Monday, February 23, 2015

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/23


It's Monday! What Are You Reading? --From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

I did not finish any books because I am reading too many at once. 

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am listening to Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge. I really like the story and I am curious about how it will turn out in the end. I love how imaginative this retelling of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is.  I am also reading Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman, which is every bit as fascinating and intriguing as Seraphina. Another amazing story world that I am visiting is Laini Taylor's world from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. I am reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters and as much as I love this book, I am missing the audiobook narration. I listened to the first two books and loved the narrator. I also have a couple of professional books that I have been reading. 

What's Next?

I have The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up on my shelf and it is due back to the library soon so I will probably pick that one up in the next day or so. I also just got The Marshmallow Test from the library and it sounds really interesting. Other than that, I don't know. It will depend on whether I make it through the books I have already started. 

What are you reading this week? Do you have any suggestions or recommendations for me? I would love to hear from you in the comments!


Saturday, February 21, 2015

Celebrate 2/21



It's Saturday morning and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by the host Ruth Ayres' blog to read others' celebrations.

This week I have a lot of small celebrations to share.


  • Monday was a day off for us for President's Day. I enjoyed having the extra day off because that meant that I could actually have a weekend without having to worry about working on Saturday and Sunday to be ready for my week. 
  • I changed up how I am doing my math lessons so that I work with half the class (or fewer) at a time. My students are just so chatty that we can't get through what needs to be done when I have all of them in the gathering space. I am lucky enough to have a Chromebook cart at my disposal so they get a good mix of teacher-led instruction and practice on the computer using Khan Academy or Compass learning Odyssey. I feel like so many more students learned so much more this week. 
  • We started a new routine of making a weekly goal for reading, math, and behavior.  I remembered to have them make the goal and I remembered to have them rate themselves on how they did toward achieving their goal. 
  • On Thursday, it was frigid outside. We should have had a Cold Day off from school. With temperatures on the thermometer of -11 and wind chills of -29, our school district got a lot of complaints for not calling it. About half of my class made it to school that day. It was a nice relaxing day for all of us. We did a lot of learning, but were able to have some fun as well. 
  • Friday, everyone was in class and everyone had a lot to say to one another. I ended up sending a few kids out for time-outs in other classrooms in the afternoon. One student, who I thought really did not care for my class, wrote me the sweetest apology note. It really made me step back and reframe some of what I have been letting myself think lately. These opportunities to adjust your perspective do not always come up and I am thankful for this one. 
  • The staff book club is up and running. We have our first title selected and will meet at the end of March to discuss it. I am so glad I put the idea out there. 
  • Last, but certainly not least, the middle school dance last Friday went well and the kids had fun. My student council did their part to make the night fun for everyone as well as a great fundraiser for us. 
What do you have to celebrate?  I would love to hear from you in the comments!


Monday, February 16, 2015

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/16


It's Monday! What Are You Reading? --From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Books I Finished This Week:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a really engaging book. I read it almost in one sitting and had a hard time putting it down. A post-apocalyptic world that sounded scary realistic to me. What would happen if there were a deadly flu that acted so quickly? What I loved about this book was an inherent message that performance and music and art matter and can be very important for people. I love that the author shows us a bleak world but gives us hope at the same time. I highly recommend this book.


Nnewts is the first book in a new middle grade graphic novel series by Doug TenNapel. I thought the story was intriguing (and somewhat weird) and I am sure my students will like it. The use of color in this graphic novel is especially striking.  I would recommend this one for grades 4 and up.


The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a very interesting book. I found it to be sort of a mix between Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, but definitely for adults with the situations and language for mature audiences. I found myself really disliking the main character by the end of this book.  I was a little surprised at how dark everything got toward the end as well. I know that this is the first in a trilogy and I am interested in reading the rest of the series. I only hope I will be able to start liking this character again.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am still reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters and Shadow Scale. I started listening to Cruel Beauty and so far it is intriguing. I also dipped into Mortal Heart.

What's Next?

I have some professional reading to do this week so I am not sure I will get to much more than what I already started. We shall see what the week holds.




Monday, February 9, 2015

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/9


It's Monday! What Are You Reading? --From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.


Books I Finished This Week:

I finished listening to Death Cloud (Young Sherlock Holmes #1) by Andrew Lane. This was a fun mystery.  I will definitely look for the other Young Sherlock Holmes books after reading this one. What a nice, light read!



That is all. The problem with reading multiple books is that you make progress in all of them but don't finish very quickly. 

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am almost finished with The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I am also reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor and Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman.  Both are really amazing story worlds that I am glad to visit again. 

What's Next?

I have a pile of books from the library and will probably have to return some before getting to them. Too many ambitious hold requests. I also have a few titles from NetGalley that I want to get to soon. I would like to improve my percentages there for giving title feedback. I am really looking forward to Read Between the Lines by Jo Knowles.  

I am very much suffering from the too many books, too little time syndrome. I really want to be able to stop time whenever I want so that I could have some guilt-free reading time. 

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a great reading week. 


Saturday, February 7, 2015

Celebrate This Week! 2/6


It's Saturday morning and that means it is time to reflect on the week and celebrate things both big and small. Join our community and celebrate this week by linking up or just stopping by to read others' celebrations.


I am not always consistent with writing these blog posts, but I am so grateful for this community because I do always think of reasons to celebrate. Having the habit of writing this type of blog post has transformed my thinking and I am able to be more mindful and step back to appreciate it when things worth celebrating pop up. Last week, I did not blog about it because I was at a conference, but I did make a nice list of celebrations in my planner. I will share a couple of those celebrations here along with this week's list.

First and foremost, I celebrate the fact that I feel healthy and have been feeling healthy for the last couple days. It has been a while since the last time I could say that. Now, fingers crossed that I will be able to stay away from all the nasty bugs that are still circulating out there.

