Other Good Reads-mysteries and good story lines Whistling in the Dark, Land of a Hundered Wonders by Lesley Kagan Shoot The Moon by Billie Letts The Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah-awesome read You've Been Warned by James Patterson
TriciaTizzy--Gardner has another good read that I liked titled Hide. Pretty suspenseful. Also try No Time For Goodbye--Couldn't put either down! I love to read--we have a book club for our teachers so I will try to share anything good on here.
I would suggest The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) and the series. They put a modern spin on the Greek Gods in our present world. Pretty interesting and engaging. Kids seem to love it. Has your nephew read the whole (Maximum Ride) Series by Patterson? There are a good number of books in the series.
EricOn 12/18/08, Tizzy wrote: > not really enough clues... is it here on this site?
I'm not sure. I saw it at the bookstore. That's all that pretty much happens in the book though. Kid goes to sleep, toys take care of him at night, boy wakes up.
We w...See MoreHi All-I am starting the first book club in my middle school (we don't have club time-it is an after school club).
I have done some research about book clubs, but most info is geared toward adults. I am in touch with our city library and they have offered some help (ex. book club sets for lending, but quantities are small).
We want to read the same book (so far there are 30 members-first meeting is next month) so everyone will have to buy or borrow a copy. I realize that is a deterrent-we are working on 'book scholarships' and hope that as we move forward we will figure out how to resolve this issue or alter our plan. We will break out into smaller groups. We also want to have activities other than book discussion (creative writing/art related to the current book, published on paper or electronically, social events for the whole school).
For middle schoolers, how many pages a week seem reasonable, considering regular school assignments?
I was thinking of meeting 2x's a month for an hour-too much, too little?
If we do book-related events, how much time should we expect to focus on each book?
Any related book club ideas/activities?
Personal experience-success and failures?
Thanks for any input. I am not locked into any goals yet, and want to let the kids drive the club.
TeriOn 12/30/08, 1st Book Club in School wrote: > Hi All-I am starting the first book club in my middle > school (we don't have club time-it is an after school > club). > > I have done some research about book clubs, but most info > is geared toward adults. I am in touch with our city > library and they have offered some help (ex. ...See MoreOn 12/30/08, 1st Book Club in School wrote: > Hi All-I am starting the first book club in my middle > school (we don't have club time-it is an after school > club). > > I have done some research about book clubs, but most info > is geared toward adults. I am in touch with our city > library and they have offered some help (ex. book club sets > for lending, but quantities are small). > > We want to read the same book (so far there are 30 > members-first meeting is next month) so everyone will have > to buy or borrow a copy. I realize that is a deterrent-we > are working on 'book scholarships' and hope that as we move > forward we will figure out how to resolve this issue or > alter our plan. We will break out into smaller groups. We > also want to have activities other than book discussion > (creative writing/art related to the current book, > published on paper or electronically, social events for the > whole school). > > For middle schoolers, how many pages a week seem > reasonable, considering regular school assignments? > This depends on the difficulty of the book and the ability level of the students. On the first meeting, have the students read for 15 minutes and then record how many pages they read. Use that information to come up with a guideline-- based on chapters in the book. Considering their school assignments, this could double up; when I taught middle school reading, the only homework I gave was to read 1/2 hour a night and keep a log. Check with your reading teachers; if they follow the same procedure, the book club reading could double as their homework.
> I was thinking of meeting 2x's a month for an hour-too > much, too little? > Figure 20-30 minutes for discussion about the book and the rest of the time for arts/crafts type projects and that sounds about right. Does your school have any restrictions about meeting times? The middle school I worked at required any afterschool meetings/practices to run until the activity bus arrived at 5:45; i.e. an hour and 45 minutes.
> If we do book-related events, how much time should we > expect to focus on each book? > Again that relates to the difficulty of the book and the issues/themes it covers and the abilities of your students.
> Any related book club ideas/activities? > > Personal experience-success and failures? > > Thanks for any input. I am not locked into any goals yet, > and want to let the kids drive the club.
With regards to purchasing enough books -- try breaking them up into smaller groups of 5 or so. Then you can have them read different books. When groups finish a book, they can switch with the other groups.
There are some good book club handouts here (discussion leader, word wizard, story connector, etc.): [link removed].
Personal experience - One of the hardest things to teach kids is to write/create open-ended discussion quesitons. Maybe they're better at the middle school level, but I spend several lessons teaching kids how to write "discussion questions" rather than "fact questions." If left on their own, kids prefer to present questions like "What color was the main character's shirt?" rather than "How do you feel about the way the main character handled this situation?".
If you spend time teaching kids how to develop open-ended questions, it goes much more smoothly.
aranoia: A Cat's Tale gives a voice to animals and small children who cann't speak for themselves. A true story of a kitten abandoned on a country road by those who are suppose to care for it. Written for children of any age,it will touch your heart.
Help! I have heard of using My Sister's Keeper in a cross curricular way between a biology class and an English class but I need some pointers regarding how to do it. If anyone has any suggestions please send them my way. Thanks.
I used my chapter book The Treasure of Health and Happiness, but you could use any book. This is what I did. It worked and I even presented the method at the recent state reading conference I was invited to as an author/illustrator and presenter.
I took my book along with long blank sentence strips and markers to a classroom. I told the children that I was going to read a chapter (actually I brought enough copies so the kids could read along with me) to the group and as soon as they could make a personal connection to raise their hand. As an example, after I read the first few sentences, I made a simple connection, "I feel hot!" and I wrote it on a sentence strip. The kids caught on right away and their connections came quickly: I took swimming lessons. My sister runs faster than me. Once, a mosquito buzzed around my head. I left time at the end of the period so that they could write a paragraph about one of their connections. This was so popular that I plan on going back to this class with my chapter book every week to continue. It will take a bit of thinking about how to make a text-to-text connection with this book and their anthology material, but it can be done.
The key was the example, the sentence trips, and the immediacy of the activity. Instead of having them make the connection AFTER the reading when they maybe forgot, they were allowed to raise their hands right away and I stopped reading and wrote their connections down. I also accepted simple connections, but the depth came out in their writing. It's a FUN activity.
> I need ideas to connect stories using Text to text, text > to self and text to world. Any help or books that work > well to this subject?
I am thinking about starting a book club next year for fourth and fifth graders. I would like to use graphic novels. Any suggestions as to titles, maybe some you've had success with previously?
Handle with Care- This is only the second Picoult book I've read, (the other was My Sister's Keeper) and this was set up much like that one was. Are all of her books written from the various character viewpoints? This books seemed so similar to My Sister's Keeper that I think perhaps she is writing on formula.