Book Clubs- 5th Grade Version

We just finished up our first successful round of Book Clubs (AKA Literature Circles, Lit Clubs, Book Circles, Book Studies, etc.). It can always seem like a three-ring-circus trying to keep it all organized, but my kids always LOVE these clubs!!

So here is what it looks like in my room...I select 4 books that I hope to draw student INTEREST in!! NO, I do not base my book clubs on READING LEVEL. {Disclaimer- I do have a group of HIGH readers and I do choose books that ALL of my students are capable of reading. I DO understand that this is not always the case and will not work for everyone!}

I have spent lots of time reading and researching on reading instruction. I have struggled with book reports and my love-hate (more like I only love to hate them) relationship with them. I read the book The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller and decided that the best thing for me to do is to "break-up" with book reports in my class. To me they were busy-work take home projects that your creative students put a lot of attention in to and end up with the same grade as the students who scrape by and put only the required minimum in to them. Also, I am not fooled into thinking that my students read their book in its entirety. I have tech-savvy 5th graders who have the same online resources that I did when I was a student who didn't want to read the entire book. OK so enough about my book report thoughts....I came to the conclusion that I NEED my students to LOVE reading! And so that is what I set out to do in my classroom this year. We set out to spend many more minutes READING for the love of READING in my classroom. MORE ABOUT THOSE THOUGHTS TO COME LATER....

Here is the book I was referring to...

Moral of that LONG paragraph was that in my classroom, students are not bound by their reading levels. Therefore, I pick books that I can hook them with. The students rank their picks in order in which they would want to read them. I select groups based on their top picks (with a small behavior consideration of course). Then they get together and READ!!

Last year I feel victim to the endless copies and the JOBS each student needed to complete in books clubs. I get it...it creates a grade and holds each student accountable. BUT it does not encourage reading or comprehension. Instead I focus in on a skill every couple of days and allow the students to demonstrate their knowledge of that skill.

For instance, one skill we focused on was character! About 1/4 of the way into the book, I asked the students to analyze their character. I asked them to use character traits for the inside and outside to tell me about the character. I asked them to tell me about problems the character was facing and to look for solutions that may come along. I asked them to look for ways that they character has changed as a person. This took them two to three reading sessions to complete and they could add and change it as they please. The assignment took them about 5 minutes each day, but I KNEW that they were actively reading and THINKING about the character in the story.

Another skill we have focused on is DISCUSSION. I challenged my students to come up with a THICK and open-ended discussion question to share with their group. We went over good vs. bad questions and I set them on their way. They got it! It clicked! I was so proud of the effort they put into thinking this through...but the fact that I modeled until I couldn't model anymore might have had a little to do with it.

Currently they are working on SUMMARIZING and PREDICTING with this quick recording sheet.

This was meant to be a short post to share TWO books that I read with my students and fell in LOVE with...my apologies on the short novel that led me to these points:

1. Make Book Clubs MEANINGFUL!! Don't give lengthy assignments each time that require lots of WORK from you as the teacher. Focus on allowing the students to READ!
2. Skip "follow up" assignments that resemble boring book reports. Again, make it meaningful!
3. Throw out the BOOK TESTS!!! (see #4)
4. Read THE BOOK WHISPERER by Donalyn Miller- it will change your reading instruction for the best! And for the best I mean for the students and their LOVE of reading!

Here are the two books I fell in love with:

This is a super CUTE and FUNNY read for pre-teens! It was a story that kept me and my students laughing and wondering what they outcome would be.

I am a SUCKER for Mike Lupica books. He had me hooked when I was in college and buying books for my classroom all the time. His books have a wonderful story line and are one-day readers for those with the time! This one was no exception. I had boys and girls in this group and they all LOVED this one. It talks about families in hard times and I think all of my students were able to relate to this at some point in their lives. Even my off the charts high reader (who had already read this book) told the whole group that they would not be disappointed. His books are perfect for your sports enthused boys and girls! I am considering reading this one again already...

My kids LOVED being able to pick their reading groups so much that they BEGGED me to start another round of Book Clubs even if it meant that they would have only two weeks to finish the book clubs before our Thanksgiving Break! I firmly believe that my knowledge and research from Miller's book is helping my kids grow their own LOVE for reading!

Graphic from HERE

October Writing Projects!

We do a lot of PUBLISHED writing in my class. We go through the writing process SEVERAL times in the first quarter alone. Here are a few of the October Writing Projects that we do.

Halloween Narrative Story- Students are each given a die and an organizer. (ORGANIZER IS FREE HERE) As I flip through the PPT (Available HERE), each student rolls their die and that number corresponds with the story starter element that they will use in their story.

 Other than following those guidelines, I make it fairly limitless. They enjoy these! Some turn out funny and others are spooky! We focused on burying DULL words and buried SAID in our writing for good!

We just finished reading Wonder in class together. If you are an upper level (4th and up) and haven't exposed your students to this book- YOU MUST! It is amazing and teaches so many character lessons! I can't even explain how many standards I was able to address just from reading this aloud as a class read aloud! I will be starting all of my school years with this book from now on!

