Question

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20 thoughts on “Question”

  1. Have you considered blank, white hardback books for students to make books out of this year’s stories. They make great end of the year projects and add to your library for next year. The books come in a variety of sizes and page #s.

    Also, a German TPRS teacher whom I spoke with showed me a collection of cardstock artwork that works great for writing prompts. I can’t find the name of them, maybe someone else has ideas along those lines. (You can find images online, but it seems handy to have a stockpile in the cupboard for projecting with the doc camera.)

    1. “white hardback books for students to make books out of this year’s stories.”

      I love this idea! Thank you Lori.

      Grant Boulanger’s rejoinders posters have been really nice to have this year. I only have 2 sets and plan to get the other two for next year.

      1. I think I have an idea what Lori is talking about. It’s what I’ve had students do, but they usually make them via those plastic binders or yarn or staples. They just take a normal class story, break it up into 10 pages (1-2 sentences per page), illustrate each page, then it goes on the shelf for SSR. Smaller hardback books with blank pages would be nice to create a more professional product. I wonder about cost though… I plan to look into it.

        1. Jim, I remember your class books from your workshop in St. Louis! I love them especially because they are handmade and simple. I’m not knocking the more professional quality, but at the same time, a simple handmade book is pretty sweet.

          I’ve made a few w/ classes (in my former school) by having them illustrate a couple sentences (as per Jim’s process) then we laminated them and used a hole punch and a single binder ring. The plastic binder thingy works too.

          Another awesomely simple book is an accordion book. Take a big sheet of sturdy paper, fold it back and forth. Can be a square, rectangle, landscape or portrait! Choose however many pages you need. Remember to have a cover and “author’s notes!” …voila instant book! No glue, stitching or binding needed! Super crafty kids can go nuts w/ collage, etc and super non-crafty kids can keep it simple. I do coach them though about using the space (aka “composition”) and being bold with their drawings / lines / shapes / colors, even if they are stick figures. Also a simple border–just a line–on a page makes it look neat and intentional. Stick figures can be really cool so no “drawing talent” required 🙂

          Love love love handmade books! Why don’t I do more of this? Oh yeah! Bc I have failed at stories this year! Oops. That is why I get another chance next year.

          1. Your students failed to open up to stories this year. And you did what you needed to not be abused in your situation, is how I understand it Jen. Yes, there’s next year. I’m looking forward to starting fresh as well. (I’ll likely be shifting full-time to ONE school next year!)

            I think the books are cool any way we do them. I want to share what I did this week with some groups that was utterly simple and stress-free on my end but got them reading (and writing) with great interest. The input wasn’t perfect (student created) but several were establishing meaning of a lot of stuff they didn’t know yet but their classmates did. But in a nutshell they wrote the first sentence and their circle of ten wrote the rest of it, then they put it into a storyboard format and then others got to read them.

            My only problem with the construction paper books has been their ability to hold their form sitting on the bookshelf. There are solutions to that of course, but I want to look into the books Lori was describing. Thanks Jen for the positive remarks about that presentation and I’m so glad you were able to use the idea.

      2. Here’s a link to the hardback books:
        http://www.amazon.com/White-Hardcover-Blank-Pages-ASH10700/dp/B001SV2ISC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461890354&sr=8-1&keywords=empty+hardcover+book

        Last year I had my students work in groups of 3-4 on a story from class, turning it into an illustrated book. I shared the story with them on Google Docs so they didn’t spend all of their time typing out the story and figuring out accent marks, etc. (there’s another time and place for that.) They were instructed to: Separate the story onto pages on the book and include a picture for each page. Each student was also responsible for an “About the Author page.”

        (I got this idea and the details from Julie Soldner in Denver.)

  2. A digital camera with video capability. I take photos of the whiteboard (we’ve been doing a fair amount of murals as we read) & also make recordings for students who are absent and/or to share ideas with other teachers.

    1. That’s hilarious! Alisa is J-Lo.

      We should turn our Sideways G (where our photo is supposed to be) into our alter egos.
      Yours should be a picture of J-Lo.
      Mine should be Lana Del Rey.

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