The Error You are Making with Flat Stanley's Original Adventure

Everyone loves Flat Stanley!  He is so much fun to make and send off in an envelope to parts unknown!  People take pictures with him and send him back so that you can see all the amazing things he got to do-just like when Flat Stanley went on his adventure to California!  Great learning, right!  What if I told you that there was something you totally missed?  What if I told you that you made a major teaching error by just reading this book and sending Flat Stanley on his way.  Because you did, you missed something really remarkable in this tale! You made a teaching error...

Flat Stanley is much more than a paper doll you are sending out.  Teachers have missed a key opportunity to teach some amazing things through this book because we use it as a Social Studies opportunity and it is, well, fun! There is an entire world of literary wonder at just the right level for late first graders, second graders, and early third graders to learn about.  This book is written at a level that allows students to critically examine a text for elements they need to know about.  It is also written for them to have fun!  Why not combine the two and have a great book study!  Let's look at how! 

Comprehension

Although it doesn't look like there are opportunities for great comprehension, there is!  Each chapter packs a little bit of an opportunity to think about and comprehend what is in the chapter.  For instance, in the first chapter, (Grab the freebie here!) there are some interesting parent interactions!  There is also a chance to look at how this story is a fantasy.  And, it even has a chance for some fun measuring in your classroom to get kids ready for the deeper stuff.  

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Today we had so much fun finding things that measured the same as Flat Stanley! What kind of fun things do you do to integrate other subjects into reading? • • • #secondgradeteacher #secondgrade #secondgradefollowloop #secondgradetribe #secondgradeteachers #secondgradefun #secondgradesquad #secondgradeshenanigans #2ndgradeteacher #2ndgraderocks #2ndgradeclassroom #2ndgradeswag #2ndgradefun #iteachsecond #iteach2ndgrade #iteachsecondgrade #iteach2nd #flatstanley

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This continues throughout the rest of the book, building deeper and deeper meaning and thoughts expressed by the author.  All of this can be assessed through comprehension questions that help students build true understanding of the text.

Character Reactions

Students can have a different kind of experience with Flat Stanley by examining character reactions.  This can be done with a Wants and Needs Chart.  This chart is not the typical wants and needs we complete in the Social Studies Standards.  This looks at what character want and what they need to do to accomplish that want.  What happens when we examine characters in this way, we can look deeper at what the author's purpose is.  This, ultimately, leads the students to discover themes for each character and the book overall!  This is a priceless way to use Flat Stanley, because it exposes sibling rivalry to students who are always amazed at how much Stanley and Arthur have in common with their lives!  

Vocabulary

Although Flat Stanley doesn't jump to mind as a great vocabulary teaching opportunity, it is in there!  This story was written at a time period where different words were used.  Fragile, jostle, and rummage are examples of the strong words used by Jeff Brown in his authorship of this book.  

And More!  

There are even more opportunities packed into this text.  Looking at dialogue, character feelings, and more can be done with Flat Stanley.  Don't miss out on the opportunity to boost your students' skills with this great book AND this great product!  Everything you need for a great novel study is found inside!  

I'd love to hear what you have to say about Flat Stanley!  What have you done to get the BEST out of this study!  Drop me a comment or follow me over on Facebook or Instagram to share on a post!  I'd love to hear from you!  

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Book Clubs for Kids: 5 Tips for Grading Student Book Clubs

Book Clubs for Kids is one of the BEST ways to use real literature to build comprehension in students. Student choice and student jobs, or roles, are key components to success in Book Clubs.  But there is the question that teachers who want to start Book Clubs ask the most-How do I grade Book Clubs for kids?  Let's take a Look at some tips to grading Book Clubs!

Tip #1:  Use a Well Developed Rubric to Grade

Honestly, this is the BEST way to grade.  I spent years examining what my students were doing in Book Clubs for kids to adapt and change to meet their needs.  Once I created an area, I would try it out and see how it worked for a diverse number of students.  It was adapted and changed over and over again until I found the perfect combination of social interactions and academics.  I used this grading rubric with groups I sat through and groups I observed as I walked around.  It is a life-saver when it comes to scoring students.  

