Read Across America and World Read Aloud Day

Read Across America Fun!

Reading to students in MA

Our students read Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? to students all around the United States and we had others read to us too. It was a great day of reading. We connected with students in Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.

We even had a Mystery Skype with a school in Oklahoma and then they read to us too!

With one class in Maryland, we even took turns reading a digital book aloud. Soooo fun!

Many of our students also read Dr. Seuss with each other.

We also connected with some students from a school within our own county.

World Read Aloud Day

We had Skype visits from three different authors on World Read Aloud Day. Erica Perl, on behalf of  First Book, started us off with her fantastic book Ninety-Three in My Family. It was so much fun!

It was a book that can be sung so we got to sing and clap too!

She also showed first grade her awesome hats that go with her books Dotty and Chicken Butt. We loved them and want to try to think up a great hat for her book When Life Gives You O.J.

Of course, the students talked her into reading Chicken Butt before she was through.

Sarah Albee met with one of our third grade classes. We had video issues, but at least we could hear each other. She answered a lot of questions from students. We enjoyed hearing about her writing life. We have met quite a few fiction writers, but haven't talked with many authors of non-fiction so that was a new experience. We had read a bit from her book Poop Happened! beforehand.

We had a great time with Sarah Albee!

Our final author on Wednesday was Mina Javaherbin. She shared her book The Secret Message based on a poem written by Rumi many hundreds of years ago. It was neat to learn about her home country Iran and talk to her about her writing life. All three of our second grade classes were able to visit with her.

Our final author visit was on Friday with Abby Klein. She is the author of the Ready Freddy series. She read one of her books to us and I read an Elephant and Piggie book to her kindergarten students. We found out that she writes mainly in the summertime since she is a teacher. 

Abby Klein answered many great questions about her writing.

We finished off our World Read Aloud Day celebrations on with Shannon Miller from Van Meter in Iowa. She shared Same Same but Different and showed us the cool website that the author has for kids. I can't wait to read the book myself now. It fit perfectly with a non-fiction book we had read earlier this year One World One Day. It was an excellent way to end a week celebrating reading.

I loved the chance to connect with so many authors and classrooms around the country. We have another fun time to organize coming up in April for Poem in Your Pocket Day. I can't wait.

I am so thankful that people were able to connect with us and I am glad that Matthew Winner and Sarah (@pageintraining) helped to coordinate this fantastic event through Skype in the Classroom and a googledoc that held all of the plans for so many people. Thanks to all who added to our learning this week!

World Read Aloud Blogging Challenge #4

This is the fourth week of the World Read Aloud Blogging Challenge and our job this week is to make a video of us reading aloud or write about what we will read aloud on World Read Aloud Day. So I don't have any copyright issues, I am going with the written explanation.

Strangely enough, I had not been thinking much about what I would be reading. I have spent a lot of time making it possible for other people to read aloud to our students. Five of our classes will have Skype visits with the authors Erica Perl, Sarah Albee and Mina Javaherbin. So I will definitely be listening to some quite a bit of reading, but hadn't really planned for reading aloud myself. Fortunately, I am part of this challenge so now I have been thinking about it. 

Most likely, I will read I Can Read With My Eyes Shut (or at least a portion of it) on morning announcements as time allows. Pre-K will come and I think I will read Punk Farm and Plant a Kiss with them.

I will also look for any opportunities to read aloud throughout the day. It will be jam packed with a music program rehearsal, Skype visits, and who knows what else. I can't wait to see what the day will bring. What will you be reading aloud?

World Read Aloud Blogging Challenge #3

This is the third week of the World Read Aloud Blogging Challenge and our job this week is to provide a view into our reading life. 

Reading is an integral part of my life and I do not end a single day without having read something. Reading informs me, stretches me, comforts me, and entertains me. I am thankful that authors continue to share their gifts with all of us. I am taking a page from Katherine Sokolowski's blog and have created a video to show the snapshot of my reading life. Enjoy!

A Snapshot of My Reading Life

World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge #2

Last week I started the World Read Aloud Blogging Challenge. I didn't quite know what we were going to do, but now I have some pretty cool plans put together. We are going to celebrate on March 1st and March 6th-8th to spread out the fun. We have conferences on the 4th and 5th or we might have celebrated then too. On the 1st, we have 7 Skype visits scheduled with classrooms all around the country. On the 6th we have Skype visits scheduled with Erica Perl, Sarah Albee and Mina Javaherbin. On Friday another class will also get to visit with the author Abby Klein and maybe a few more classes. In addition staff and students will take the chance to read aloud to each other. It should be so much fun. I can't wait.

