You've worked so hard to find the perfect books for your Book Clubs. You've given up almost all of your weekend writing the most perfect discussion questions for those perfect books. You even showed up an hour early to school to arrange your desks in the perfect spots to encourage a Socratic Method style of discussion your students are going to love. The best part about all of this is that you knew your students were going to nail this discussion question like a #boss that you even invited your principal to join in!

So why are you crouched over in the fetal position in the teachers lounge crying like a baby? What could have possibly gone wrong?

What really happened was that half of your students didn't do the chapter reading at home. Of the other half that did the reading, half of those students were not in the mood to have a meaningful conversation with their peers. The last half of students actually read the assigned chapter, but they didn't know how to even have a productive conversation and ended up yelling over each other.

How can all of this be avoided? Can your students actually have a productive conversation during your Book Clubs? The answer to that question is: yes.

First of all, students have completely lost what it means to have a conversation face-to-face with someone else. Texting has ruined that for everyone under the age of 25. Why actually look someone in the eyes when I can just type it into my phone and wait for their response? So, the first thing you should teach your students is how to have a conversation. Discuss the volume of their voice, making eye contact with whoever you are talking to, building onto a discussion by using words like: I agree...I politely disagree....I would like to add...Also, students need to understand that someone isn't always going to agree with you, and that's okay!!

Next, your students need to understand what they should talk about during their Book Talk discussions. Before they even enter the classroom, they should have notes written down or things highlighted in their text to share with the group. You can either have prepared questions for them to fill out, or you can do my favorite thing: Dialectical Journals. My students would each have their own spiral notebook. Inside they would divide the pages in half vertical. On the left was a quote they read that meant something to them. They may like the way the sentence was written, it may have evoked a feeling in them, or it helped answer a question that we had asked in a previous session. We would then all take turns sharing our quotes and others would comment about them.

Lastly, our students need to know when it's time to move on in a discussion. This is extremely important when the discussions start to get a little heated. It's great that your students are excited about reading, but there will be times when it can go a little too far. For example, my students had just read an article about a high school that banned hugging. Even like friend-to-friend hugging. I had some students that were perfectly fine with the no hugging policy, but then I had students who thought the world was ending. This discussion got so out of hand that I had to call parents. Some of my students didn't even get the opportunity to talk that day because it was dominated by two students who didn't see eye-to-eye. I never really discussed with them how to move on and continue with the discussion in a proper manner.

I love Book Clubs, but they aren't effective unless you have modeled what a Book Club should look or sound like. I've included this video because I think it would be something you could show your older students before your first Book Club meeting, This is not my video, but I think it's great!! Enjoy!!

 I usuallOne thing I know my students struggle with is making good book choices. They either pick out books that are way too hard for them, or they make selections that are way too easy for them. Either way, they end up not enjoying the book and they beg to go back to the library. This cycle continues and continues until they just give up on reading all together.

What can we do to ensure that our students aren't just jumping ship on us? I just wanted to share a few ideas that have helped me in the past.

1. Book Tasting Party
At the beginning of the year my students participate in a Book Tasting Party. You may have seen them all over teacher blogs and even TPT has menus you can buy for them. These Book Tasting Parties are so much fun and my kids have loved them in the past. I set up the classroom to look like a restaurant. I put out table cloths, set up plates full of cookies, cute napkins, and even glasses of juice.  Every spot also has a book and a menu. The menu items are things like Mystery, Fantasy, Biography, and Informational. The students rotate and share the books they have at their tables. They are just "tasting" the books at their tables to see if they would be something they would like to read later. Not everyone likes the books they have "tasted" and that's ok! That's the point! To see what they like and don't like about books.

2. Book Talks
Anytime I have new books coming into my classroom library I provide a Book Talk. I stand at the front of my room and walk through the book with my students. I show them the cover, I read the blurb on the back, and then I read the first page or two to give them a little "taste" of the book. I try and do this a few times a month, or when I see my students getting into a reading slump. I've even had students do Book Talks for the class when they have finished reading a book they think their classmates would like. Students usually like reading the books that their classmates recommend, and the student feels proud when others like it. I usually give them a little coaching beforehand so they know what to say.