Tip #2:  Grade their Meetings

Document everything!  It is key to keep track of what was said in Book Clubs beyond what the students provide.  When I first start Book Clubs for kids, I sit in on their meetings.  I also ask Higher-Order Thinking Questions. I take the time to write down what each child is saying.  What do I do with this?  I keep the papers so that I can tract their progress over the year.  I also examine these pages for strengths and weaknesses in students and to readjust groupings.  This also leads me to lessons I can teach to build our Book Club skills.  

Tip #3:  Grade their Book Club Jobs

In addition to using the rubric, I also grade the Book Club for kids jobs.  This is where I gain valuable grades, as you can either grade these separately or all together, depending on the level of skill your students have.  In the primary grades, I grade them as one grade.  In intermediate, I tend to grade these as stand-alone grades because of the amount of work it takes to prepare them.  You can also apply point values to each job and, then, add those up as one score in the end.  There are plenty of variations along the way to play with.  Try some out and pick what works best for you!  This is key!  

Tip #4:  Grade for Specific Skills

Book Clubs for kids can also be adapted for specific skills.  On top of the Book Club jobs, you can add open ended pages to the Book Club to target a specific skill you want to assess.  Be thoughtful about the amount of extra work though.   You don't want to add too much to their plate, as reading and completing the main tasks can fill a student's time.  

Tip #5: Grade with Expectations

Sometime teachers look at Book Clubs for kids as "fun work".  It is important to grade with the same expectations you would on any class assignment.  This is NOT "fun work".  Yes, kids have fun in Book Clubs, but their work should be taken as seriously as any classwork is.  Look at content, conventions, and anything else you would normally look for in student work.  This can take their work level to the next realm of learning!  Expect and they shall achieve!  

Need a great rubric for Book Clubs for kids?  Check out my two levels of Differentiated Book Clubs!  They have a variety of assessment pieces built in for you to use!  I'd also love to hear about your tips for assessing kids in Book Clubs!  Drop a comment and share your ideas!  Or, ask a question!  I'd love to hear them!  

Other Book club for Kids Posts to Read: 

Why I Don't Do Guided Reading:  Book Clubs Exposed

Student Choice in Book Clubs

The Secret of Getting the Best out of Student Jobs

5 Things You Should Look for During Book Clubs


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Book Club for Kids: The Secret of Getting the BEST out of Student Jobs

Book Clubs for kids are a primary tool of reading instruction in my classroom!  They are used in place of Guided Reading instruction and are much more informative than the actual practice of Guided Reading.  One of the secrets to Book Clubs for kids is picking roles, or jobs, that provide the most value to the students and the teacher!  

Your Purpose Might Just Be Hiding!  

Before we dive into jobs, let's talk a minute about purpose!  Everything we do as teachers should have a purpose.  I have honestly read other teachers share that their Book Clubs for kids have no purpose besides being a Book Club.  This, my friends, has a deeper purpose!  You are using the skill of talking about REAL LITERATURE in a real world setting!  That means you should be diving into researching this topic to build a structure for this talk, a structure to teach real literature without the kids knowing it!  Higher order thinking is your real goal-learn how to utilize it in this setting!  Because everything we do HAS A PURPOSE!  Look for it, it is there!  

The Best Book Club for Kids Jobs!

There are so many ways you can utilize Literature Circle Roles.  These roles were shared by Harvey Daniels in Voice and Choice in Literature Circles.  It was simple then to utilize these roles to teach within Book Clubs for kids.  I used these roles, or jobs as we now call them, with my first real experiences back when I first learned about Literature Circles.  However, times have changed.  The demand of testing and the new Standards that most of us teach under, has really called to us about how to build skills and understanding within the texts students read.  That means we need to have jobs that have the most bang for our buck!  Above all, students need to be practicing skills that can be bridged back to the Standards and meet the demand of testing.  These five jobs do just that!  

