Get Passionate!

My husband gets excited when I talk about being passionate, then he realizes I’m talking about being passionate about books!  Isn’t that what we all want for all students?  We want them to get lost inside the pages, not wanting to put down their latest read.  We want them to share that excitement with others and talk about their new favorite book that we all must get.  It gets even better when they lift words from the pages of those books and share the quotes, so we can savor the words. 

We’ve put a couple of things in place at my school to foster and share this passion.  At any point during the day, you can see students clustered around a bulletin board looking over the latest book recommendations from their peers. We have a board where students can recommend books to each other by taking a slip and recording the title, author, and telling why they are recommending the book.  We post these on the bulletin board and encourage each other to check the board when we are ready for a new read!

Click here for a copy of this FREE book recommendation form.

Another way we share our passion is by displaying the titles of our current or favorite reads outside our classroom doors.  Each teacher has a clear pocket that hangs on a contact hook with an “Ask me about…” page inside.  We tuck in a picture of our book cover or the actual book itself.  This has encouraged student and staff conversation about books.  What more could you ask for?

A few ingenious folks have used this same “Ask me about…” idea to teach vocabulary words, generate student excitement for learning a foreign language with a new word each day, and encourage different ways to solve math problems.  I’m sure there are even more things you could do!

Click here for a copy of this FREE Ask Me About page!

To capture favorite quotes from our reading or our own creations that we pen (see Shelley’s post, "Eight Great Quotes" from February 15th, for some wonderful ideas), we’ve created another display.  This has been a great way to share the words that touch us, without interrupting instruction or reading time.  Students know they can write down their quotes and stick them in our basket to be shared during those filler moments like lining up for lunch or the few minutes before dismissal.  After our quotes are shared, they get posted on the board!

We want our students to read, read, and then read some more!  It is our hope that we are creating a passion that will last a lifetime!  

Click here for a FREE download of this goal setting sheet!

I would love to get some more ideas to keep the passion alive (remember, we’re talking about literacy!).  Comment and share!

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Eight Great Quotes

I love inspirational quotes! A few carefully placed words have the power to impact thoughts and change lives. Recently, my fourth grade students began writing their own words of wisdom to post in a class collection called, Wonderful Words. If you enjoy these quotes, you will find details about the process and a link to free templates at the end of this post. Here are some of my favorite student written quotations. Enjoy!

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 The perfect follow up to Wonder the award winning book by Patricia Palacio, is 365 Days of Wonder (Mr Bowne’s Book of Precepts also written by Palcio. This gem has a precept for each day of the year. The quote, or precepts contained within are words from the ages. The quotations range from Seneca, Archimedes, Shakespeare, and Dickens, to Lewis, Dahl, Taylor Swift, and everything in between! Some of words of wisdom are even written by students.

Each day, my fourth graders meet in our “Focus Area”, and we read the quotation of the day. Students think about the words and then practice paraphrasing the quote with their partner. Recently, we’ve added an elaboration step using these stems:

•This means...

•This shows that...

•This relates to...

•This quote is important because...

•This quote shows...

•Based on these words, I can infer...

Last week I asked my students if they would like to write their own words of wisdom for a class collection. The response was overwhelmingly positive and everyone began crafting their words. As students shared their sage thoughts, spontaneous applause confirmed their efforts. The edited and revised student quotations are now a part of the class collection called, Wonderful Words.

 

 Click here to access the free templates for this book.

So, as you can see, I love inspirational quotes, especially the wonderful words of students.

 -Shelley