Thursday, June 30, 2011

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Earlier this year, I had one or two students reading the Maze Runner. I looked at the back cover and read the description, and was certainly intrigued. It was definitely going onto my list of books to read this summer. I just needed to go buy it!

Well I purchased it a week ago, and was excited to tear into it. Part of the reasoning was because it was part of the Young Readers Choice Awards, a Nominee for 2012 in the Intermediate category (more on that later). After finishing it, I really enjoyed it. I just need to figure out if I am going to bring it into my classroom (and when!).

Synopsis: There is a maze. No one knows where it is, why it is there, or how anyone has gotten there. There are boys in the maze. One comes out of this box (think elevator shaft that transports them there) every month. There are also things called grievers that come out at night and can shock or kill. Oh... and no one has any previous memory, as it appears to have been wiped clean.

Then a boy named Thomas arrives. All is the same, he has lots of questions, and life continues on. Thomas has hazy, fleeting feelings that he remembers something about this place. Everything changes the following day... a girl arrives, which is odd for two reasons: 1) no girl has ever arrived and 2) it breaks up the two year pattern of one person, once a month. From there you can say the book gets running. Thomas yearns to become a runner, someone that maps the maze looking for an exit. He gets his chance after saving two boys trapped in the maze. His skills are needed as their world appears to be rapidly speeding towards a conclusion. I'll save any more, for fear of giving away too much.

I liken the book to the Hunger Games. This past year I didn't bring out the Hunger Games until January because it was so advanced. I'll likely do the same with the Maze Runner. There are elements of the book that I question (example: they save shuck it, which is an obvious allusion to the curse). That being said, I felt like the same conversations I had with kids about the Hunger Games would apply here.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (lost the .5 because of the shuck it business mentioned above).

Monday, June 27, 2011

Shadow Children by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I just finished up Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix. This is the first book in the Shadow Children series. Haddix's other series, the Missing, was a huge hit in my classroom this year so I wanted to give this series a go. I found it to be interesting, dark, and potentially a bit over some of my kids' heads with the content.

What's it about? Luke is the third child in his family. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but the country is in totalitarian post-crisis state. In years prior, famine had spread throughout the country causing the rise a military dictator. He instituted population laws, stating that families could only have two children. The third child, if found, could be taken away and the family would be in significant trouble. Luke is a shadow child- he is destined to never see the outside world.

Luke struggles with this, angry for much of the book, until he realizes that there are other third children. One lives nearby, and he sneaks out to meet her. She introduces Luke to things he has never seen- computers, junk food, etc (all because the government has banned many of these things). She dreams of being free which inspires Luke. But this is a tricky, tricky matter putting Luke's (and Jen's) family in danger.

Long story short: I had this in the classroom this year after mid-year. The kids who liked Found and Sent enjoyed this book. Some put the book down, which I believe was connected to the content. The book deals with a dystopian landscape, not unlike that in the Hunger Games. Overpopulation and famine are issues. Issues of food quality and government restriction exist as well. While they are questions raised today, I wonder whether some of my kids will have the schema to really put the puzzle pieces together (and the stones throw from realism in the story).

Rating: Three out of five stars (I know, the rating is new... but I want to get in the habit of doing this since I will ask my kids to do this in the fall).

Next up: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Alvin Ho, Allergic to... Everything

I just finished reading Alvin Ho (book 1) by Lenore Look. It is listed as a Young Readers Award nominee for 2012, so I decided to give it a read. After doing so, I was left unimpressed. The story is about a 2nd grader, Alvin Ho, who is quirky. He doesn't talk at school out of some sort of fear, and he tends to be rather literal or cautious in his actions.

I have a few qualms with the story. The first is that it doesn't really have much direction. Alvin matures a little towards the end of the story, finally making a friend (something he lacked throughout the entire story). But it ends up being a myriad of vignettes chronicling Alvin's day in and day out. Beyond that, Alvin's oddities are many leaving him a tad overwhelming as a character. While many of his oddities fit for someone in elementary school, I've rarely seen all of them wrapped into one with kiddos.

Long and short of it: the book will make it into my library, and is much like Judy Moody except better. Some of my kids that struggle getting into books will enjoy this as it doesn't require intense amounts of focus to stay with the storyline.

