Woo to the Hoo! Classroom Library!

I've done all I can do on my classroom library for now and I'm pretty proud of it. I posted an earlier picture of my daughter labeling and leveling all of my books for me. Now they are all organized in baskets by author or topic. Each book has the Lexile level written on it and a label to match the label on the basket so it's easy to put the books up.

My new cool chairs are from Lowes. The kids are going to looooove them! And check out my new READ sign. It came in just in time for our first day on Monday.

The basket on the table holds materials for Buddy Reading. The sign lists options for the Buddy Reading Station. I have some of the You Read to Me, and I'll Read to You books in the basket, as well as lots of joke books (especially knock, knock jokes)!

I'm sooooo proud of my pirate lamp! I added pirate wall decals to a plain blue shade on my lamp from Target.

I also have task cards for Readers Response stored in baskets in the library. These are coded with different color stars so that I can differentiate for my students. They can then make their own choice from the appropriate cards.

Here is our new Listening Station. Last year we only listened to the stories on our basal in the Listening Station. I've added songs on CDs that correlate to our curriculum. There are various levels of task cards clipped to the station for the students' responses, as well as a notebook with other ways to respond for their choice. Again, I have these coded with different colored stars to help me with differentiation. I'd love to hear your ideas for Listening Station activities.

Super Books for the Writing Station

I have just about finished setting up my Writing Station in my classroom and hope to post pictures soon. I wanted to share some of the books I place in the Station to help jumpstart the kids' writing.

The kids LOVE any of the I Spy books. They can write a story or description of any of the items in the awesome pictures. (I also use the books to teach main idea and details). These pics unlock even the toughest writer's block! So many bloggers are using pirates in their classrooms this year, that I wanted to include Can You See What I See? Treasure Ship. You'll get lots of pirate stories if you use this as a prompt.

Share Graeme Base's Animalia at the writing center to show your students how to use colorful words in their writing. Younger students can use the sentences as models for writing alliterative sentences for the beginning sound they are studying. The sentences are also great to use for picking out parts of speech.

Any of Barbara Lehman's picture books inspire even the most reluctant students to write. Students can write about the stories told in pictures in The Red Book, Rainstorm, and Museum Trip or can pick just one of the illustrations to describe. (Great for making predictions and inferences!)

istvan banyai's wordless picture books could inspire a year's worth of writing! Show the students Zoom, Re-Zoom, and The Other Side and step back and watch inspiration hit!

 A Circle of Friends, by Giora Carmi,  just begs the children to add words to the beautiful artwork. Friends are an important topic of choice, so be sure to include this one.

You own't be able to put Ooops, by Arthur Geisert, down long enough to leave it in the Writing Station! This book is great to guide students in an ongoing story or chapter book. Does the house fall? (Another predictions/inferences favorite.)

The simple text of The OK Book, by Amy Krovise Rosenthal, is a wonderful model for students to follow to write OK books about themselves. Once they have done that, use the format to write OK sentences about the topics you are studying in Science and Social Studies.

The pictures in Black and White, by David Macaulay, tell two different stories. Let students pick one story line to follow.

And last, but not least, go right now and get Meanwhile, by Jason Shiga, if you do not already own a copy. You might want to go ahead and get two while you are ordering, because your kids are going to looooove this book. You choose your own ending to each page of the book. The story lines are practically infinite!

Happy Writing!