Each year, I try to find unique ways to help my students display their list of books that they have read over the course of their time with me.  This year, I had the students combine their computer skills with their writing skills to create a fun display that was a hit with everyone who came across it!  (not to sound boastful or anything....they just turned out really cool.) This year, my kids created Visual Book Logs.   To begin, I gave my kids a template with a "tablet" on one side and empty space on the other.  Super simple.  (you can grab it here )  Using the Book Record Book Shelf that they have been keeping all year long as a guide, I asked them to search the internet to find pictures of the books that they had read this current school year, either at school or at home.  They then took screenshots of those books.  Since they are using Chromebooks, the screenshots were saved right to their drive.  They then were to insert those s......

One thing that I have changed up in my classroom this year is the use of a reading log for nightly homework.  While I still require my students to read for 30 minutes a night, I am not asking them to fill in a reading log anymore. I know...there was just a huge cry of "But HOW do you keep them ACCOUNTABLE???!!!"  I could hear it through my computer ;) I too had a bit of that same cry.  I mean, I know that just because my students fill out a reading log doesn't mean they are reading and I wanted to do something that was showing me they were actually reading, but on the other hand, what was I going to do???  So today, I thought I would share with you some things I am doing in my room right now that have helped me to keep track of the kids' reading without assigning a reading log. Reading Conferences For the first time, I have begun to hold reading conferences with the students.  It sounds very complicated and overwhelming -- reading conferences -- but real......

I have made a concerted effort to get away from reading logs in my classroom.  I know, I know.  So many people use them and love them, but honestly, I just didn't.  Years ago, I did get away from the "mom sign this" reading log by creating a more content based log (that I still use as in class assignments) but that just wasn't working for my students anymore.  Tracking them down on a daily basis to see if they did their reading wasn't creating readers and it wasn't making me very happy as a teacher.  I created my Reading Bookshelf (that I LOVE LOVE LOVE, and highly recommend to all of you...not that I am biased or anything.) but I found that I just wanted a little bit more formal information from the kids.  So this year, I played around with Google Forms, and came up with something that I am really happy with.  Since it was working so well, I thought I would share with you.  The first thing I did was create a very simple Google Form to c......

Follow my blog with Bloglovin OK...so I re-read The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child (you didn't think you were going to get away with not hearing about it again did you?? ;) ) and I am really honing in on the idea of making reading a central theme of my room.  Making it so integral, that everything revolves around it. BUT I don't want to start from scratch either.  So I have been thinking about what I do have in my room that I can continue using and will promote an atmosphere of reading.  Here is what I have come up with so far. Read Aloud :  I like to end the day reading aloud from a chapter book for the students.  I generally try to choose high-interest books that I know the kids will look forward to.  This is something that I know the kids enjoy and, frankly, I do too.  We really do have some great discussion from it and the kids get so into it....I feel at times we do have those "Reader Chats" that Mrs. Miller talks......

One of the things I have struggled with for much of my teaching career has been the dreaded reading log.  If you read this post (which was one of my first, so you probably didn't ;) ) you know that I just couldn't take the "Mom, sign this" type logs.  My kids weren't reading.  They weren't practicing their skill.  They weren't responding.  They weren't doing much of anything other than wasting paper.  So, many years ago I decided to make a change....and my Reading Log for Thinking and Responding was born.  It has been going along just splendidly, but I thought that this year, since I am getting more into the inferring and indepth thinking about reading (as evidenced through all of the Core Lit stuff I am doing...and LOVING!) I would add a few more sections to get the kids digging even deeper into their reading. First, I added a "making inference" section.  The kids need to make an inference but then, and here is my favorite part, ......

Last year, I posted about this bulletin board I had in my room.  It was my "What Are You Reading?" board and I really loved it.  It kept the kids excited about their reading and made them really want to share the books they were enjoying.  The only problem was that at times, the rings would fall and my students would have NO idea whose was whose.  So this year, I did a little tiny adjustment to it.  I started off the year having each child decorate a cover card.  It is just an index card onto which they wrote their name.  Seriously, this is a little stroke of genius that eluded me last year.  DUH!  Now, if the cards fall, no one will claim a pack that is not their own and no little pack will sit their untouched and forgotten.  So....if you are doing this in your room, take it from me.  Have your students make a cover.  It will save you a lot of headache throughout the year!  :)...

I love graphic organizers.  I just like how easy they are to get the kids thinking.  Especially when it comes to reading, I think that if I ask the kids to use their strategies and process skills in a fun organizer (instead of just writing it on a plain piece of paper) they tend to internalize their response a bit more.    For years I have been using my Reading Log to do just that at home.  Since implementing this log, I have found that the students are actually reading and writing their thoughts in a more meaningful way. Well, I wanted to try to do something like this in class.  I have already written about the Strategy Logs I have used in the past.  While I think they are great, I found I wanted something a bit more.  The kids were getting used to the logs and their thoughts and responses were suffering because of it.  The Strategy Logs also required a lot of copies, and frankly, this year I am out.  (I like to save them for Calend......

There is much debate on whether or not to use Reading Logs.  I myself have gone back and forth on them.  I really don't like the "you read for 30 minutes and mom signs" logs.  They just weren't working for me.  I didn't feel like the kids were actually reading, or getting anything out of it.  So I decided to create my own. I wanted the students to have to respond to what they were reading in a meaningful way.  To help try to ensure this, I created a 5 part response log, with different responses each day.  The students choose which response they want to do, and complete one part a night.  They then get the log back the next day to repeat the process.  By the end of the week, they have done 4 responses of their choosing (with one response left on the log).  The next week, they get a brand new log, with new responses to choose from!  Here is the doc I made on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store (it does cost $5, but if you read the ......