Poetry Friday -- Probably Not Poetry, But a Darn Cute Rhyming Book

What This Story Needs is a Pig in a Wig
by Emma J. Virján
Harper, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

So many rhyming animals (up to and including a panda in a blouse) join the pig on her boat that she finally sends them all away, which leaves her blissfully, and then forlornly, alone. Until...surprise ending!

A book with not too many words needs to have interesting pictures that help the reader and add to the story, like when the goat on the log performs a balancing act, or when the rat trades its top hat for a swimming cap when pig sends them all off the boat. And not only does this book have a pig in a wig, it has lots of hidden pig snout shapes to look for.

This book is kid-tested and kid-approved. With no prompting, kindergarteners began rhyming along with the book (although they did have to ask what a blouse was). And they loved the author's picture (she's wearing a drawn-on red wig and a pig nose).

Looking forward to more books in this fun series!

Margaret has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Reflections on the Teche. Next week we'll start building the July-December schedule!

Photos Framed

Photos Framed: A Fresh Look at the World's Most Memorable Photographs
by Ruth Thomson
Candlewick Press, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

"When photography began, it was an elaborate, expensive, time-consuming, elite activity, using heavy, cumbersome equipment. Today, taking photographs can be instant, cheap, and accessible to anyone. Despite the enormous changes in photographic equipment and technology since the nineteenth century, the purposes of photography have remained essentially the same, whether immortalizing, exploring, documenting, revealing, or showing us what we can't see with the naked eye." -- from the introduction of Photos Framed

It's amazing, isn't it, that in less than 200 years, photography has become a universal art form? Children can take photographs before they have learned to hold a crayon. I think I can confidently say that every student in my class has taken a photograph. And because of that, I can't wait to share this book with them and dig into the history of photography and the art of photography.

Photos Framed is divided into four sections: Portrait photography, Nature photography, Photography as art, and Documentary photography. Each of the sections features examples from the 18th through the 21st Centuries. And each of the photographs is explored in the same ways: there is a section of text describing and discussing the photograph, a section that tells about the photographer, three questions ("Photo thoughts") for the reader/viewer to consider, a sidebar ("Blow Up") that features one tiny bit of the photo and a question to consider, and another sidebar ("Zoom In") that helps the viewer to consider the photo as a whole. Finally, there is a quote from the photographer that accompanies the photo.

I'm thrilled to see that there are multiple copies of this book available in our metro library system. I am imagining a whole-class study of this book in the first weeks of school which would lay the groundwork for students to build a photographic/visual portfolio alongside their digital portfolio/notebook (folder in their Google drive) and their pencil/paper writer's note/sketchbook.

Writing that last convoluted sentence made me realize that there just about isn't such a thing as a plain and simple Writer's Notebook anymore. All of these digital and non-digital spaces need to be developed to provide students with opportunities to capture and hold creations of all kinds at all stages of the process.  Maybe it really is time to stop calling it Writers' Workshop and call it Composing Workshop.

Hmm...the wheels are turning...

Digital Reading

Last week, Digital Reading: What's Essential in Grades 3-8 was published by NCTE.  This book is a book I co-authored with Bill Bass.  It has been a long process with a lot of great learning along the way. Our editor Cathy Fleischer really pushed us as learners and writers, so it was a great process. We were able to really dig in and think through our beliefs about reading and how it is changing in this digital age. It is fun to see the book finally be released into the world.   We have lots of voices from classroom teachers in the book--people we learn from and with every day. We listed the contributors in our NCTE blog post -great people to follow if you are thinking about digital reading!

It has been fun chatting with others about the topic since the book's release.  Earlier this month, NCTE asked us to host #nctechat around Reading in the Digital Age. It was a great chat. If you missed it, you can read the archives here.

The book is part of the PIP imprint and there is another book in this particular series that you'll want to check out. Troy Hicks and Kristen Turner just released Connected Reading:  Teaching Adolescent Readers in a Digital World. We had many thought-provoking chats during the writing of our books and we are excited that their book is out in the world now!  You can listen to Troy and Kristen talk about their new book on Education Talk Radio.  They have also created an amazing wiki that goes along with their book.

 Kristin Ziemke posted on the Nerdy Book Club blog about the topic. It was an amazing post and is in line with our thinking about reading in the digital age.

Digital Literacy is a topic we care deeply about and will continue to think about and learn about. 

A Week Full of Reading Celebrations!

We have 6 days of school left. It is hard to believe that the school year is ending.  Last week, I looked at my camera roll and realized that the last full week of school, in many ways served as a celebration of our reading.  

On Thursday, we had a FABULOUS Skype visit with Liesl Shurtliff.  Rump was our last read aloud of the year and it was FABULOUS! Kids loved it and many have added Jack to their summer reading list already!

Irma asks Liesl Shurtliff a question about Rump.

On Friday, we had our last "Books and Breakfast". It was a full house with 15 students coming to school early to enjoy donuts and discussion about the first book in a new series by Bruce Hale--The Big Bad Detective Agency.  The kids loved this book and have enjoyed the 6 Books and Breakfasts we've had throughout the year. 

Our Last Books and Breakfast of the year!

On Friday, we had an All-Day Read in our classroom (every 3rd grade classroom did!). It was pretty low-key --something kids have been asking for for months. We talked about the joy of a full day for reading and kids started to think about books they'd bring from home.  That morning, some kids brought in bags of books--favorites from their home reading life. They reread these and shared them with friends. 

Kids brought in bags of favorite books for the All Day Read!

