Classroom Book a Day: The First Five Days of School!

“As the year progresses, read aloud becomes the bedrock foundation of who you are and where you’ve traveled together as a reading community. It becomes your history and the collection of stories and experiences that you come back to and draw on throughout the days, the weeks, and the months ahead.”   –Yates & Nosek

Inspired by my friend and colleague, Jennifer Ford, who was inspired by Jillian Heise, who was inspired by Donalyn Miller… I am taking on Classroom Book a Day and am blogging about it!  I shared this goal with my 5th graders today, and they were just thrilled. So far, we are five days in to our school year, and we are right on track.

My plan is not to do a separate blog post about each book (there is no way possible I could keep up with that as a full time classroom teacher, writer, and person trying to live a balanced life outside of school). However, I will periodically post all the books we’ve read for our Classroom Book a Day in one post- I imagine every couple weeks or so.

Here’s what we’ve shared together as a reading community so far…

First Day of School

On the first day of school, we read The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi- a wonderful story about how our names shape us and partially help form our identities.

8/15/18

Then, we read ish by Peter Reynolds- a heartwarming book about so many wonderful things. Out of the mouth of a fifth grader today- “We’re all a little bit -ish all the time with different things, and that’s ok!”

8/16/18

We followed up ish with Emmanuel’s Dream by Laurie Ann Thompson- You know a book is great when the class applauds at the end and can’t stop talking about it! It also kicked off our identity conversation- we are all more than one story, and we are all more than what may appear to others. Highly recommend this book for all ages- even adults!

8/17/18

This past Friday, we shared the book Most People by Michael Leannah… A great conversation was had about appearances and perceptions. Another great read for all ages.

8/20/18

Today’s book was was a beautiful story from Katrina Goldsaito: The Sound of Silence. It sparked a wonderful discussion about presence and appreciating the moments we’re in. Sometimes what we’re looking for is within us the whole time.

What books are you sharing with your class? I’d love to learn more!

Happy reading, friends.

-Christina 

My first book for teachers, To Know and Nurture a Reader: Conferring with Confidence and Joy, cowritten with Kari Yates, is now out and available from Stenhouse Publishers. Our goal with this book was to help teachers make the important practice of conferring with readers manageable, effective, and fun!