Job #1:  Summarizer

This job is just what it is named.  Students write a summary of their reading.  This could be a chapter or even multiple chapters.  This process is key to many smaller parts of a variety of standards.  Determining key details, sequencing, and critically examining the text are ways that students use reading to build a summary!  Plus, students strengthen their vocabulary and writing skills, as they cannot just copy sentences from the text.  This is not a skill to take lightly.  Writing summaries together, giving feedback on summaries written, and reteaching to your class will all be part of this job.  In the end, it is worth the time to do this.  Your students will boost so many reading skills just through learning how to properly write a summary!  Take the time to use this valuable job in Books Clubs for kids!  

Job #2 Questioner

This job is so much more than asking questions.  But, let's start with the obvious!  When you are looking at the basics of the new standards, you will find that many of the foundations start in asking questions about a text.  And, yet, kids struggle with doing this!  They struggle with finding questions with real meat to them.  This can be developed through Book Clubs for kids.  The job of Questioner is about asking quality questions and, also, providing an answer.  As a teacher, this gives me insight into what students are questioning as they read.  When you look at this deeper, you an clearly develop an understanding of their higher-order thinking.  If students are stuck on obvious questions, they are lacking higher-order thinking.  It is my job to begin to cultivate this through lessons.  If students still struggle, it is time for some one-on-one help to build this area up.  Their answer are just as insightful.  A student can ask a great question, but totally miss the mark that their answer can have multiple answers.  It is when students open up to the idea that a question can have many answers that debate occurs-and it does, naturally, in Book Clubs for kids.  

In addition to developing question to ask the group, the Questioner is responsible for running the group.  This starts very early on when I still sit with the groups, especially in the younger grades.  I try to act as a silent witness, offering as little guidance as possible.  This helps in the gradual release to student-led Book Clubs.  I have my students use the Questioner form to work through their Book Club leading.  Soon, students are leading, no matter what their ability is!  

Job #3:  Plot Picker

This job in Book Clubs for kids is another way for students to meet specific Standards that you need to assess.  They need to critically analyze the text to determine the climax of the chapter or section they are reading.  Students must wade through key details to pick the moment that impacts the story the most.  This can be difficult for students since there may be a variety of opinions based on what they are reading. This job, more than any of the others, can lead to a real debate among students-and that is what you are looking for.  Students can strengthen their skills of talking correctly and building debate naturally within the Book Club structure.  Be sure to be watching for it and guiding it along.  I have used good group debates as "fishbowl" moments.  I have the students recreate their debate and have others watch.  This way, we can talk about successful debates and how you correctly talk and react within them.  This words for any grade (I have even done this with First Graders!) 

Job #4:  Character Sketcher

Character Sketcher is 100% looking at Character Traits.  Students must choose a moment from their reading and explain this character through traits that they see in their reading.  This is a key moment to assess the difference between actions and reactions.  This one is difficult for students when it really comes down to it.  They think the characters actions cause the trait, when in reality it is their reactions that are the trait.  Continued practice in Book Clubs for kids is a simple way to build and grow this skill to mastery.  Kids are looking at their character across a WHOLE story, across many events and many interactions with others.  This is what is missing in those guided reading books. (Read more here!) There is not enough depth to characters in these texts to get what students need!  That is why real literature in Book Clubs just does amazing things with students.  And this is a job that proves that fact!  

Job #5:  Connector

Emotions play a huge role in who we are as readers.  This is why this job is important.  It takes the time to dive into the feelings of the reader and to dig into their schema.  I will never forget when one of my toughest fifth graders ever was reading Old Yeller'.  We were in the middle of Book Club and I was monitoring their group.  I was standing behind him when he started.  All of a sudden he broke down in tears.  He explained that when he was younger one of his dogs died and how this story brought him right to that moment and how he just knew how Travis had to have felt.  He just knew it  because it was exactly how he felt.  It was powerful and moving.  We were a tight knit group, so it didn't go anywhere past our classroom-and all the kids hugged hime sometime in the day.  It was real, it was powerful, it was real literature in action!  It was also 15 years ago for me-and it has stayed with me all that time.  That is the power of connecting in Book Clubs for kids!  

