Andrea, Author at Mrs Payan Reads

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 10/13

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

I haven’t posted since the beginning of September! I am so busy with school. I am going to go ahead and share all the books I read for the last few weeks since that list is not too long. Here’s to getting back on track with blogging!

I checked out and read some picture books over the last few weeks. I really enjoyed My Teacher is a Monster and Noisy Paint Box. I also thought The Lion and The Bird was a really sweet story.

I loved this new one from Raina Telgemeier. I could absolutely relate to the sibling rivalry in the story. My students will love this one.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver took me quite some time to read, but it was worth it. The story weaves through a man’s life from childhood to death. There are some interesting details about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo as well as an intriguing story about the paranoid anti-communist thought in the United States after World War II. I really, really enjoyed this one.

This was a fun thriller that would be appropriate for a younger audience than most of this type of book. It starts with a kidnapping and goes back and forth between what is happening with the girls who are kidnapped and what is happening with the police and the families. I would recommend this one for kids who like scary movies but are too young for the young adult thrillers.

I enjoyed this modern retelling of Jane Eyre. It made me want to go read the classic again. I wonder if it would inspire a teenager to want to read the classic.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is a beautiful memoir. It would make a phenomenal mentor text, especially in middle and high school.

I love Veronica Mars! This book picks the story up from the end of the movie. It is Veronica Mars and a good mystery. I am excited to read more of these.

The Land of Stories by Chris Colfer was a really fun book. I am going to be seeking out the other books now because I am pretty sure my fourth grade students will devour them. I don’t know why I waited so long to read this book, but I am glad I finally did.

What I am Currently Reading:

I am listening to The Peculiar and just started reading The House of Hades. Reading is slow going for me because I am spending a lot of time planning for my classroom.

What’s Next?

I have no idea what I will get to next. It will depend on my mood and whether I get through what I already have started.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebrate 10/11

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During our math stations time on Wednesday, a little group of students was sneakily working on something. I pretended not to see them doing it, because I knew they were trying to surprise me. I let them work on this for about 5 minutes or so until I called them back to work. The survey started out as who loves/who “disloves” Ms. Payan and evolved into this when they realized that it might not be very nice if people “dislove”. They also put a little tally chart with a few teachers to do a survey about favorite teachers. They were completely off task but completely engaged in this endeavor. I posted it on Facebook that night and had comments from a former student and a parent of former students that basically said I was the best. Warm fuzzies all over!

We had Parent-Teacher conferences this week. I really enjoy talking to parents. I like meeting them and touching base at the beginning of the school year, but I really wish our conferences were a little later in the Fall. I am still working on solidifying my procedures and don’t have as much to say about academics as I could later in the Fall. Many parents absolutely love ClassDojo and I was glad to hear that.

This time of the school year also means visits from former students. I loved hearing about freshman year from a few of last year’s 8th graders. One girl is going to the high school of the arts and majoring in creative writing. She credits her writing passion to me and my ELA class. I was flattered to hear that and so happy that I could inspire her to be creative. I also love it that many of my former students went to see The Maze Runner. I read it aloud to them last spring and they were eager to share their thoughts about the actors, “Thomas is HOT” and the way the characters were portrayed.

The day off on Friday almost made it worth being at school until 8:15pm both Wednesday and Thursday. I sat and mindlessly binged on TV watching all afternoon after helping a colleague figure out her Educator Effectiveness plan in the morning.

I love the Fall and pumpkin everything. I tried another great pumpkin beer last night. I think I will look up a recipe and make pumpkin bars today. At this time of year, I am glad to live in Wisconsin and get all the seasons in all their glory.

We got to see the lunar eclipse on our way to work Wednesday. I thought it would not still be visible, but it was. So COOL!

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebrate 9/20

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This week I am celebrating…

HUGS—I love hugs. I love that fourth graders are not too cool for hugs. I love the fact that one of my students came running back to the classroom on Friday to give me a hug before she left.

WAVES—I love the fact that my former students, those middle schoolers that are too cool for hugs, knock on the window on their way past my room at dismissal so that they can wave to me.

STUDENT COUNCIL—I gave out applications and received so many back from the middle school students. We will have a good group of students again this year. I am so excited to get started with them.