Top 5 Books: 2010-11 edition

I pushed books on my kids like there was no tomorrow. I'd purchase books, read them, and then really get kids into them. They, in turn, recommended them to their friends. Using informal observations of which books magically came back on the last day, along with what I saw kids reading, here were the Top 5 from the 2010-11 school year.

1) Percy Jackson series- in particular the Last Olympian (since it came out in paperback this year).

2) The Hunger Games- the first book was most popular, but the second one also made the rounds. Some made it to Mockingjay, but it was certainly the least popular of the bunch.

3) Warriors- Whoa. Not a huge cat fighting, personification type of person, but this was huge in my classroom.

4) Guardians of Ga'hoole- Same as Warriors to some extent... but with owls.

5) The Kane Chronicles- Red Pyramid and Throne of Fire were huge hits. I am not sure I saw the former in my room after the first month. It just circulated!

Honorable Mention: The Lost Hero (Riordan is well liked in my classroom), When You Reach Me, Moon Over Manifest, Al Capone Does My Shirts, and Found (Sent and Sabotaged by Haddix were also well liked... this was particularly liked).

Chasing Vermeer

Just finished reading Chasing Vermeer. We have copies of this in our leveled library, and I have one in my classroom library, so I figured I'd give it a go. The story is about two kids, Petra and Calder. They live in Chicago and go to 6th grade at a school located at the University of Chicago. Their teacher is an art aficionado, and is big on flying by the seat of her pants.

At that point a famous painting called A Lady Writing goes missing with some mysterious ransom notes thrown in. The kids then try to find out where the painting is, and why their teacher (and two others that they know) seem to be mixed up in this crime. The chase to find the painting, and the quest for the "real" Vermeer works leads them into danger, and is captivating at times.

There were a few missteps, in my estimation. First is the problem solving ability of the kids. While 6th graders are bright, these two seemed to jump to conclusions awfully quickly, particularly an issue since they weren't friends to start with. Friends tend to finish each other's sentences, but these two were not really friends to start with. The second issue, for me, was the addition of pentominos. What are pentominoes? Essentially they are figures (letters) comprised on 5 squares. Together they can be put together to make rectangles. Calder uses them throughout and they tend to be ominous signs... except that Calder and Petra always guess what the letter means (since Calder fiddles with them and pulls them out of his pocket when nervous). I'd much rather be left to predict meaning than be told.

On the whole, I think the kids will find it enjoyable. I don't think it will be one of my top books, but it will be checked out for sure.

Friday, June 24, 2011

That's a Wrap

Yesterday was my last day in the classroom for the 2010-11 school year. We finished with kids on Wednesday, I got myself checked out, and then returned yesterday to clean out files before summer. It feels nice to be done, and to have a break from school (plus sleeping in until 7:30 or 8 instead of 5:45 is great!). This is my post-year reflection, and thoughts moving forward.

What went well?
The year as a whole was a success. I certainly felt more comfortable with the resources I was using, and with the pace that I was teaching at. As much as teaching is about data, it is also a social science where feeling and perception are important. On that end, it went well. Particular units/topics/pieces of instruction went over well. Studying the colonies and American Revolution were great, and our end of year CBA where students chose topics to investigate (deforestation, bike laws, video game violence) were all well received. My integration of technology into those areas likely helped those areas along, as we utilized netbooks for research and assessment (PowerPoint, PhotoStory, Publisher, etc).

I also felt like I did was far more effective with novel study. I used a wider variety of novel study books, all of which I'd read. I tailored my questioning to the books (as opposed to generic questioning), and focused on inferential/analysis questions. Kids were having really good discussions with their peers about books, which certainly made me very happy. I also felt like my classroom library lent itself to high quality reading. I bought a ton of books, and pushed them out to the kids. They responded by reading them (happily), and recommending them to their peers. This was a huge part of the 20 Book Challenge too. I'd say over 75% of the kids met the 20 book threshold, which I am happy with.