3. Read-Aloud
I have always found value in reading aloud to my students. Even when I taught 7th Grade English, I read aloud to them. Their favorite was Full Tilt by Neil Shusterman because it had so many cliff hangers and who doesn't love a book about a demonic carnival? I usually like to red a few pages a day and stop when I know something amazing is about to happen. They just love listening to me read. Plus, they usually want to check out books that are like the one I'm reading, and that's the main goal.

Here are some covers of my favorite read aloud books:

   The Wall
    By: Even Bunting
​  Blurb from B & N: A young boy and his father visit the       Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

   Veterans Day
   By: Marlene Targ Brill
   Blurb from B & N: Veteran’s Day is a day set aside to thank the men and women who risk their lives protecting America. Each year on November 11, we celebrate what they have done for our country. Learn more about the history of this important holiday, such as why it is on November 11 and what Americans do to celebrate.

It's the Day of the Dead! It's time to celebrate!

This past week my student and I focused on learning about the Mexican holiday Dias de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Do you know about this holiday?

About fourteen years ago my grandfather passed away. I was devastated. He was such an important person in my life and it was hard for me to accept that he wasn't going to be here anymore. That year, I was teaching ESL classes to 6th graders in Houston. One of my students had asked me if I was going to celebrate Dias de los Muertos in honor of my grandfather. I had no idea what she was talking about! I had never heard of this holiday! She told me that on November 1st and 2nd, her family got together to celebrate the lives of their loved ones who had passed away. It wasn't a scary or sad holiday, it was a time to party and celebrate the lives of the dead when they were with us! 

After a little more research, I was blown away with the richness of this holiday. It had so much history! There is proof that the Aztecs celebrated something similar around 3,500 years ago.

I know it can be difficult to share other cultures in the public school system. You will always have a few parents who are resistant when you teach their child something that they don't know a lot about. And I usually have one or two students who, at the beginning, refuse to listen to anything I have to say about this holiday because they think I'm talking about devil worshiping. However, after movies such as "The Book of Life" and "Coco," I've seen less and less resistance to learning about this marvelous tradition.

It's so important for your students to learn about other cultures that are different than their own. Also, it's even more important to acknowledge traditions that some of your students have who may be too shy to share! Once my students started to really get into my lessons on The Day of the Dead, I had two of my students share that they celebrate this holiday at their house. My students were so excited to hear them explain how they light candles, build an altar, and eat the favorite foods of their deceased family members. They had a lot of pride in themselves that they could share their culture without being made fun of.

Here is the book I always read to my students when discussing this holiday. Living in Texas, the significance of the Monarch Butterfly is important because they pass right through us on their way to Mexico! Wait, are you mixing science with reading again? If you would like to share this book with your students, just click on the book and it will lead you to Barnes and Noble! We have to support the bookstores!!

The Learning Tree Studio is excited to announce its very own New Year's Workshop!!

New Year, New Classroom will be exactly what teachers need to keep them pumped and energized to finish the year strong with activities that students will keep begging for.

The morning will start off with teachers completing a variety of tasks ranging from 3rd to 8th grade and from all subject areas. What can you do with a hula hoop in a 4th grade Science and a 7th grade Texas History class? How about speed dating with some dead presidents and endangered species? You should come and find out!

The best part about The Learning Tree Studio's workshops? After a relaxing lunch, teachers head back to dig into their lesson plans and curriculum to add in the activities from the morning. That's right! Who doesn't love time to actually plan and create something that they learned at a workshop? 

So, sign up today! Spots are limited and going fast!

We can't believe we had over 750 tickets in our first giveaway. We truly are delighted to see so much support pouring into our dream of providing quality, hands-on training to teachers.

We have some awesome news to share!!

Because our clients loved this giveaway so much, we will hold one each month!! Continue to check back on our website blog for more tips and ideas from The Learning Tree Studio that you can use in your classroom. Sometime in November, we will host another giveaway!!