Other Jobs

Yes, there are other jobs.  Here is what I have to say about that!  I have tried all of the other jobs and have personally found that they lack the depth of the jobs I have shared here.  These can (and are included in my Book Club products) Word Nerd, Visualizer, Passage Picker, and Travel Tracer.  The problem with these is not found in the job itself.  All have their value.  The problem lies in the sharing of the job.  With Word Nerd, students loose interest hearing words and their definitions.  This can cause off-task behaviors to jump up and disrupt your groups.  I find that if I let kids pick words across the text and do this job as an individual product, I get better results.  Visualizer is a weak job in general.  Students must show a picture and discuss their picture.  I find this amount of drawing, especially with older kids, is not a good use of classroom time.  Again, this one can be used at the end to share "the moment" that stuck with them!  The two that have some traction are Passage Picker and Travel Tracer.  Both look more closely at the reading, but both can be somewhat boring to listeners and frustrating to the student completing the task.  What if they reading only has one setting (Travel Tracer) or too many settings?!  What if the student doesn't like this part of the reading and finds no value in the passages they have read?  All of these are areas I've had students struggle with.  These struggles are an important part of understanding the Book Club jobs presented here!  

Differentiation!  

The good news is that ALL of these Book Club roles can be differentiated to meet the needs of your students.  You will find value in all the jobs presented when you are differentiating.  Each and every one of these jobs becomes important to students if you look at what they need in that moment.  A struggling reader just may need that Visualizing job when they are completing a Book Club.  It's easy to differentiate by having leveled pages representing each job.  

Advanced Book Club Pages

Basic Book Club Pages

Students can easily be assigned what they need, even when reading the same text.  Each of the sets come with their own leveling.  The Basic Set leveling includes a story level and a chapter level that support a larger area of drawing.  Then they move into limited drawing on the page and no drawing, focusing on the written element alone.  This allows for an easy transition into completely written work.  

The Advanced Set includes the first page offered as the limited drawing. Some students in grades 3-5 will benefit from drawing, but I find it is key to keep the written work as the most important element on the pages.  The goal with Book Clubs for Kids in the intermediate grades should always be about what they are presenting to the group in written form, not the drawings that accompany the work.  I think this can get lost sometimes in Book Clubs!  But, just like with the Basic Level of Book Clubs, this set can easily be differentiated to meet the needs of each of the students in your classroom!  

What do you think about these jobs, or roles for Book Clubs for kids?  I'd love to know what works for you, what doesn't work for you, or what you are interested in hearing more of?!  Leave me a comment or hit me up on Facebook or Instagram!  (Be sure to follow to get all the most recent information about my classroom!) 

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Read other Book Club for Kids Posts

Book Clubs Exposed

Student Choice in Book Clubs

Five for Friday: Unlocking the Secrets to Text Features with Gail Gibbons Books

It’s summer, so do you know what that means?  It means teachers sell things!  Lots of things!  I’m on this Facebook Group of local teachers that post all kinds of fun things they are getting rid of, right there, shopping online, at home!  I resist most things!  I have plenty-trust me!  But sometimes I must invest! 

These bad-boys came up on the sale board and I HAD to have them. You see, Gail Gibbons is the BEST informational text author EVER!  For YEARS I have been teaching using her books, before it was even cool, to instill the love of text features in children! 

About 10 years into my teaching career is when Balanced Literacy hit the air-and I was in LOVE!  One of the key features of Balanced Literacy was to being to teach HOW reading happened within nonfiction.  I purchased Make it Real! by  Linda Hoyt.  I became very interested in something called Text Features!  This captured my attention for one main reason-I just discovered the secret to my success as a student!  I was always fascinated by history and science (still am!) and I devoured our text books in high school and college! I read every square inch of those books, I examined the pictures, read the materials below them, paid attention to headings,  and I could go on and on!  The other kids couldn’t figure out how I could so easily find answers and information, and, frankly, I couldn’t see why it was so difficult for them-it was right there!   It wasn’t until Make it Real! that I understood-I had taught myself text features and I was using them for full advantage-and the other kids in school didn’t have a clue!  And, that, became my goal-to never leave another kid (in this case student) in the dark again!  So, every year, including when I taught in the Science Lab at my school, out come the Gail Gibbons books.  So, here’s the Five for Friday top reasons you should be using them in your classroom!