Second, I celebrate my wonderful husband who has been doing extra shares of all the work around the house as I have been feeling sick. This was especially apparent on Sunday when he had to go out to shovel 12" of snow by himself since I was coughing up a lung. He does this extra work with only an occasional complaint. I am so lucky!



Last Friday, I was given a free Chocolate Croissant at Starbucks for National Croissant Day. Who doesn't love free pastry???

A former student has been regularly volunteering at school and I have really enjoyed some conversations with him. I loved talking about his decision of which college to go to. It is awesome that he had multiple acceptances and could choose among the great universities he had applied to. We also talked about his ambitions for medical school and I was able to give him a little bit of insight because my sister is a doctor. I just really enjoyed that conversation.

My classroom is a chaotic, loud, and fun-filled space. I am frequently at the point of pulling out my hair with frustration at never getting through what I need to get through because of talkative and energy-filled kids. One of my favorite times in the week, however, is our board game time on Friday afternoons. In my classroom, this time is our community-building time. No one is excluded from this time. Every one of my students is allowed to participate and play in order to help them all be able to get along. This is one of the noisiest times of the week, but I can just stand there for a moment and observe groups of kids cackling and giggling and getting along. They play with other students they might not normally play with, they talk, they teach each other the game rules, and they have fun together.

I switched my schedule around and I am so happy I did. We are able to do so much more with our longer literacy times and math works so much better in the morning for me. One of the best things about the switch is the way I was able to work a few new routines into our day.
  • We have started to read the Wonder of the Day on Wonderopolis each day. My students have fun making predictions based on the teaser about what the next Wonder will be. I love that they are getting a solid example of informational writing every day. 
  • I also started doing Sacred Writing Time every day. I bought the slides from Corbett Harrison to make my life easier and we jumped into this routine. I am so excited about how this has started. I explained it to them the first day and started my timer and it was silent and they were writing. (My jaw hitting the floor didn't make a sound) I couldn't believe how easy it was to get them to just write. Every day for two weeks now it has been completely silent in my classroom for that 10 minutes of quiet writing. Every day there is an audible groan when the time is up. Every day there is a clamoring to be one of the lucky ones to share. Every. Single. Day. I am celebrating this excitement about writing. I am reenergized by their excitement. I am loving my chance to write for 10 minutes with them and to share my playful entries. 
  • We worked again on building stamina for independent reading. Some of my students had fallen out of good habits and into bad habits. This week we got back on track. 
The excitement for the book box to arrive this week was amazing! I am so happy that my students have that book love that makes us ecstatic at the sight of new books. 

I sent out an e-mail to see if I could drum up interest in a Staff book club this week. I was really amazed at the amount of interest from my colleagues. We really need to build up the reading culture at my school and I am so excited to take this step to helping that happen. 

Last, but not least, I celebrate co-pay assistance. My district decided this year to switch our prescription drug coverage to a new provider. In the past, this would barely have been a blip on my horizon because it really didn't change the price for the medications we get at Target pharmacy. However, my specialty MS medicine went from a $50 a month co-pay to over $500 a month because of the change. Luckily, the pharmaceutical company that makes the medicine has an assistance program to help people afford it. With co-pay assistance, I only have a minimal payment to make. I am thankful for this program so that I can continue to take this medicine that seems to be working well for me. 


What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a wonderful week. 







Monday, February 2, 2015

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 2/2/15


It's Monday! What Are You Reading? --From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

Once again, I have gone too long in between blog posts. I swear I will get back into the swing of things soon.

Since the last time we saw each other, I have read some great books. I will include all of my books from the last few weeks since some were quite long so there are not too many.

Books I Finished:


I am not really sure what to say about this one. It really caught my attention and I was intrigued by most of the book. However, I think there are some parts in the last half of the book that were not necessary and sort of made the story drag. A book this long inevitably will have some extra content and a few slow spots. Overall, this was a good read and the story really made me think about right and wrong. There are a lot of people in this book making bad decisions, but are those people bad people? It is interesting to contemplate the answers to this.





I got Queen Sugar on NetGalley because I was intrigued by the book description. This is another book for adults. I really enjoyed the story of this woman who moves to the South because her father leaves her a sugar cane farm. She grew up in California and does not know the first thing about running a farm, much less the way things work for African Americans in the deep south. She is living with her grandmother and struggling to learn what she needs to learn in order to save her inheritance from her daddy. The story really captured my imagination and I enjoyed learning more than I knew I wanted to know about sugar cane production. I was impressed by the way the racial tensions were woven into the story and present without being something that hit me over the head--very thought-provoking! I highly recommend this one.





This is a fun and quick read for middle grade students who are interested in science. I thought the whole time I was reading it about one of my students and I can't wait to get this book into his hands. Jon Scieszka is hilarious and this book does not disappoint!









LOVED this one! Maggie Stiefvater is a genius. I can't wait to find out what happens next in this series.











I got this one from Netgalley as well. It is coming out later this month. I really enjoyed this fantasy. I will be very interested to see where the next book goes with the story. I would recommend this one for teens who enjoy fantasy series. I like how there is a little bit of a love plot without it really being a main storyline. The world in this book is really interesting and I love the premise.







Books I am Currently Reading:

I started The Magicians by Lev Grossman and am loving it so far. I also am reading Dreams of Gods and Monsters. I listened to the first two books so reading this one is a different experience. I am glad I listened to the audiobooks for the first ones, because the narrator is amazing and I also know how to pronounce the weird names in the book.


What's Next?

I still have my ridiculous pile of books from the library plus a bunch of galleys to read. I will be choosing mostly by due dates.


What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!