Back to School Busy

Back to School has always been a fun time for me, both as a teacher, a student, and now as a parent.  My daughter, Cecelia, went off to her first day of preschool last week and we read, read, read to get ready.  She especially enjoyed non-fiction books that showed a step-by-step view of what might happen in school or what happens when we get ready for school.

Here at Pine Road we have been back to school busy!  We are hosting author, Matt McElligott, in October and our normal back to school lessons have been modified to introduce his books to all of our students K-5.  In Kindergarten, we started off our year reading "Book, Book, Book" ,  First Graders read "Edward and the Pirates", and Second Graders read "The Library Doors".  In grades 3-5, we had Summer Reading Restorative Circles where each student shared a book title they read this summer.  I highlighted one of the PA Young Readers Choice Nominees that I read this summer for each grade.  In third grade, we discussed "The Trouble with Chickens".  Fourth grade discussed "My Life as a Book".  Several fourth graders had read MLAB and are eagerly looking forward to (as am I) "My Life as a Stuntboy."  Fifth graders were introduced to "Because of Mr. Terupt" by Rob Buyea.  Throughout the fall, I'll be introducing each of the PA Young Readers Choice books to each grade level.  We created Wordles based on those and shared out with our Twitter community.

 

 

In our second week cycle (which we're wrapping up now) we did more to prepare for our author visit.  Fourth and Fifth Graders watched the book trailer for "Benjamin Franklinstein Meets the Fright Brothers" from Matt McElligott's website and we began choice projects to prepare for our visit.  Third graders and First graders both listened to Backbeard's Pirate Radio podcasts and read "Backbeard and the Birthday Suit" with a special emphasis on International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  First graders made their own treasure map with a book listed as the final destination and third graders completed an X Marks the Spot Dewey Decimal System activity by locating books on the shelves and reading their spine labels.  Kindergarten students made their very own monsters for our monster mural after reading "Even Monsters Need Haircuts" and Second Grade students determined what their "share" would be after reading "The Lion's Share".  I'll try to blog about each of these awesome books soon but wanted to take a moment to update our community on what we've been up to at Pine Road.  I hope everyone's Back to School has been smooth!