What could have been better?
At the start of the year I'd really wanted to integrate writing with social studies. In particular, I wanted to use the Units of Study throughout my social studies work. I abandoned that relatively quickly, largely because of the amount of time needed to make a piece of writing happen. Instead of having a few pieces of smaller writing to start with, I jumped into something a bit longer. That became a time vacuum, and I needed to move forward. It is something I want to continue but will investigate ways to better integrate it.

More discussion, particularly around analysis and inferential questioning. I did quite a bit with that this year. I'd still like to do more. I also want to better track my data using excel and pivot tables- more frequent, less invasive, natural harvest of data. I mean exit slip, short reading response types of things. I can do better.

What is ahead?
Lots of summer reading. Currently I am reading Chasing Vermeer, and have started the Golden Compass, and the Graveyard Book. I have about 20 books on my shelf. I also want to read Guiding Readers and Writers, but likely won't crack that open until mid July.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Mock Newbery

As I have been laying around this afternoon (nice to say, finally!) I've been scanning the Internet for books. I plan to hit the bookstore tomorrow to create a stack of books I want to read. Of course that makes me think of possible Newbery Award winners. I loved this year's selection, Moon Over Manifest, particularly because it came out of nowhere to win the Newbery.

That leads me to a plan for next year. This summer I am going to use some of the various resources out there to compile a list of 10-12 books that I want to circulate, and get kids to read in the fall. That will be in hopes of having our own Mock Newbery discussion in the fall. This will work well with our movement to Communicator, an online system that essentially creates a hub for blogging and wiki-ing. I'll share some of those resources I've found soon!

Bittersweet Symphony

School ended today. I will admit that I was running on fumes as we reached the finish line. Scoring the social studies CBA (classroom based assessments), reading assessments, and writing assessments left me drained. 65 assessments each, give or take a few, making for a huge strain on the brain. Add to that a field trip, whole school talent show, and end of year party and you've got a very tired teacher.

I was sad to see the kiddos go. Some of our kids from last year visited us again, and were sad to be leaving. Our kids this year were a good group also, and were sad to go (but excited for summer!). We were sad to see them go. But onward to summer. I have a few things to accomplish, and below is a tentative list....


  • Clean my computer files- tomorrow!

  • Clean all my paper files- tomorrow!

  • Do some room re-arranging- tomorrow... or in August.

  • Reflect on the school year- tomorrow or Friday (wrap it up! Blog about it tomorrow)

  • Do some professional reading (Guiding Reading and Writers by Fountas and Pinnell is high on my list, as is going through the Writer's Workshop books, and Reader's Workshop books)... mid/late July!

  • Read 2+ kids books a week... reviews to come. Only way to stay current!

Tomorrow I'll put a wrap on the year by going through some of the kids' reflections. From there it is time to relax and not think about school for a bit!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Angling Towards the Finish

We're 2.5 weeks out from the finish of the school year. There is quite a bit to accomplish in the coming weeks: 2 sets of assessments, pushed back this late because of state testing; a field trip; a grade level party; grades and comments! This week is going to be tough!

The first order of business is going to be scoring the CBAs. I have scored 11 of the 13 I've received, and plan to finish the other 2 shortly. I'll get the other 52 tomorrow, which means I'll need to budget my time wisely. The upside is that I need to administer the Spring Writing Assessment, which will take 2 days (why two days- I need to have all the kids participate, and I see them for an hour per day... so 2 days!). During those times I'll score CBAs, hopefully getting through all of them by Thursday (13 per day, although likely 5-6 on Monday and 15 per day the other three days).

After the CBA commenting and scoring comes the writing assessment grading. That will take place Friday and over the weekend. The major difficultly in that is the amount of time it takes to read and thoughtfully comment. Checking the writing against the rubric is fairly easy after you've gotten into a groove of 3 or 4. But writing comments is a bear, largely because commenting needs to be specific and useful to the writer. Good job and needs work are too vague to really make an impression. I'll admit that part of me is conflicted because the kids often look at the score and disregard the comments, but that is for an entirely different post.

The last thing I "need" to do is get back to reading kids books. Kid lit is fantastic, and was a huge focus for 3/4 of the year. But I'm more than a little tired. Reading kids books, while enjoyable, reminds me of what I need to do for my kids. That is great... but a little exhausting in June.

Two and a half weeks. Lots of to do. I definitely need to make time count.