Activities, strategies, lessons, and planning pertaining to my Book Club and Dugout classes at Forest City Middle School.
Book Club: This class meets Monday-Thursday from 10:30-11. This is a block of time dedicated to reading–activities, free reading, novel reading, strategies, etc. The rotation and groups of students changes every three weeks. My section is of low-readers, so I focus largely on reading intervention strategies.
Sarah Plain & Tall – KWL Chart-Today's focus for Book Club is on the book, Sarah Plain and Tall, which is an easy read I selected to read with my students during the M-Th 30 minute class sessions.
Contemporary Music & Reading-“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” I pulled one of my Book Club students aside after class. He had been dozing on and off the entire thirty minutes (yes, Book Club is only thirty minutes) and I wanted to see what was up. “Look,” I said, “I know you’re tired, but it hurts my feelings when you fall asleep during my class."
Text-to-World Connections-As my Book Club students grasped text-to-self connections, it was time to move to text-to-world. To help them understand this, I created a PowerPoint/Google Presentation and walked through it with them.
Connecting to Novel Characters-Making connections while reading is hard! That's why I created this resource to help not only my struggling readers in Book Club, but for for any struggling reader or young reader (fifth grade through eighth grade).
“Piano Lessons” – Close Reading & Question Set-Ahhh...close reading passages, a necessary evil. Students aren't big fans of close reading, but these mini-readings are important for their skill building, especially if there is a set of questions that are relevant to the skills they are practicing.
Monster in the Barn-For Book Club, I'm always looking for good resources to help my students make connections to their reading. I came across this great source from ReadWorks, and I created two sets of questions to correspond and help with text-to-self and text-to-world connections!
Poetry Connections-Making text-to-self connections can be pretty simple when you're working with a story, explanatory text, or short passage. Poetry, on the other hand, can be a challenge. That's why I wanted to specifically work on this with my Book Club students.
Connecting to Holes, by Louis Sachar-Who doesn't like the book Holes, by Louis Sachar? This is one of my favorite books from my elementary/middle school years. And because it's such a good book, I wanted my Book Club kids to connect to a descriptive passage in it.
My Favorite Book-My Book Club is made of eighth grade Reading Intervention students who really struggle with reading. One of my girls told me, point blank on the first day, "I don't read." My goal is to change that by making reading fun and by caring about the students and working with them individually over the course of the three/four weeks.
Making Connections-Today's (and this week's) Book Club topic is making connections, specifically making a Text-to-Self connection. To help my students understand this, I created a presentation and notes sheet.
Intro to Making Connections-Today was my first day with my Book Club students, so to get to know them (there's only five!) and to introduce the topic we'd be covering in the first few weeks, I created an intro activity!
Connecting to Book Club-When I started my second placement, my cooperating teacher was in her last week of meeting with the second round of Book Club students. These kids would switch the first week in November. However, I still wanted to get to know them, so I started engaging through Google Classroom.
Dugout: This is a core group of students that a teacher will have from 6th-8th grade. It meets 10:30-11 on Fridays and is meant to be a time where students develop relationships with their teacher and feel connected to one another. The activities range from games, social events, and competitions to snack days and free time.
Creating Eiffel Towers Out of Canned Goods!-For the last day of my student teaching placement, students in Dugout (the group of sixth, seventh, & eighth graders that hang together on Fridays at 10:30) participated in a canned food drive where they made sculptures out of their items!
What is Dugout?-Dugout is a program put into place on Fridays at Forest City Middle School. The focus is to promote relationships between students and teachers outside of the curriculum.
Hungry Hungry Hippos!-This was a super fun activity that FCMS participated in during their Dugout time--a human-sized, human-version of Hungry Hungry Hippos!
