A Break Well Spent

My three days off (plus the weekend!) were certainly needed. While I did a little bit or work yesterday, today was the only real day that I got down to work for a substantial amount of time. I worked on honing my plan for this week, as well as mapping out the week after that (first week of March). That being said, I went book shopping and I read 5 books that I might be using for novel study as well as one other book. My time was well spent.

I was able to make my way through the following books:

• Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
• Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood
• Loser by Jerry Spinelli
• A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements

I really enjoyed all of them. As I've done in the past, I opted to dog-ear pages with possible stopping points for kids. I then took those pages and put them into my OneNote notebook for novel study books. Instead of constantly needing to go back and re-read books I can use these questions to refresh my memory. My hope is that I can get kids to think more deeply about the author's message by using some stopping points with questions aimed at analyzing character and plot.