For this week's post, I need to finish five statements as I would have when I was ten and then again as I would answer it now. Here goes...

At ten: I think everyone in the world should read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Snowy Day.

Now: I think everyone in the world should read A Monster Calls and I Want My Hat Back.

At ten: If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be my mom.

Now: If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be Nick Podehl or Jim Dale, but mom would be cool too.

At ten: When I read aloud, my favorite character to impersonate is Dickon in The Secret Garden.

Now: When I read aloud, my favorite character to impersonate is Hagrid from the Harry Potter series.

At ten: The genre that takes up the most room on my bookshelf is realistic/historical fiction.

Now: The genre that takes up the most room on my bookshelf is realistic fiction.

At ten: The last book I wish I’d written or inspired me to write my own story is Little Women.

Now: The last book I wish I’d written or inspired me to write my own story is A Monster Calls.

These were actually difficult to answer and I think they would be different on any given day, but it was fun.

World Read Aloud Day - March 6

I can't believe it is almost time for World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) again. I loved it last year. LitWorld, a non-profit literacy organization sponsors this event. They encourage people to "celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another." Last year we were able to Skype with so many wonderful people. We read with students in a few different states and several fantastic authors shared their books with us too. If you want to see some of the fun we had, please click here and here.

Hopefully, we will be able to do a lot of reading with people from all over. It should be pretty exciting. Now I guess I need to get busy planning. If you want to participate, you may go to LitWorld to sign up and take advantage of their resources. Also, Kate Messner, author of the Marty McGuire books and many others, has a great blog post that helps teachers and librarians connect with authors. Between these resources and some reading buddies within the building and/or from the community, WRAD can be an awesome literacy event. I hope you can join in the fun.

World Read Aloud Day Continues

The fun and learning just keeps rolling on here at our school.  Today two of our fifth grade classes got to visit with author Michael Scotto.  He shared about his chapter books and read one of his picture books to us.

We will have to watch the book trailer for his chapter book sometime soon.  It sure makes me want to read the book.

Next, one of our Pre-K classes had a great visit from some students at Cooper Elementary in Burlington, WI (led by @pageintraining).  They read us these really funny books:

Then, one of our first grade classes was lucky enough to visit with Michael Scotto too.  They had a fun time listening to his book and asking a ton of questions.

 We even saw a picture of his very own tornado dog.

World Read Aloud Day just keeps going, and going, and going, and going. Tomorrow another Pre-K class will have a Skype visit with some 5th grade students that will read with us. On Monday, second grade will visit with the author of the I Spy books, Jean Marzollo, and by then, all of the grades will have had a visit of some kind. I love it when there is an event that gets us trying new things and working with people from other places. These kinds of visits get us pretty excited about reading.

World Read Aloud Day is Finally Here!

For WRAD we started off our day with a poem on announcements. One fifth grade class also got to Skype with Alan Silberberg.  That was a real treat. He read from Milo: Sticky Notes & Brain Freeze and even read the beginning of a book that hasn't yet been published.  It seems like this new book is going to be pretty awesome. I wish I had caught a picture of the kids laughing. They had a wonderful time.

I will keep adding more pictures and information as the day goes on.  It should be a great day!

Just finished sharing Dust Bunnies and Elephant & Piggie in the lunchroom to first through fifth grade as they came through. Fun times. One of our subs even helped and she was an awesome reader.

One of our first grade classes got to meet Linda Urban.  She has written some excellent chapter books and this very fun picture book called Mouse was Mad

Her read aloud was really fun.  

The kids had a great time making mad faces at the beginning and happy faces at the end just like mouse.

Some of our first graders read aloud to book characters.

One of our 3rd grade classes even got to visit with Mr. Sharp's class in Michigan. We talked about our favorite books and had some fun read alouds too.

The final Read Aloud activity of the day was when our whole fourth grade Skyped with Mr. Schu's first and second graders. We read poetry to them and they read Elephant & Piggie to us.  It was a lot of fun.  Whew.

I love, love, love World Read Aloud Day!!!  And the fun is just beginning. Some of the classes weren't able to Skype today, so we have more tomorrow, Friday, Monday & next Wednesday.  Thanks to all the authors, teachers, and students that read with us today.  We loved meeting you all.