DOTS–We celebrated International Dot Day on Monday. My students were so creative with their dots. I will post a picture once I have the display up in the hallway.

READING—The one thing that is absolutely up and running in my classroom is reading workshop. We have already finished Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and will be starting The One and Only Ivan on Monday. We have learned about Metacognition and have worked up to 30 minutes of stamina in independent reading. I got to conference with my students this week and loved the first round of conversations.

COMMUNICATION—I am using ClassDojo this year. I got my technology handouts out to parents and at least half of them have signed up for accounts on this website. I love that there is a messenger right in the ClassDojo website. I got multiple messages this week from parents and I know that this will be an excellent communication piece.

DOGS—My dog has been especially cuddly the last two days. I was busier than usual this week and she missed those extra hours that she usually gets with me. It is so nice to have such doggie love.

LIBRARIES—I went to the 10 cent used book sale today at our Central library. I bought about 40 books and spent less than $5. I am thrilled to add these books to my class library. I love the fact that our library does these sales.

What do you have to celebrate today? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebrate 9/13

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I have all kinds of celebrations this week, big and small.

Wednesday was our 15th wedding anniversary. I cannot believe it has been that long! We actually went out to celebrate last Friday night. I had a Groupon for a fun restaurant, The Melting Pot. It was a neat experience eating fondue for dinner and we really enjoyed the food, but I was really glad we had the coupon. That place is sooooo expensive! Anyway, we have had our ups and downs, our challenges and our easy times, and I am glad I have such a great man to share my life with.

We made shrinky dink magnets for the classroom. I am so excited about these magnetic boards! I got the idea for the magnets from one of the articles on Choice Literacy by the Two Sisters. My students loved the magnets and wanted to take them home. I see another shrinky dink project in our future…

My students have done a stellar job of working up their stamina for independent reading. We started at 3 minutes and built up from there each day. There are a lot of kids in my class who are very easily distracted so I am pleasantly surprised that they were able to get to 30 minutes in just 2 weeks. Sorry for the blurry picture.

I read Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson with my students while making a “reading salad” to mix together text and thinking. The idea for this lesson on Metacognition came from Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor. It worked so well and my students wanted to do it again with the next read aloud we did.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is a big hit and my Judy Blume basket is empty because students are reading her other books for independent reading time.

I started using GoNoodle for brain breaks throughout the day. It is a really cool resource and my 4th grade students are loving it!

I spent Wednesday and Thursday nights helping a group of staff members to finish setting up their grade books online. It is quite a cumbersome process because of the way our district wanted it set up so I knew people would need more help. I was there until 6:30pm both nights and we got it done for most people. The celebration for me is the positive energy sent my way from these colleagues that are so appreciative of my patience and willingness to help out.

Tuesday I started a yoga class. I have been wanting to go to do yoga somewhere and just had not put my butt in gear to get there. This Yoga class for people with MS is a ten week class and it came along at just the right time. I also got up early on Monday and Wednesday to do my exercise bike before getting ready for work. I am happy I got some movement in this week.

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 9/8

My reading was really slow this week. I am steeped in planning, teaching, organizing, trying to keep up at home, etc.

Books I Finished Reading:

Into the Volcano by Don Wood is an interesting adventure story. I enjoyed the graphic novel and was fascinated by some of the information I learned about the inside of a volcano. I am not sure it is scientifically accurate, so I will want to go read more about it.

I really loved The Lions of Little Rock. This book is a great way to help students really understand what race relations were like during the first days of integration. I loved the characters and the story. This would be a great read aloud for learning about history.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. I am also listening to The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann. I haven’t made much progress in the Bill Bryson book because I left it in my classroom and keep forgetting to bring it home.

What’s Next?

I have absolutely no idea what will be next. I don’t think I will even get through the books I am reading. We shall see.

I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebrate 9/6

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This week I celebrate school.

Tuesday was the first day of school for our students. I loved meeting this group of fourth graders. I love working with kids of this age. They all want to help. They are riveted to read alouds. I shared some favorite books and read my favorite Shel Silverstein poem. There were so many giggles.

One of my students had an apple for me on the first day.

