A Picture Book for Valentine's Day and Classroom Kindness

A Lovely picture book suited to all ages with its poignant message is "How to heal a broken wing" written by Bob Graham.

You can read more about it and the author HERE

Here is a link to the YouTube read-aloud video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRyWcwd4y8s

We used this book as a 'Reading-To' and reviewed our inference skills while making connections for text-to-self and text-to-world.

Our action (reader response) took the form of a Valentines Day challenge, fitting in with our Unit of Inquiry for ...
How We Organise Ourselves - Leadership.

Our central idea is: Leadership means living a life of integrity and of inspiring others,
with  lines of inquiry as follows:
Living a life of integrity everywhere.
Leader’s acceptance of others, allows others to accept the leader.
Leadership involves serving others with commitment and sacrifice.

And now for the challenge.

As a class we discussed what Random acts of kindness were and where we have actioned these in the past.
We have now set ourselves the challenge of completing 100 Random Acts of Classroom Kindness over the next 2 weeks.  When students complete an act, they collect a heart to fill out the information on and it's then posted up on our wall.

A HUGE thank you to MyCuteGraphics for the gorgeous Valentine's Day images :)

Here is our wall so far...

...and by the end of the first week...

Well done to my amazing students for posting such awesome RACK's on our topic wall   :) :)

Check in to see how we go by the end of next week. So how do you go about encouraging leadership in your students?

The resources and ideas for this activity are available in my Back 2 School Bundle - First 2 Weeks, that you might also like to preview HERE

Love to see your comments below.

Class Novel - Each Little Bird That Sings plus a Free Reading Activity

With the new term about to start, I have been scouring the public libraries and teacher blogs in search of mentor texts in the form of cool picture books and novels to share-read with my year 6 students this year. I came across a mention for Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles and I am in love !!!

This story reminds that life is full of twists and turns. And the biggest one of all is learning what it takes to handle them.
Please read about this gem of a novel HERE & HERE:

As I read it, I quickly saw how well it lent itself to a novel study, and when you read about how the author came about writing this book, well, there was a genuine Author's Purpose, right there.

It will also underline the message to your students that good writing comes from the heart - your own life experiences - because these are the things that you can breathe life into so that your audience relates to your message.

This novel also lends itself to a great Novel Study.

Here is a link to the 18 page Reader Response Journal that I made for my students. It includes:

3x ‘pre-reading’ activities - prediction, vocabulary, author bio
6x ‘reading response' activities - author craft, main character, support characters, text-to-self comparison,  setting analysis,
8x ‘reading application & synthesis' activities - flat/round character, family tree, writing draft & publish for text-to-world, Venn diagram, title hymn.

You will notice that the activities are NOT boring comprehension question-answer worksheets. Instead they are reader RESPONSE style that promotes higher order thinking skills like, analysis, application and synthesis.  

Of course, you can manipulate the order of the activities by moving the pages in the PDF document or even select specific activities as you need them. However if you would like to make them up into booklets, the following assembly instructions have been included. 

Journal Assembly instructions:
Print pgs. 1-18 (on 2 per page setting),
Separate out the first printed sheet (front and back covers), Fold each page in half, printed side facing out, and stack in numbered order,
Slip into cover and staple all the pages together, down the left-hand side, creating a spine
Optional - tape the spine to cover the staples, or slip a coloured paper cover over the spine before stapling, for students to decorate.

My Novel Study for Each Little Birds That Sings is available from my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

Now for the Reading FREEBIE 

I have also made this 'Retell the Main Ideas' activity. It can be as long as there are chapters in your book so best to use as a stand-alone activity that you can use for any novel that you are reading with your class. It also works brilliantly for students read-to-self novels as an independent follow up (great for developing those summarising skills for both picture and word smart kiddies). You can get this one absolutely FREE from my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

Thank you for stopping by. I would love some comments on what you think of this novel and any other class novels that you would recommend for 9-12 year olds.