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Posts Tagged ‘read aloud’

Slice of Life Day 27: Finding Pinky

Posted in Books, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged , , on March 27, 2025| 10 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

I have been reading aloud Kate DiCamillo’s new book Ferris. I’m a huge fan of Kate’s books. I stood in a long line to get a copy signed by her at the Mississippi Book Festival in the fall.

Pinky, Ferris’s sister, is an outlaw.

I’m reading the book to my combination 5th and 6th grade gifted class. Two of my girls got together and decided to create a sort of classroom game.

First Kailyn drew a poster of Pinky, Ferris’s crazy younger sister.

Marifaye made a wanted poster.

Together they made “aura” bucks.

They put me in charge of hiding her.

There is a list of rules, of course.

So far this game has been going on for two days. They’ve had to make a new rule that if you find Pinky, you can’t tell anyone (or even make gestures).

Pinky hid behind a photograph.

Today I put her in between books on the shelf.

So far no harm has come from this game and most of my students are playing along.

I don’t think I could have single-handedly come up with a better plan for engaging my class in a read aloud. I highly recommend Ferris. The basic theme that repeats throughout is “every good story is a love story.” With a sprinkle of Kate DiCamillo magic, my students are falling in love with this book.

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Celebrating Reading Aloud

Posted in Books, Celebration Saturday, tagged , , , on January 9, 2016| 14 Comments »

Discover. Play. Build.

Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.

photo by Margaret Gibson Simon enhanced on Picmonkey

photo by Margaret Gibson Simon enhanced on Picmonkey

With the selection of my OLW, Presence, I thought about my classroom(s) and how I could be more present there. At the beginning of the school year, I wanted to make reading aloud an every day occurrence. It is a challenge with my teaching situation because I have students in different grades rotating in and out. With my morning group, I realized that most days we were all there at 10:30 AM, and they leave between 10:50 and 11:00, so Read Aloud became constant on the schedule.

This week we finished Fish in a Treeby Lynda Mullaly Hunt, the middle-grade Global Read Aloud choice. Being so closely involved with a book, so intimate, my voice cracked through the whole last chapter. I think I cried not only because Ally had triumphed, but also because I was looking out at the wide eyes of my students and feeling their love for Ally, too. When we finished, before I knew it, Emily had written a quote and taped it to the wall, “Nothing is Impossible. The very word says, I’m Possible!”

I have had more trouble getting a time to read aloud with my afternoon group, so this week I made it a priority. All work stopped at 2:40 and we read until 3:00. I started Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate. I loved it when Noah said, “Mrs. Simon, can we watch Crenshaw?” Isn’t that what read aloud is all about? Watching a book together.

Today, I celebrate special moments with my students to be truly present.

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