“Greetings, greetings, fellow stargazers.”
My hours of reading this week have been concentrated on the Literature Class required reading for my students. From the Treasures Series I have been reading about Pipiolo and the Roof Dogs, with my fifth grade, along with the upcoming story of Shilo. Fourth grade has been reading about Mighty Casey, and studying run-on sentences. It is all so exciting. This week we will concentrate on plurals. Yes, the exciting world of plurals.
Sixth grade has been studying Tio Lolo, and will be going on to the story about a Pomegranate. Seventh grade has been concentrating on informational text, and has been writing feature stories about happenings at our school.
I’m afraid I can’t give too many details on the stories mentioned. I did not haul all my books home this weekend. Suffice to say that I’m trying to stay ahead of my students enough to be able to challenge their reading skills.
Now for the FUN part! My fourth and fifth grades are studying the New England states. They are busy exploring many interesting facts about the states, along with preparing for a Skype visit from the author Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, who lives in rural Vermont. The students are so excited!
I ordered three of her books, which feature life in Vermont, for adding to our class reading. The first to arrive is “The Night the Bells Rang.”
It combines the challenge of a bully, the details of daily life in rural Vermont, and the stress of a country at war.
The story is very nicely written, with many details of country life, especially the process of making maple syrup. We will enjoy it as our read aloud book on Monday and Tuesday. The book also includes many lessons of kindness.
I bought a jug of pure maple syrup at the grocery store tonight, to share with my kids. I have never considered buying it before now, but will NEVER buy any other kind again. I’m hoping to try some maple snow candy.
I’m hoping this will be a wonderful memory for my kids. That’s the best part of teaching.
marjoleske 
Saw you mention The Night The Bells Rang on last weeks post and was looking forward to this weeks! Looks and sounds like a great book and one that would be interesting to read
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It sounds like you have had a great week of reading as well as quite the variety of reading which I think its a great thing. Variety spices up the reading world. The Night the Bells Rang sounds like a good book and very interesting. I think its really exciting that your going to have an author Skype in your classroom, especially since we had an article on it. Great Post
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I can imagine how excited your students are for their skype visit with an author! I bet it will be fun for them to compare and contrast life in rural Vermont to life in rural Nebraska! What a great educational experience for them that will be fun as well.
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That is great that you are introducing your students to a book written by the author they will Skype with. What time era is the book set in?
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We read The Night The Bells Rang in two short sessions yesterday. The kids loved it. It was set in 1918. I’ll give details in next week’s post. We included a few other related activities.
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You’re doing a Skype visit! That’s awesome. I’m so glad the students enjoyed the book you read to them. Now they’ll be ready for that author visit!
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