I made a word search with all of the students’ names for the first day. They LOVED it. They thought it was magic or something that their names showed up in the puzzle. I watched as the students moved around the classroom helping each other find names. I am excited about the way this group gets along.

We worked on stamina for independent reading this week. I love seeing kids start along this path. I love the silence of seeing kids absorbed in good books. I love that they beg for more time to read.

We did paper blogs this week and all of my students commented in respectful ways. They listened to directions and wrote about the topic rather than about the writing. They begged for more post-its so they could write more comments.

We started the number of the day routine. I love doing this because I love to see how creative students can get with getting to the number. So much number sense is developed through this open-ended activity.

My student council students all were asking about when we would be starting this year. They are chomping at the bit to get started. I love that group of students and I am looking forward to working with them again this year.

When we were in the hallway and the 8th grade class passed us, I heard one of my former ELA students telling his friend, “There goes my favorite teacher.” The whole class was happy to see me and I loved being able to say hello to those kids. It is always nice to hear that kids enjoyed your class and appreciate your relationship with them.

The biggest celebration for me is the feeling that I am doing what I was meant to do. I am so much more comfortable with this grade level.

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 9/1

Books I Finished This Week:

I very much enjoyed listening to Enchanted (Woodcutter Sisters #1) by Alethea Kontis. It is a fairy tale retelling with a bunch of twists. I chuckled and laughed out loud multiple times while listening (which may have been a little disturbing to anyone walking past my classroom while I was setting it up). I breezed through this audiobook because I played it while I worked to set up my classroom. It was entertaining and light enough to not use too much brain power and kept me motivated to work hard. I will definitely look for more from this series.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a really cute book for adults. It is a fun story of a man who just cannot figure out what he is doing wrong with Rosie. I love that Rosie accepts Don for who he is and I was really entertained throughout the book. I highly recommend this one.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am still reading In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. I also started Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine and The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.

What’s Next?

As you can see, my work planning for the new school year is definitely cutting into my reading time. I don’t think I will probably get to any other books this week. If I do finish the Kingsolver book, I have Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende on deck. I think much of my reading this week will be curriculum guides and standards as I plan for the first few weeks in fourth grade.

Blog Posts this week:

I managed to squeak in my Saturday Celebration post, which you can find by clicking on the picture.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebration 8/30

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This week I am celebrating positivity and a new beginning.

I am so relieved to be starting the school year with a team of colleagues that are positive about the job and what kids can do.

I love my classroom and what I was able to do with it (alas, I forgot to take pictures on Friday).

I enjoyed meeting some of my students and their parents at our Open House on Thursday. It was great to see the students gravitate right toward the carpet area and the library.

I had the privilege and the challenge of training some of my colleagues on the new online student information system we will use this year. Compared to the old dinosaur of a system we were using, Infinite Campus is amazing and will be great. However, setting up a grade book online is a big challenge for some of the computer-phobic folks in my school. I had volunteered to work with the group that needed more support because I knew that they needed slow and patient instruction. Although everyone’s mind was blown by the end of the 6 hours of training, I received several compliments on the way I worked with everyone to help them. The next day, I even got a thank you card from one of the teachers I helped. It is so nice to be able to help people feel less scared of technology.

The new music teacher saw my display of books that I read over the summer and came into my classroom to talk about the Cassandra Clare series. LOVE that these displays start great book conversations.

I’m not ready yet, but I will be by Tuesday. I love the energy that surrounds me as I plan and prepare for my first day with students.

It really has hit me how very negative I had become in the middle school position. I am so glad this opportunity to move to 4th grade arose. I needed the change in scenery and the new start.

What do you have to celebrate? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 8/25

Well, I officially have to be back at work tomorrow. Where did the summer go? Last week was a busy chaos of unpacking and sorting and cleaning in my new classroom. I went in to school every morning and I feel like things are looking pretty good at this point. Of course, there are still multiple pages of to-do lists to take care of, but what needs doing will get done.

Books I Finished This Week:

I finally finished listening to The Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare. I absolutely loved this book and was really pleased with the way the trilogy ended. I would highly recommend this series.

I really have enjoyed each of the books I have read in the Hangman’s Daughter series. This one had a great plot line and plenty of suspense. If you like mysteries and historical fiction, this is a great series to try. I recommend it for adults.

