopper. The teachers also read a different version of this fable in class and the students were to compare and contrast the two stories when they got back to class. They did a great job of knowing the moral for this story.

Biographies

As part of our Bookworm Challenge, nearly every grade level will have to read a certain number of biographies. I really wanted Kindergarten, First and Second grades to become more familiar with this genre.

Therefore, I used Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a perfect excuse to read about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I also used this opportunity to discuss finding facts within the story. After reading a page or two, I would stop and ask them what facts we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr.  It was probably a 50/50 mix of students that could and couldn’t do this task. I do believe I have found another skill that we will need to work on in the future.

I’m hoping this exposure will prime them for wanting to find biographies on their own about some of their favorite people and then sharing that experience through their classroom bookworm.

Bookworm Challenge

At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post about a book I read, that seemed to reenergize my passion for wanting to help students enjoy reading. The title of the book is The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller. In looking for a new way to challenge my students with their reading, I teamed up with four other Title I school librarians within the district and we wrote a grant for our Bookworm Challenge.

We were looking for a way to expand our students’ horizons, so to speak.  So many times as readers, we tend to read the same type of books or genres.  We wanted to get them out of their comfort zone and let them explore other options.  The book really stresses the importance of students having a choice in what they read, so we wanted that as well. However, we did create some guidelines for our challenge in an effort to encourage them to try new genres.

For our Kindergarten students we challenged them to read 15 books by our deadline of May 27^th. Seven of the books must be non-fiction and eight must be fiction.

For First and Second Grade students we increased the total number to 20 books by May 27^th.  We then broke it down to 4 biographies, 4 non-fiction, 4 fiction and 8 free choice.

Finally, for our Third, Fourth and Fifth Grade students, we challenged them to read 25 books by May 27^th.  They must read 5 biographies, 5 non-fiction, 7 fiction (chapter books) and 10 free choice.

The book also talks about the importance of teacher recommendations to students in choosing what they read.  Because of this, we are also challenging the teachers to read 30 books appropriate for the grade level they teach.

Each student will have a reading log to keep track of the books they read. We will also be creating a “bookworm” made out of paper circles.  The body will represent each book that a student or teacher has read. The bookworms will be displayed in the library for everyone to see. We hope this will encourage students to want to read more so that they can see their bookworm “grow”.

All students that complete the challenge will be recognized at our final school assembly with a reading certificate and medal.  All teachers that complete the challenge will receive a reading certificate.  We are just kicking this off this week, but so far the students seem very excited about our challenge.  I can’t wait to see what happens!

Gingerbread Man

Most everyone knows the story of The Gingerbread Man. How he had the old woman and/or old man chasing him after he popped out of the oven singing his famous phrase of “Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.”

Well, this week we have been reading different versions or variations of this story with Kindergarten, First and Second Grade. After reading each book, we would then discuss some of the differences between the original version. The students loved the different stories and were very quick to point out the differences between the two.

In Kindergarten we read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. This version most closely matched the original.

In First Grade we read The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers by Lisa Campbell Ernst. The students loved the animal crackers chant of “We’re wild animal crackers, hear our fierce roar. You can’t catch us, we’re off to explore.”

In Second Grade we read Catch That Cookie by Hallie Durand. This story was about several gingerbread men that got away from a class of students. They left clues for the students to find them, and of course they did.

We had a lot of fun this week comparing and contrasting all of these different versions of The Gingerbread Man.