A Working Blog Vacation

We're taking a week off for professional learning. Hopefully, we'll see many of you in Minneapolis at NCTE's Annual Convention! We might do some live blogging, and we'll certainly have some follow-up posts next week.

WILD...in honor of Irene Latham's Blogiversary

When in doubt, use your

Imagination to discover what it is you

Love with a passion that cannot be

Defined...or denied.

Happy 10 Year Blogiversary to Irene Latham at Live Your Poem!

Irene's One Little Word for 2015 is WILD, 

which is the theme of her celebration.

Visit her blog to check out other WILD posts

that celebrate Irene, her blog, and her OLW.

The Ripple Effect of Award Lists on the NCTE Blog

Stacey Ross and I wrote a recent post for the NCTE Blog.  It is about the NCTE Book Awards. You can find it here.

Looking forward to hearing many of the award-winning authors at this year's convention!

Poetry Friday -- Drip, Drip, Drip

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Praveen

steady drip, drip, drip

annoying, continuous

rain...and sinuses

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015

The class cold. Oh, joy. At least I have time to get better before parent conferences next week and NCTE the week after that. Small blessings.

Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat. has the Poetry Friday roundup today.

Little Tree by Loren Long

I was able to see an advanced copy of this book over the summer and fell in love with it. And when the real book arrived last week, I fell in love with it all over again.  Loren Long is a favorite author of mine. He is an author who is able to write about complex issues and ideas that are accessible for young children. His Otis books have started some of the best conversations in our classroom over the years.

I love Little Tree as much as I love the Otis books.  Loren Long's words and illustrations are brilliant and I can't wait to share this book with my students.  The book tells the story of a little tree who decides he does not want to let his leaves go when all of the other trees do.  He holds onto them year after year. The story is a simple one with a big message about changing and letting go. It is told in a soft, non-threatening way as we see the difficult decision Little Tree has to eventually make.

This story is one that is good for all ages. Just like the Otis books, children of all ages will have an entry point, come to love Little Tree and understand the author's message.  This would also make a fabulous gift book as it is one that I am sure will be one of those books that children beg to have  read  to them over and over!

You can hear Loren Long talk more about his new book here:

Professional Reading: Note and Notice

I have been trying to fit more professional reading into my life lately. There are so many great professional books that have been piling up. I have found that if I focus on one book at a time and try to read 20ish pages a day, I can finish a professional book in a couple of weeks. The 20 pages a day happened because I wanted to give myself a doable amount of reading to do in a day to get more professional reading in. But what I've found is that 20 pages a day gives me a good chunk of information to think about and a good amount of time to study a topic. So when I dig into a new professional book, I am thinking about the topic for two weeks, really giving myself time to digest and reflect on what I've read. In the past I have sometimes rushed through new professional books, reading them in a weekend and this seems to be a better way to read and digest the new thinking.  The 20 pages also makes sense for my reading life.  I don't have to "give up" fiction reading to read professional books if I am just holding myself to 20 pages a day. I can fit in both with that expectation of myself.

This week, I am reading Kylene Beers' and Bob Probst's new Nonfiction Reading: Notice and Note Stance, Signposts, and Strategies and I am so glad that I am taking my time to read it and not rushing through it. I am not far along as the book just arrived a few days ago but already I find myself rethinking much of what I thought I understood about nonfiction reading.  I am doing just what the writers hoped I would do. As they state on page 1 of the introduction, "And we do want this book to challenge you. We want you to pause to consider new ideas, mull over comments we make, mark passages you want to reread and discuss with colleagues."

I want to share with you the reason my new strategy of reading 20 pages a day of a new professional book is making good sense to me.  I started the book over the weekend.  On the first day with the book, I did a pretty heavy preview--looking through the book to see what to expect.  Then I dug into the first 20 pages.  And then I stopped for the day. On reflecting, I was amazed at how much I had to think about with just 20 pages of reading.

-I am thinking about the students we teach today and how their experiences are quite different from my own at their age. Beers and Probst state, "By 2016, every student in school will have been born in the 21st century. They will have grown up with the world at their fingertips."

-I am thinking about the idea of stance that is part of the subtitle of this book and what it means as a teacher of nonfiction.  Beers and Probst state, "This book had to discuss a stance that's required for the attentive, productive reading of nonfiction. It's a mindset that is open and receptive, but not gullible."  I have read and reread this line several times and love the idea of what it means.  One sentence that says so much about something far more important than the traditional ways I've been thinking about teaching nonfiction.

-I am processing the 5 day cycle of lessons that the authors share and how to build Big Questions along with understanding of signposts to build more time and engagement with nonfiction text.

-I am excited to look at the videos that show these things in action. Throughout the book are QR codes that lead readers to videos that go along with the thinking in the book.

-And I am fascinated by the authors' explanation of the way in which nonfiction has been defined over the years. "It's really not surprising that the meaning of nonfiction has shifted as well.  What was once a term used by librarians to signify that the text simply wasn't a novel morphed into meaning "not false" and even "informational". While note surprising, we do wonder if this shift has served us well."  This section of the first 20 pages fascinated me and made me think about the way in which I have defined nonfiction for myself and for my students and how that might evolve.

As you can see, my 20 page strategy is working for me. Giving myself time to read and think about the professional books that have been on my stack seems important. Even though I am dying to keep reading, I know that this is a better way for me to take in most professional books. This particular one is so packed with great thinking that I'd hate to rush past some of it.

I am excited to continue this first read of this book as I know my teaching will change for the better because of it.

If you don't have this book yet, I already highly recommend it. The first 20 pages are worth the price you'll pay--trust me.  Heinemann has some great videos of Kylene and Bob talking a bit about the book as well as some great Sneak Previews to give you a sense of what to expect.