The last post about using everyday items in the classroom, I talked about paper plates. Boy, do I love my paper plates! Today I wanted to share with you another one of my favorite things...paper airplanes. Wait, what? You allow your students to make and fly paper airplanes in the classroom? You bet!

The other day I had some notes that my students needed to know about how to write a really awesome body paragraph in our essays. It was a lot of information to front-load on them. I knew that if I had just given them the notes and talked about them, they were not going to retain anything I taught them.

I had recently attended a workshop from the Writing Academy. If you haven't gone to it, you totally should. In our training we used a paper airplane to write our notes on. First, we made the airplane and put our names on them. We wrote down one thing from our notes page that we thought was interesting, and then that's when the fun began. After they had their sentence written, my students chunked the airplanes into the air and it was mass chaos for a few seconds. We found an airplane that was not ours and read what the first person had written. We then added a second sentence from our notes that was different then the first. We did this about five times before we tried to find our original airplane back.

Not only were my students engaged in the lesson, but they also had read over their notes quite a few times. They read what the other students had written, and they also had to read their notes page over and over to find new information to add.

My kids had so much fun doing this activity, and based on my observations the next day, they totally understood what they needed to include in their essays. Have you ever used this strategy before? We would love to hear about it!

I can't believe how much support The Learning Tree Studio has received in such a short amount of time. When I decided to start out on this journey of opening my own business, When I set out to pursue my PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, I was at a loss of what I would do with it. I prayed and prayed...and prayed and prayed...and God spoke to me. He said that I should take all of my knowledge and love of training others and the excitement I have for education and children and spread that with others.  

To say thank you for all of everyone's support, The Learning Tree Studio will be holding a giveaway to help us grow even more! The contest will start today and end on October 25th. Keep reading to find out how you can be eligible for this awesome prize!

Here is how to enter:
​1. Go to our Facebook Page: The Learning Tree Studio and tag as many friends as you can on the Giveaway post encouraging them to Like the page. Once your friends have Liked the page, they can head on over to the blog to enter themselves!
2. Earn points through the Rafflecopter !! Just log in with either Facebook or your e-mail and complete the steps. It's that easy!!
3. I will announce the winner on Sunday, October 26th.

The other day I had a student come up to me in tears. I mean those big, huge crocodile tears. No matter what I did, I couldn't calm her down. Do know what set her off? She was worried about her spelling quiz. I don't even count spelling as a test grade! It's just a daily grade! But for some reason, one of my favorite students was having a complete melt down. 

Eventually, I was able to calm her fears. We talked about it and we both realized that I had a "Worry Wart" on our hands. The next day I invited my student, with a few others I could tell were just like her, to my classroom for a friendly lunch. We talked about what was going on in our lives and if anyone had anything that was "stressing them out." Did I mention I teach fourth grade? I gave them some advice on how to handle stress and what they can do next time they start to feel the anxiety coming up. We decided that we could start doing a monthly lunch group where we can just talk about everything from school, to home, and friends.

This encounter with my sweet child had me really thinking about all of the other "Worry Warts" out there. My son is definitely one. He can make straight A's on all of his assignments, but as soon as he hears the word quiz or test? It's all over. His teachers always tell me that my kid freaks out in class because he is so worried about how his grade will be affected if he does bad. And then he bombs the test!!

So, I decided to share with you a few tips I have learned over the years to help out with your "Worry Warts."

Provide a Calendar
I know it sounds silly to provide a student with a calendar of dates for tests, but it really has helped my students. It takes the scariness out of the not-knowing when a test is coming. They feel they are prepared and it doesn't just "sneak up on them." I usually include tests dates, tutorial times, field trips, and any activities going on at the school.

Lunch Groups
This one is my favorite by far. I love getting my "Worry Warts" together for lunch in my classroom. I just let them lay out all of their worries on the table and I can see the relief pouring out of them. Not only am I there to help provide support for them, but it also makes them feel better to see that other students are feeling the same way. Sometimes I just sit there with my lunch and they run the whole thing. It's a safe environment for them to let all of their worries go.

