Our Beverly Cleary Shelf Part One

Here is our Beverly Cleary shelf after one classes' intro to this extraordinary author:

Stay tuned!!

Author Study - Beverly Cleary

Maybe it was the news that Beverly Cleary's house was on the market in Portland, Oregon.

Or maybe it was the fact that my Beverly Cleary library shelf in the Library is completely and totally FULL:

that made me think:

It's Time for a Beverly Cleary-FEST!

I'm planning on starting with my combined 1/2 classes next week.

First we'll do a little of this:




Then we'll read a little of this (actually, the entire thing):

This is the edition I have - but not in Spanish!

Then we'll move on to this...

By then, the Cleary shelf should be...well...Cleared!

Any suggestions for Cleary-Fest activities?

Noah Webster and His Words with Activity!

I'm reviewing reference resources with my third graders, including the dictionary.

We recently read a great little book about Noah Webster by Jeri Chase Ferris and illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch.

A great read about Noah Webster

My students, being the smart little ones that they are, took issue with a reference to "states" when they thought it should have read "colonies".  After we sorted that business out, I decided it would be fun to use Ferris' book as an excuse to review some of our reference resources.

Here is a station activity that I created for use by my third graders.

You use the station signs and the teacher resources found at the Noah Webster house and at Jeri Chase Ferris' website.

I haven't tested this activity yet with my third graders, so I imagine there will be tweaks, which I will upload as I make them.

En - joy!

And...there went February!

I cannot tell you what a week we've had.  I was out for all but two days and for the first time ever in the five years I've been a teacher-librarian, we had to shut the library down for the day:  my assistant was also out and there were no subs to be found anywhere!  I guess that's cold/flu season for you!

Needless to say, I'm feeling very disconnected and have that old loss of momentum feeling with all of my classes.  I can't stress over it though; I just need to not look back and start a-fresh.

To get back into the spirit of things, here is a hilarious clip I picked up from over at The Teacher-Wife.  Ever have one of these days: