Books, Books, and More Books! #SOLC18

Shari, who blogs at Teach for a Better World, wrote a wonderful slice about all the amazing reading that is happening in her classroom. (Click here to read her post.) She inspired me to reflect on the presence and use of books in my Kindergarten classroom over the period of just one day. Amazing!

• Today’s “soft start” table activity during Arrival was exploring non-fiction books in tubs. The LOVE those National Geographic Big Book of… books. Thank goodness for Scholastic bonus points!
• I re-read Not Quite Narwhal (Sima) and Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great (Shea)  at the end of Morning Meeting because today we needed to place our March Picture Book Madness votes. We read these on Friday, but several students were out. They are fun, short reads, so time well spent! Narwhal won handily.
• D hung out with me during PE as he isn’t cleared to participate yet since he got a concussion in December. He explored the Who Would Win (Pallotta) book tub and asked if it could be out during Genius Hour for more exploration. Of course!
• I re-read Every Day Birds (Ludwig VanDerwater), as the last stanza is our “Poem of the Week” this week. It features hummingbirds, crows, gulls, and bluebirds. Great language and lots of bird facts!
• Students are listening to Where’s the Big Bad Wolf? (Christelow) at the Listening Center this week during ABC Workshop and then writing follow ups based on a choice of sentence starters.
• Introduced lots of Bella and Rosie (Dufresne) books to groups during Guided Reading. We LOVE Bella and Rosie!
• We tried stamina reading for the first time during Quiet Reading time after lunch. with our book bags. Made it to 10 minutes. Woo hoo! The Principal walked in at 7 minutes and was shocked!
• Previewed new arrivals from Scholastic book order with the whole class and they were PUMPED. Lots of questions about where all the books would be during Genius Hour.
• L and H read our new Owl Diaries (Elliott) books during Genius Hour. L decided to write her own Owl Diaries book, while H decided to write an information book about owls.
• B asked if she could read her book bag books to our Learning Assistant during Genius Hour.
• Read “Collage” from With My Hands (Ludwig VanDerwater) before making collages at the art table during Genius Hour. We will then write “How To Make a Collage” books during Writer’s Workshop.

So many books, and so little time!

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This post is part of the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. Join us! It’s my second year of Slicing in the challenge.  (If you want to take a peek at the Padlet of writing ideas I’ve created, I’m happy to share. Click here! It grows every day.)