My students totally bought-in with what I referred to as the PRECEPT CHALLENGE. In the book Mr. Browne gives students a precept at the beginning of each month. These are like life lessons or quotes to live by. They have to write in his class what it means to them. At the end of the school year he challenges each of this students to write their own precept over the summer and to mail it to him on a post card. So I gave my students the precept challenge! They had to come up with a precept that represented them and write a postcard explaining why they chose the one they chose! I also had them create their own "Wonder" portrait like the one of Auggie on the front of the book! This was a quick, but VERY meaningful writing assignment!

Here are a few of my favorites! (Just the illustrations, not their post cards)

The current writing project we are doing is about POINT OF VIEW! We study the different points of view in reading and writing (1st, 2nd, 3rd- Posters Made HERE). Then we talk about taking on the roll of another person or THING... :)

Then BAM- we become a piece of candy on Halloween and we write using this story prompt: 

*Found on Pinterest*

The whole beginning of this post was going to end with AUTOBIOGRAPHIES which we are getting read to start...BUT I am going to save that one for another day! 

Look forward to August-September Writing projects AND Autobiographies SOON! 

Fraction Action and Character Types

My last post was a long one about our Character Study Unit! We are almost finished with our book and have been getting into how to write a character analysis essay. I am forcing them to really dig deep with this one! Here is one last Character "Thing" that we have done...

I made this page for them to fill out on their own and paste it into their Reading Interactive Notebooks. (This will be added to my Character Analysis packet on TPT-See previous post) We fill it out together and talk about specific examples. There is also a good flat/round character YouTube Video that we watched that can be found HERE.

We made an anchor chart similar to this one found on Pinterest with nothing other than the image:












We are going to begin our Characterization Foldable Friday and being with Thesis statements and the Analysis on Monday!

We have been studying fractions this week and I found these awesome FREE Fraction Task Cards! They are from HERE. There were only 3 in this set, but it worked great for my classroom. The task cards are designed for students to create fractions based on pattern blocks. Then they have to justify how they know their design represents the fraction that they were given. Explaining or justifying is not a strong point for most. BUT some of them just amazed me with this!!

 Here they were tracing their design. Next they had to color it to match the blocks they had used.

Finally they had to explain or "Convince Me" as the Task Card says how they know it is an accurate representation. 

Here is some of their work:

Yesterday we did this Fraction Smarties activity:

FOUND HERE - Click on the Image to go to the ORIGINAL BLOGGERS POST WITH DOWNLOAD LINK :) 

What are your favorite upper level fraction activities?? 

Character Analysis Unit

I have really started to love all of the Character Study we have been doing. I think the depth in which my kiddos are thinking is just amazing!!

One of the lessons we started with was on Inside/Outside Character Traits. We talked about how you often have to infer and use Text Based Evidence to justify inside character traits. We practiced by reading Amazing Grace and making the foldable picture below that came from HERE (I forgot to take pictures so here is the blog that shows the orginial). The site even has the printable frame to make this!! My kids listed the outside traits on the outside and the inside traits WITH TEXT BASED EVIDENCE on the inside. I made them realize they had to SHOW ME how they know what the character is like on the inside.



Up next we did a project where they were the character and they had to describe themselves using TBE. Here is some of their work (only a couple bc I don't have time to blur out pictures-which I don't have to, but feel as though I should). Also I always take their picture on that day to print so that if they save the assignment it will show how much they have changed!

Now we have started an AMAZING novel by a Missouri author called The Man Who Loved Clowns. It was written by June Rae Wood. She is a Missouri author and the book is set in MO and has locations that my kids can relate to throughout the book. I am loving it.

We are reading the novel as a part of our character analysis study. We are taking everything we have learned about characters (which is more than what I have listed above- I will post more later!) and are applying it to the characters throughout the novel. We are doing an in-depth analysis.

The students have packets of organizers for note taking that can be seen here on TPT. We are working up to creating something that looks like this:

It is the character analysis project from Teaching With A Mountain View. She is AMAZING and I use her blog and ideas almost daily!! There is even the rubric and instructions for this project along with her completed pictures. The picture above is my model for my students. 

Here are some of the pages from their packets for notes available at my TPT STORE: 

So we are taking notes about everything character related throughout the novel. We will work on the characterization project and a written character analysis at the conclusion of the novel. My kids are already loving it and are really thinking deep! 

*Note- The TPT link above is linked to the The Man Who Loved Clowns edition of these organizers. There is a generic version too that did not get uploaded yet, but I will hopefully get it next week. This version does include blank pages though and would work for any novel. :) 

Enjoy your weekend!! 

Character Changes

We have been working on studying characters. We read both Amazing Grace and Boundless Grace this past week to work on inside/outside character traits and changes in character traits. I will post more on that tomorrow! BUT for now...I took a lesson/foldable idea from HERE about using a Patricia Polacco book to teach character changes. I think P.P. by far has the best selection of upper elementary read alouds! Here is the foldable we made (picture from HERE) THIS IS NOT MY PICTURE!!! SEE THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE SITE IT CAME FROM!! I WILL POST MY PICTURES TOMORROW!!



I used a newer Patricia Polacco book titled Bully. And it was absolutely PERFECT for my group of kids!! I could not have randomly picked a better selection for my 5th graders! This hit the reality of social media on the head! Not to mention it show character changes perfectly!! I will even use this when we dive into character conflict later this week!



An upper elementary read aloud MUST in every classroom!!!!!!!