TEXT FEATURES!  Can I tell you that EVERY text feature is found in one of her books (ok, not every one-no table of context and no index!) She does have an appendix if you pay attention-her extra information page!) I always start with Frogs as my first book because it has the key features found within this text.  Within the first pages read you will have encountered labels, diagrams, headings, bold print words, pictures, and captions!  You will also encounter some that, in my opinion, are just as key:  insets-where pictures are places within pictures, and cut-aways-where a picture shows the inside, or cut-away- of an item.  In this case, it is the hibernation of a frog, showing them underground in their burrow.  And, above all that, Frogs is an attention keeper!  They LOVE it!  No matter what grade (I’ve done this from 1^st grade all the way to 5^th grade!)

That’s right!  The second reason to use Gail Gibbon’s books is because they are highly engaging.  She does a considerable amount of research for each text. If you pay attention to the dedication page of each book, you will find out EXACTLY how much research she does, because she thanks the experts who help her.  One of her books that I use right away is Sea Turtles.  Living on the Gulf Coast of Florida, my students have first hand experience with turtle nests, but don’t really understand the why behind staying away from them.  Many are from the North where there are no sea turtles.  So, great teaching moments-BUT there’s more.  At the end, I go back and show them the dedication page!  She thanks a researcher at Mote Marine-where many of them have visited and have year round passes!  Their faces EVERY TIME!  Then we go through and do a picture walk of how it does look like our beaches!  This is not an isolated event!  We end up really examining and discussing the information within the text!  Total engagement!

Her books can teach the students the WHY of text features.  As I look at many products on TpT and other places, I see a lot of name calling!  What I mean by this is I see a lot of “This is a caption.”  “This is a picture.” I don’t see a lot of WHYS!  Why did the author use this text feature here?  Why does this text feature SUPPORT the text?  Why would you stop and pay attention to this text feature?  We need to be teaching the WHY!  It always amazes me when teachers skip this part.  Trust me, it unlocks everything!  When I was in the Science Lab, I had student whom I had taught in 2^nd grade.  When I was sharing text features each week, those kids knew the WHY and could explain to others!  They were in 4^th and 5^th grade!  It had UNLOCKED THE SECRET CODE to nonfiction text!  This wasn’t just higher achieving students-this crossed the whole range of kids I had in class!  WHY matters-it unlocks the secret code! 

You can also teach author’s craft with Gail Gibbons books!  She has, literally, HUNDREDS of books!  I always pick some of her middle of her career books to start with.  We continually talk about her work as an author.  I share facts about her writing life and begin to slowly introduce some of her older material next.  It is much weaker and has less information and text features.  I do this on purpose.  So we can compare them to what we have been reading and talk about how her work has changed.  Then, I begin to introduce her newest material.  Then we can fully see the progression of a writer’s work over time.  How it changes, flows, develops!  It is a GREAT thing to do with kids, and it doesn’t take tons of effort or time, because it is right there, and they can see it! 

Readability!  By 2^nd and 3^rd grade, her books are totally at a readability place.  Even 4^th and 5^th graders enjoy her writing.  It is meaty enough for children at these ages, especially if they are struggling.  The pictures are still mature enough for older kids on the whole.  My kids begin checking out her books almost right away from our school library and this continues throughout the year.  It doesn’t take long for them to start trading books-which means tons of exposure to nonfiction topics in a friendly way!  It is truly a great thing to see! 

So, there’s my Five for Friday!  I have another totally cool activity I do with my students, but I’ll save that for another post !  When it is up, I will link it here!  I also plan on creating materials for both the Polar Bears and Penguin books (Penguins is a GREAT one for teaching maps as a text feature!)  so watch for those at my store!  You can follow my at The Best Days by clicking the green star!  Remember to  also follow me here at my blog and on Facebook!  And, if you have used Gail Gibbons before, share a comment to tell everyone how! 

(This has been transferred and updated on my new blog!)

Back at It!

     I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but blogging just got away from me.  To be honest, I think it is simply because I REALLY found my teacher’s grove again!  I mean, REALLY!  I did some AWESOME activities with this class of students.  So, I figured I’d share a couple of my new to the school year products and some new classroom looks I’ve been working on!  So, here we go!