Math Monday: Estimate 180

Last week, my colleague Kami Wenning and our math coach, McKenzie Zimmerman conducted an informal morning PD session on the site Estimate 180. Kami has been using the site with her 3rd graders and the conversations around it have been astounding so they wanted to share the resource.

Estimate 180 is a website created by Andrew Stadel (@mr_stadel). According to his website, he is a middle school math teacher and coach. He began the site in October 2012 with estimating activities he uses with his students each day of the school year. 

After the PD, McKenzie and I talked about how I could use this site She facilitated the class while I transcribed and listened to her language with students.  She went through the 4 day Lego Estimations and I watched from the back of the room to learn what I could about how best to use this resource and to listen to and record my students' thinking.  The goals for the lesson were from the math practice--explaining your mathematical reasoning and understanding someone else's math reasoning. So that was the focus of the talk over the four days.

The conversations across days went so far beyond the typical estimation activities I've seen. The way that the site is built, the learning builds from one day to another and kids have information to build from.  The talk around numbers was incredible and the engagement was high.  Knowing the standards so well, McKenzie was able to take advantage of the last day's conversation to create a number sentence with a number to solve for.   I am finding that oral language and conversation is such a huge part of math learning and Estimate 180 definitely supports this.

There are so many amazing things about the Estimate 180 site. There is a huge variety on the site. So many math concepts are covered in the over 200 estimation activities on the site. In a few weeks, I am going to use a series of lessons designed around estimating height and I am looking at another that estimates the amount of money in coins.  You can browse the site or search estimations based on math topic.  I also love that these are multi-day activities that are built to help kids think across time and to use understandings from one day to solve the next day's challenge.

Mr. Stadel must think about estimation all day every day because so many of these estimations come from real, daily life and I think kids will start seeing estimation opportunities everywhere after a few weeks of these.

I loved this site so much that I just had to share. I am excited to jump into another estimation with my kids next week (Cheeseball Estimations) and see where the conversations go!

September/October Mosaic

I missed my September mosaic. Time just slipped right by and it wasn't until the middle of the month that I realized I hadn't done one.

This combo looks like an Insect Edition -- at the beginning of September, we were just finishing up with Monarch chrysalises, there was an awesome spider on the porch at the Casting for Recovery retreat (yes, I know spiders aren't insects...), I'm pretty sure that incredible caterpillar will someday be an Imperial Moth, and the preying mantis is eating a stinkbug (go, preying mantis!).

It could also be a Seasonal Colors and Moods Edition, or a Cute Cat / Horse Butt / Caged Dog / Ram Head Edition.

The selfie of me and AJ is a joke. In the background is Thomas Edison, holding up a lightbulb. On first glance, I thought he was taking a selfie, so we took our selfie along with him taking his. You can find Mr. E. in the Ohio Statehouse, which is where we were for the Ohioana awards reception.

The quote in the center was shared by Anthony Doerr (author of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, and as amazing a speaker as he is a writer), and the quote at the end is from THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING by T.H. White, the book I'm currently listening to in the car back and forth from school).

The images can be seen full-size on Flickr.

Poetry Friday -- Wild Wows

This Wednesday was the perfect day for Environmental Club to stay indoors, look through our observation notebooks, write poetry, and paint with watercolors. Outside, the wind blew, dark clouds moved so quickly across the sky that at one point we could see both a downpour and bright sun out the window. 

After snack, I gave a quick demonstration lesson on using words and phrases from my notebook to write haiku

spiderwebs glisten

between green and yellow leaves

sun warms my shoulders

and Fifteen Words or Less poems

The back

of the milkweed leaf

is as soft

as velvet.

Here are a few of the students' creations (made in 45 minutes, please excuse the lack of editing):

Jone has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Check it Out. 

#GNCelebration -- Graphic Novel Publishers, Websites, Imprints

This is the final Thursday for our celebration of graphic novels. We have teamed up with blogger friends at Kid Lit Frenzy and Assessment in Perspective, and it's been a fabulous month! You can read our Nerdy Book Club post telling about the month-long celebration, and you should check out the Google Community where there is now an amazing collection of resources around graphic novels!

None of this graphic novel love would be possible if it weren't for the publishers, so this week, I'd like to shine the spotlight on them.

I'll start with AMP! Comics for Kids -- Andrews McMeel Publishing. They are:

"...big believers that when you make reading fun for kids, it gets them in the book reading habit, and creates lifelong book lovers. So we’re big proponents of comics and graphic novels, because they do just that. In fact, that’s most of what we publish!"

These are the folks that bring us Big Nate, as well as many other characters, books, and series. If you explore their website, you'll find information about all their books, videos, fun stuff to make and do and know, a blog, and information for teachers and parents on teaching with comics.

Scholastic has the Graphix imprint, and a variety of activities (including a comic-maker) can be found on their website. Graphix has brought us Bone, Amulet, Captain Underpants, Ricky Ricotta, Sisters, Drama, Smile, Babysitter's Club, and Sunny Side Up. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that books from this imprint have been gateway books for some of the most reluctant readers in my classroom over the years!

First Second, the graphic novel imprint of Macmillan, may not have the flashiest, most kid-friendly website, but if you browse the SEVEN PAGE list of their books, you'll find an amazing lineup of award-winning books and authors. Lots of books you need to put on your TBR can be found there. First Second has brought us Giants Beware, Zita the Spacegirl, Adventures in Cartooning, George O'Connor's mythology series, Fable and Fairytale Comics, American Born Chinese, and many many more.



Thank you, publishers, for bringing us this vibrant format that has hooked so many of our students and helped them to develop a life-long love of reading all kinds of books! You help make our job easier!