A New Book

Pretty excited...just released...

This is now the third book in the series. I blogged before about the first book Because of Mr. Terupt you can catch up about the lessons and book here.

I can not stress enough about how great these book are. If you are about the start school next month I would highly recommend reading Because of Mr. Terupt to your class (5th grade is the perfect grade level).

My former students still rave about this book and I'm sure will be as excited as I am that there is a third book.

I think this poster for the book sums up the main idea of all three books...

In  all three books the chapters are broken into months, giving a little background some times during the summer, and then continue through the school year. Within each chapter you get to "hear" the story from all seven different perspectives with the seven characters telling the story in their own words and voice.

What do you think?

Classroom Read Aloud (chapter book version)

The last day before the winter break I kept my students on edge and engaged by reading the December chapter of one of my FAVORITE read aloud chapter books Because of Mr. Terupt. Last year (and years prior) my media specialist came to all the fifth grade classes monthly and read this book to my students. At the end of the year we did a Skype visit with the author Rob Buyea. It was AMAZING!

So when I moved I told myself I would read this to my class. The book follows a fifth grade class (one of the many reasons I love reading this to my class), every chapter is a month in the school year, and in each chapter the main characters tell the story from their point of view! Did I mention how much I love this book?

Each of my students have a three prong folder in which they keep different entries and notes. I wanted a folder because I wasn't sure as to what exactly I was going to put in the folders. Each month/chapter they are given a sheet with each main character listed and a summary box. As I read the chapter they take notes under each character...they list things that happen, things they learn about that character, etc. 

Another thing that I add at different points of the month might be a character study map, prediction sheet, or whatever lessons we may be covering in class. I love that they are connecting what I'm teaching in my mini lessons with the book the entire class is reading. 

Now each student doesn't have a book, I usually project the book from my iPad Kindle app; therefore, I am not able to really do reading comprehension questions. But I do love how the lesson application pages are turning out. I hope to possibly have a packet made for this book...maybe by the end of the year. 

Here is another great part about this book....Mr. Terupt loops with his class to 6th grade!!!! The kids can't wait to get their hands on the next book!!

So that is probably one of my favorite classroom read alouds, here are a few others...what is/are your favorite? 

(great for fifth grade SS curriculum) 

(ReadWorks.org has a great unit on this one!)