Provide a Calming Atmosphere
I know that I'm the most stressed and worried when my house looks like a disaster. I hate coming home to having dishes in my sink, socks all over the living room floor, and dirty laundry piled up on the bathroom floor. Your "Worry Warts" feel the same way. If things aren't where they're supposed to be, that's all they can focus on! I try really hard to make my classroom a welcoming place for my students. I include pictures of my own family in picture frames, I have comfortable pillows and rugs, and I love having lamps around the room. If you asked my students what their favorite part of my room is...they would have to say the couch. They love relaxing on the couch while reading a good book.  

Calming Exercises
A few years ago I was introduced to a website called Go Noodle. I was teaching a group of second graders and we couldn't go outside for recess because it was storming. "Put on Go Noodle!" they all chanted. Guys, if you haven't been on this website, you should totally check it out. There was a section that I loved to put on where the students, second graders mind you, did yoga. Yep, you heard me. Yoga. It was so awesome to see their little bodies and faces just release all of their tension when I put on the yoga sessions. It created such a calming atmosphere for the rest of the day. I eventually started to put these yoga sessions on right after we got back from recess or PE, just to get their minds back in focus. 

I hope that you were able to get a few new ways that you can help your "Worry Warts." I know there are a tons more things I could write on here, but that would be a really long post!

Comment below if you have any strategies you like to use in class. We would love to hear them!

Every teacher has them...even if we don't want to admit it all the time! It happens when you least expect it and sometimes you aren't sure if it actually happened, or you question if you're in the twilight zone. You know what I'm talking about...that "aha" moment that students get, but it's actually you, not them. This was me the other day in class with my 4th graders. 

Because I believe in backwards design, I knew that my 4th grade students would need to understand why poets include repetition in a poem. It was going to be a question on our upcoming unit assessment, so I planned to read a poem that had that in it. I decided to read "Boa Constrictor" by Shel Silverstein because it was funny and involved repetition. I already had the answer in my mind when I asked why Silverstein had repeated the line "Boa constrictor, Boa constrictor, Boa constrictor." Honestly, I was only using that to point out that it had been repeated, but even I couldn't figure out why it repeated. I mean, the answer I was looking for is that he was trying to draw attention to something because it was important, but that may not be the real reason why he did it. I've never asked him myself!

So, when I presented this sentence stem: Shel Silverstein repeated these lines in his poem because.... I was shocked by the responses I got! One student replied that it could be read like he's scared of the snake coming closer to him and even read it in a shaky, scared voice. Another student said that he could be talking to someone else and then she read it like, "A Boa constrictor. A Boa constrictor? A Boa constrictor." I even had another student say that it even sounded like an echo response. Like maybe this guy is an a room that echos. My final student said that the guy could be yelling it out to warn others around him. 

Ya'll...I was blown away!! That was not the response I was looking for...or was it? I really had an "aha" moment right there in front of my students. Did I need them to know that sometimes poets repeat words or phrases to draw attention to something important? Yep. But isn't that kind of what they were saying, just in their own way? Yep! 

In that split second looking at my student's smiling faces, I had a decision to make. Do I break their little hearts and tell them that these were not the answers I was looking for, or do I tell them my answer and applaud them for being so creative? I thought back to my junior year of high school. I will not mention any names, but my English teacher had us reading from a book, can't remember which one, and she said that the tree in the very first pages symbolized Jesus on the cross. Now, being the wonderful and diligent student I was, I decided to not agree with her. I told the class that I felt there wasn't any symbolism at all and it was just a pretty tree. Can you guess what she did next? Yep! She chastised me in front of everyone! I was wrong and she was right! There was no reason to continue the conversation. Ya'll...almost twenty years later and I still think about that stupid tree.

So, I had a decision to make...do I behave like my junior English teacher? Or do I praise them for being so clever? My "aha" moment was to praise them in all of their glory. What smart kiddos I have!! I learned that day that teachers have so much pull in how students look at education. Are they worried about being told they are wrong in front of the whole class? Or are they praised for thinking "outside of the multiple choice questions?"

Have you ever had an "aha" moment in your classroom? If so, let me know in the comment below!!