Mr. Putter and Tabby

     Who doesn’t love a good Mr. Putter and Tabby story!  I had so much fun working with the story in our reader (Wonders) and the kids loved the tale so much, that I quickly pulled out a Scholastic order and found some of the books I already had and decided to do a Book Club with Mr. Putter and Tabby!  But, what to teach?  There had to be more!  My students were REALLY struggling with understanding the character.  So, that was my goal when I set out, what, exactly, could I do to get some of these very difficult concepts across to them.  Using some great tools, I was able to create some incredible pages that could be used across the study within all the books!  AND IT WORKED!  

Mr. Putter and Tabby

This study became the anchor texts for all character discussion throughout the rest of the year!  It was awesome and totally engaging.  Many times my aide would show up in the middle of Book Club.  I would go out with students engaged and walk back in with students engaged!  They LOVED it!  The real test of a product is having someone else use it.  Another teacher on my team wanted to try this out as well.  Same results!  I was thrilled!  And, believe it or not, this was a VERY fun product to make! 

Flat Stanley’s Original Adventure

     This book study was a little different.  I completed this study as a whole group.  The main focus for our study looked at character again.  This time we focused on the Character Wants and Needs chart found in this product and in Mr. Putter and Tabby!  We met as a group and filled in the information as we went along.  Boy, did some things begin to POP!  Arthur seems like such a great kid when you just read the text, but by carefully examining him through his wants and needs, you suddenly discover his selfishness!  And that becomes a MAJOR THEME!  Honestly, when I started this wants and needs thing it was because some Common Core book said to try it out!  What I discovered was that if you want to teach little guys and girls theme, they need a great graphic organizer!  And, it WORKED!  We were able to pick out the major themes (and, verbally, we reviewed Mr. Putter and Tabby as our sample!) and create a cool project in the end!  This was a great unit of discovery!

Continued Math Practice

     If my students are like yours, you cannot leave a major math topic and expect them to retain it!  In Second Grade it is two/three digit addition by two/three digit addition and then, again, subtraction!  My morning work took a change from the typical Language Arts materials after teaching these units.  I started developing pages to go along with it.  I know they are probably out there somewhere, but I just couldn’t find the focus practice I needed for the 20 minutes I needed to use.  So, I came up with a variety of products with some fun themes along the way.  This totally worked!  My kids could practice these, self-check, and complete them in about 20 minutes!  And, it totally paid off in the end!  I’d say about 95% of my class had mastered both skills by May!  I still had a few strugglers but with continued focus, they are close to completing these tasks any time they are given to them!

Super Hero Themed Binder

     The next one is all me!  I have never been a super organized person (I have a whole blog post in my head about it!  That’s my problem, I get the post done in my head but never with my fingers!) Last summer I thought, “I can make my own binder! And I want it to match my THEME!”  When I couldn’t find a Super Hero themed binder, I gave in and made my own!  Boy, was I happy I did!  Everything was in one place, I never had to look for schedules or parent info.  It was all right there.  Am I going to be honest and say I actually had plans for every week-in my head I did! 

So, that’s my goal next year!  And, the super fun thing is, I think this year I’m going with my new Jedi Master Notebook!  (But more on that in a minute!)

Editable Star Wars Planner

New Themes and Ideas!

   Another reason I didn’t blog since December is simply because, in May, my fingers and design streak found some fun in designing new classroom décor products!  I had messed around with the Wizard of Oz clipart 

and, just wanting a little bit of fun, I messed around with it some more to come up with a new line!  Then it turned into Pirates 

and Oceans!  

From that it was FROGS! 

Oh, how cute they are!  

With that, I’m fully rejuvenated and fully prepared to face my next adventure-3^rd grade and the FSA!  This summer I will be playing with a few new ideas that will lead to a few new products so watch out!  There will be a LITTLE bit of TALES coming with more focus on FABLES and MULTIPLICATION in my future!  HOMER PRICE’S adventures may pale in comparison!  And, TpT might have a little thing in ORLANDO that I can blog about too! 

Looking forward to posting more!