Many thanks again to Linda Baie who hosted a giveaway which I won. The prize was this fun book by Varian Johnson. I loved The Great Greene Heist. I highly recommend this one to grades 4 and up.

I re-read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. Her books are so fun. I am seriously considering this one for a first read aloud this school year, so I read it again to remember it. Although this one is not as deep as many of the other books on my list, I think it would be fun to get some students hooked on Blume’s books. Fudge is my favorite character from when I was a kid.

The Inside Guide to the Reading-Writing Classroom, Grades 3-6: Strategies for Extraordinary Teaching by Leslie Blauman is another great professional book about teaching a reading/writing workshop. I was intrigued with the mentions that I have seen lately of the “book lovers book” in many articles. I ordered this book because I was curious about it. I really love the ideas that Blauman gives in this book and will be implementing some of the great lessons this fall.

Books I Am Currently Reading:

I am reading In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. I am also reading The Rosie Project and listening to Enchanted by Alethea Kontis.

What’s Next?

I have no idea what will be next. There will be less time for reading in the next few weeks so I will have to see how I feel.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 8/18

My mind is swirling and whirling during these weeks before school starts. Much of my reading this week has been articles and rereading snippets of favorite professional books. I am trying to remember what worked for me in 4th grade and to figure out what I will do differently now that I have 5 more years of experience and a wealth of knowledge from being connected the last few years. There have been some great articles in the Edutopia back to school series. I definitely started thinking differently about classroom design after watching some videos there and then popping over to Choice Literacy and looking at their resources about it. Anyway, here is my list of books for this week.

Books I Finished This Week:

The I Survived series is one that I have been meaning to read for a while. I had heard of it as a series for reluctant readers. I know the one that I had in my classroom definitely piqued the interest of one of my readers during last school year, but I had not read them yet. I ordered the whole set from Scholastic. I decided to read them in chronological order of the year in which they take place. I read about the Battle of Gettysburg and the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906. Both books were fast paced and full of information. I can see how reluctant readers could be very interested in this series. The books were very quick reads for me and while they aren’t amazing literature, I am glad I will have them to add to my 4th grade class library.

When I read The Testing, I liked it, but had a few reservations about the book because it was so similar to The Hunger Games. Reading Independent Study changed my mind. I really got into this series and cannot wait to read Graduation Day soon. This is a great series, full of adventure and the dystopian element will make you think. What does it take to be a great leader? Cia is trying to find out. I highly recommend this one.

I enjoyed reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. She is really funny and the book was entertaining as well as having great advice for writers. I would recommend this one to any adult who is a writer or wants to be one.

I loved Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff. I knew I would like it because so many people I admire had said fabulous things about it. This book would be a great one for a discussion of the mindset of the main character and the messages that we sometimes give ourselves. I felt so bad for Albie and his learning difficulties. I also wanted to go into the book and smack some sense into his parents. This is definitely a book you should read if you have a middle grade classroom.

I also did some picture book reading this week. Nighttime Ninja and Interrupting Chicken were both cute books that would be fun to read with kids. On a Beam of Light was amazing! I love how this book celebrates the life of Albert Einstein, but does it in such a way that kids will understand. I can’t wait to share this book with my students.

Mindsets in the Classroom by Mary Cay Ricci is bursting with great advice about how to bring about a growth mindset culture at a school. I appreciated the chapters about how having a responsive and differentiated classroom is important to having a growth mindset stance. In chapter 8 of the book, she gives a ton of ideas of lessons and activities you might do in the classroom to help students gain a growth mindset. She also gives some ideas for how to involve parents and help them learn about this concept. I will definitely be using some of the ideas from this book to supplement some of the things I already was doing to promote growth mindset. I highly recommend this one for your professional reads.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I started reading Comprehension Going Forward and am really loving the ideas that are pushing my thinking. I also am still listening to The Clockwork Princess and have started reading The Beggar King and In a Sunburned Country.

What’s Next?

I will probably read the rest of the I Survived series this week. Other than that, I will have to see where my moods take me. I can get into my classroom starting tomorrow so some of my time will be spent setting up.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!