The day before the All-Day-Read, we decided to pull some books that we'd loved this year to put out so they could be easily reread during the All-Day-Read. For the last 30 minutes of the day, there was a whirlwind of favorite books being pulled. I overheard lots of, "Oh, remember this one? We loved it!" as they rediscovered books from earlier in the year.  

Some of our favorite books of the year.

Some of our favorite books of the year.

One of my own personal celebrations happened last week in the midst of reading workshop. A few kids were choosing new books when one of my past students came in to get a book.  I have a few students who stop down frequently to grab a book they know I have, ask for book recommendations or just browse.  What was fun about this visit was how she just became part of the conversation already happening at the bookshelf where kids were sharing books as they browsed.  Love how even though these kids didn't know each other, they trusted each other about books just by standing together browsing:-)

I love reflecting during these last weeks of the school year and I love how naturally things happen around reading at this time of year.  I am going to miss this community of readers but  I am enjoying sitting back and watching them interact these last few weeks, hoping that this feeling they have as readers stays with them.

Math Monday -- In Which the Lesson Doesn't Go As Planned...And is a Success

It's Math Monday! 

Join Mandy at Enjoy and Embrace Learning

for the Math Monday link up!

We were going to begin a big estimation problem (How Many Books Are There in Ms. Hahn's Classroom?), so I chose my math workshop opener from Estimation 180 -- days 28-30, a sequence of toilet paper estimations. I knew exactly what I wanted to get out of this opener, and I expected it to be quick.

What I didn't expect what that my students would get mired down in a dis-remembering of what exactly perimeter, area, and volume are, and why the square footage fact we jotted down from the packaging shown in the answer of day 28 could not be used as the total length of the toilet paper on the roll on day 30. Maybe it's because we were talking about squares of toilet paper that their brains convinced them that square feet would be okay as a unit of length.

I let them struggle through misconceptions like squares and cubes are the same and you use 3D measurement for square feet. It was one student's tentative sharing of a rhyme she learned at her old school, "Perimeter goes around, but area covers the ground" that finally turned the tide away from the confident assertion of another student that square feet is a measure of length. You should have seen the lightbulbs go off above the heads. Boom. They had it back. Area is LxW (2D), volume is LxWxH (3D), and perimeter is S+S+S... (a measurement of length). Whew.

I've written often about the difference between leading the learning and following the learning. The importance of following is something I have to remember over and over again.

Poetry Friday

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Sarah Browning

THE END

Just when the story's getting good,
I must close the book and return it
to the rightful owner.

I have marked up the text a bit:
underlined key phrases,
jotted notes in the margins.

I've dogeared some pages,
left smears of optimism,
streaked whole paragraphs with my tears,

slept with the book under my pillow,
taken it with me everywhere,
thrown it at the wall in frustration (on more than one occasion).

You'd think by now I would have learned to live
with never knowing the ends of these stories.
I have not.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015



There are just a few more days of school left, and I am getting ready to say goodbye, in most cases forever, to the people who have been my life for the past 9 months -- this crazy, quirky bunch of students who bloomed late, but bloomed GLORIOUSLY.

Matt has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

Dragons Beware!

Dragons Beware!
by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado
First Second, May 12, 2015
review copy purchased for my classroom library

Claudette is relentless. She has not given up on becoming a warrior. Her little brother, Gaston, is equally single-minded. He HAS given up his dream of becoming a chef until he can become as good a blacksmith as his father and/or do something that will make his father proud.

When the flying gargoyles attempt to attack their village, Claudette and Gaston's father, Augustine, and his sidekick Zubair set off to get Augustine's sword Breaker from the belly of the dragon Azra so they can defeat the evil Grombach, who is sending the gargoyle army.

Knowing that Claudette and Gaston will try to come along, Augustine leaves them locked in the tower with Marie. Guess how long that lasts?

Here's how our heroes are armed to defeat a dragon and an evil...grandfather (you'll have to read the book to get the back story on that plot twist): Claudette's stumpy little sword seems to have some magic, and she is not at all lacking in bravery. Gaston is encouraged by Hag (a character I'm pretty sure we'll meet again in book 3),

"Don't turn your back on a talent, Boy. Lots of folks spend their whole lives looking for something their good at."

as she presses a book of spells into his hands. "Casting spells is like learning a recipe. Like cooking."And Marie has been learning about diplomacy.


I loved the first book, Giant's Beware!, but I love this book even more. I can't wait to hear Rafael Rosado (artist) and John Novak (colorist) speak at Cover to Cover on Saturday, May 23 from 2-3:30. See you there!

Math Monday -- Pans of Brownies

It's Math Monday! 

Join Mandy at Enjoy and Embrace Learning 

for the Math Monday link up!

Dividing whole numbers by unit fractions and unit fractions by whole numbers are 5th grade standards.  (CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NF.B.7)

I've never taught division of fractions, but when you are struggling to understand something yourself, you often do a better job explaining it to someone else.

In my classroom, dividing fractions is all about pans of brownies. 

If you have four pans of brownies and you want to divide them each into fourths, how many fourths will you have?

4 ÷ 1/4 = 16

You will have sixteen one-fourth-sized pieces to share with your friends.

But what if you you share 15 of those one-fourth-sized pieces and realize you forgot to share with 4 other friends? 

If you chop a one-fourth-sized piece into four pieces, what size of piece will each of those friends get?

1/4 ÷ 4 = 1/16

They will get a tiny little piece, but at least you didn't completely forget them!

Creative Commons photo from Wikimedia Commons

Poetry Friday -- Gold

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

by Robert Frost

(in the public domain)

Diane has the Poetry Friday roundup at Random Noodling.

Time Flies

by Hugh MacLeod at Gaping Void