Favorite Stories: Room on the Broom!

Currently, my favorite Halloween book is Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson! My students always love the whimsical story, lively illustrations and the rhythm of the text almost feels musical when read aloud (There is, in fact, a musical version that can be heard HERE!).

I always read the book a few times, do a little dramatic play with some props and then towards the end of the week I show the short animated movie - the kids really love this story!

Since the story is repetitive, it great for having the children join in while reading and to work on retelling skills afterwards. I really wanted my students to be able to engage with this story over and over again in new and different hands-on ways, so I created a few activities to go with it - they can be found HERE. 

My students' absolute FAVORITE activity is this Build & Balance Retelling activity: 

Students have to balance the broom by carefully stacking the storytelling props on top of each other. I created several printable options including foldable picture props, pictures to attach to wooden blocks (or these BLOCKS), or pictures sized for DUPLO type blocks. Several options make for quick and easy differentiation! 

The foldable stacking pieces are the easiest to balance and the quietest, but are more fragile than the pictures sized for wooden blocks. The Duplo pictures are great for adding to your building area and they stick together so there isn't really much balancing, just building. 

Build it up, but don't knock it down! 

For older students, I added some worksheet options to go with the activities including pages for retelling, creative writing, problem solving, main idea and story elements. There are MANY different options for each, which makes for easy differentiation! 

I also collected these great dramatic play props so that the children can act out the story!

How to Make your iPad into a Secret Message Decoder

I recently discovered that I can set my iPad or iPhone up to decode Secret Message activities!

This means that if you have a newer Apple device, with iOS10 or higher, you don't need to purchase one of the decoder options or spend time making a decoder; simply follow the directions below to adjust the color settings on your device and then set a shortcut so that you can access the Red Tint  setting quickly!

First, you need to enable the 'Red Tint' setting.

Go into SETTINGS - GENERAL - ACCESSIBILITY - DISPLAY ACCOMMODATIONS - COLOR FILTERS. Next, click the toggle at the top to turn on the color filters option.

Scroll down until you see sliders for Intensity and Hue; slide both all the way to the right for red. The red tint will not show up in pictures or screenshots, but will alter what can be seen through the camera on the screen.

Your screen will look a bit like this with the red tint on:

For quick and easy access to this setting, you'll want to set up a shortcut.

Go into SETTINGS - GENERAL- ACCESSIBILITY - ACCESSIBILITY SHORTCUT. Click on the 'Color Filters' option on the list. Now the red tint setting can be easily accessed by triple clicking the home button. If you have multiple accessibility shortcuts set up, you'll need to choose the Color Filters option from the list

When you go to use your shortcut, you'll press the home button quickly three times. Depending up on what app you have open, you might have to choose 'Color Filters' from a list of shortcuts you have set up. It looks like this:

Now you're ready to use your device to reveal the hidden words in one of my Secret Message Literacy Centers! But before you get started, I highly suggest making sure that your device is well protected just incase it's dropped!

Simply turn on the Red Tint setting and then go to the Camera App. Point the camera of your device at one of the Red/Blue Secret Message cards to reveal the hidden word; you will be able to view the word on the screen of your device like this:

Give this activity a try with this FREEBIE! It includes the first 10 Fry Sight Word Secret Message cards, 3 different recording worksheets and an answer key.

For more Secret Message activities check out THESE posts: 

A Few of My Favorite Books: Peter Spier

(Affiliate links included for your convenience)

If there were just one special book that I could have from my childhood it would be People by Peter Spier! I have the fondest childhood memories of repeatedly checking this book out from the library and spending hours examining ther detailed illustrations of people from all over the world. When I finally came across this book in my adult life, I grabbed it up for my own personal collection of children’s literature. Eventually, I found another copy for my classroom and was saddened by the fact that none of my students have connected with it in the same way that I so fondly remember…

That hasn’t stopped me from introducing several of Spier’s books to my students over the years and I still keep a copy of People on the shelf just in case…

Spier’s books are beautifully illustrated with very detailed drawings and often wordless or nearly so. There is always much to talk about when reading his books and someone always seems to notice some new detail in the pictures. I appreciate that the books are sparsely worded which allows me the freedom to interpret the book based on student interests and needs.

Here are a few of my favorite Peter Spier books:

People

Gobble, Growl, Grunt 

Crash, Boom, Bang 

Circus

Noah’s Ark

The Fox went out on a Chilly Night

This one is a great folksong and is fun to sing rather than read. Here's one of my favorite versions of the song (there are many other versions available!):

Rain

We the People

Unfortunately, many of Spier's books are currently out of print. However, I've had good luck finding his books at thrift stores, Amazon used books and on Etsy. Happy hunting!

  

Spring Literacy: Book Companion for Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

One of my most favorite spring books is STUCK by Oliver Jeffers!

I just finished updating the activities in my Book Companion pack for the Oliver Jeffers book Stuck. I added a few more pages at the suggestion of a few teacher friends, updated the formatting to maximize the use of space and cleaned up the design and organization. I even added a completely new STEM based retelling activity!



The pack includes three different picture/props for retelling: Large pictures for cutting out, small pictures for attaching to blocks and small foldable 3D pieces.

The story blocks or foldable 3D pictures can also be used for retelling and a Build & Balance STEM based activity! The picture below is what the 3D foldable pieces look like.

You'll need a cardboard tube for the trunk ( I rolled brown poster board) and assorted sizes of popsicle sticks (I used about twelve 3"-8" green sticks). Students will need to first build a sturdy tree from the popsicle sticks and cardboard tube, then try to balance all of the story retell pieces on top; it's harder than it looks! Here's how I usually set it up:

The following block sets (affiliate links included for your convenience) contain blocks that are the proper size to create the story blocks. Simply print out the pictures at 100% size on regular paper, then cut and tape or glue them to your blocks. I usually use clear packaging tape rather than glue because I like to reuse my blocks.

Worksheet options include pages for retelling (using pictures and/or words), story elements, main idea, creative drawing & writing, and problem solving.

And, don't miss this simplified version of the story; it's great for younger students or those with speech and/or language challenges. Find this FREE printable HERE!

Check out my old post about this unit HERE where you can see some more pictures of the activities in action!



Here are some of the supplies you'll need to set up these activities: