Walking at Night

2 gallon book bag holding independent reading choices

Why Read Aloud to Children? Let me count the ways…

Reading aloud to students is important.  Blah blah blah.  Reading aloud to children is necessary because otherwise they won’t read the books we love and think are important.  “Blessing Books” is when the teacher has read a little bit of a book to the classroom or touched the book and talked enough about the book [...]

Using Name Walls to Teach Reading and Writing

I am looking forward to reading this book. I hope that scholastic makes it available on Kindle!

Kindle for Every student? Why not an ipod Touch instead?

The cart before the horse?  My son is attending college.  Not one textbook is available on the Kindle yet.  Before we spend $ providing each student with a kindle, don’t we have to ensure that the textbooks are actually available?  Also, the textbooks are easily loaded onto ipod Touch or ipod Phone. 
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/democratic-groups-proposal-give-each-student-a-kindle/?ref=technology
I have a Kindle.  [...]

Really? A book about bottoms? Really?

Chicken Cheeks is one of those books that boys cannot wait to read and teachers cannot quite believe they are reading and teachers cannot believe they are reading it outloud!  Buy this and read this and be brave!
 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416948643?ie=UTF8&tag=choiceliterac-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416948643

The Questioning Circle by Jeffrey Wilhelm

Jeff writes about the strategy of the questioning circle on pages 124-129.             He models this strategy with the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak         Jeff encourages teachers to use the gradual release model of I do, we do, you do.    First, he posed the essential inquiry question related to his [...]

Writing Realistic Fiction Effectively

Professional Resources
Live Writing: Breathing Life into your Words by Ralph Fletcher
First Grade Writers Units of Study to Help Children Plan, Organize, and Structure Their Ideas by Stephanie Parsons (Ch 5)
Workshop Help Desk Grade 2 A Quick Guide to Teaching Second-Grade Writers with Units of Study (see what Lucy Calkins wrote for November).  She writes about [...]

Writing Essentials by Regie Routman

Book Study Group – This is a wonderful discussion and book study group
http://essentialsofwriting.blogspot.com/2009/06/week-one-introduction.html
http://essentialsofwriting.blogspot.com/2009/06/week-two-essential-writing-life.html
http://essentialsofwriting.blogspot.com/2009/06/week-three-sharing-your-writing-life.html
http://essentialsofwriting.blogspot.com/2009/06/week-four-written-reflection-section.html
http://essentialsofwriting.blogspot.com/2009/07/week-five-section-three-essential.html

Jeffrey D. Wilhelm – Essential Questions

http://www.amazon.com/Engaging-Readers-Writers-Inquiry-Practice/dp/0439574137 
This book encourages us to think about the essential question that leads to inquiry thinking.