Category: It’s Monday!

Posts to reflect on my reading week.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 10/27

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.

Books I Finished This Week:
I actually finished The House of Hades by Rick Riordan this week. I love this series! It was such a great adventure and I am so excited to read the next one soon.  
Books I am Currently Reading:
I just started reading The Princess Academy: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale. I am also listening to The Peculiar. 
What’s Next? 
I am not sure what I will read next.  I have a stack on my nightstand that I will choose from in the next week.  
My posts have been so short lately. I have so much work to do with the new grade level. According to Goodreads, I am something like 34 books behind schedule for my yearly goal. Ha! I will get back on track soon.  
Have a great reading week!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 10/20

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.

Books I Finished This Week: Ummm…none
Books I am Currently Reading: I am more than halfway through The House of Hades by Rick Riordan. I also am still listening to The Peculiar which seems like it will take me forever and a day at this rate.  
What’s Next? At this rate, I am not sure I will even get to another book before next week. I am seriously bogged down with the new grade level and the chatty kids in my classroom. I will get on a more even schedule soon. 

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!

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 8/11

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 started this week with meetings to write our school improvement plan.  All day Monday and Tuesday, I had a mix of training and time to work with my school team on our plan.  This took away a lot of the time I would usually have had for reading.  Also, I got sick again.  Round 2 of Diverticulitis is now under control with another antibiotic, but while I was sick I spent lots of time watching television instead of reading.  I hope all this getting sick will be out of my system so that I can be healthy as we start the school year.  Suffice it to say I didn’t do much reading this week.

Books I Finished This Week:

En el tiempo de las mariposas (In The Time of the Butterflies) by Julia Alvarez is a fabulous book.  I was fascinated by the story of the Mirabal sisters in a country led by the dictator Trujillo.  I do not know much about the history of the Dominican Republic and it was really interesting to get this small fictional glimpse into that time period. 
Gulp! by Mary Roach is a fun non-fiction book that explores different aspects of digestion and eating.  I laughed out loud multiple times because of the author’s hilarious play on words and sarcastic voice.  There were quite a few parts of the book in which someone with a weaker stomach might be quite grossed out, but I was fascinated by the curious questions this author explored.  I am definitely ready to find her other books and to learn about other science from this fun author.  

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am still reading Bird by Bird and Escaping into the Open.  I am also still listening to The Clockwork Princess.  I just started reading Mindsets in the Classroom and Independent Study.  I am in school planning mode already and so I am also re-reading excerpts from multiple books and articles on Choice Literacy as I make decisions about how to plan for fourth grade.  

What’s Next?

I have Absolutely Almost along with a bunch of picture books in my library bag that I will get to this week.  I also want to read some of the I Survived books.  I will probably also start Spook by Mary Roach or In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. I know I will also continue reading articles and excerpts from some of the professional books I have as I continue to plan my procedures and first lessons.  
What are you reading this week? Do you have any recommendations for me?  I would love to hear from you in the comments! 

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 8/4

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.

Books I Finished This Week:

El misterio de la cripta embrujada by Eduardo Mendoza is a mystery with a very unique protagonist.  It is a well-written book and many people really like it.  I did not like it very much.  I found it hard to connect with the protagonist and he kind of disgusted me.  I think I just have a hard time connecting to books with an odd person as narrator.  This happened to me with Perks of Being a Wallflower as well.  I think many people would enjoy this book.  It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

In The Fourteenth Goldfish, Jennifer Holm takes a premise that seems utterly unbelievable and somehow makes it believable. I love the way she weaves the love of science into this book.  Kids who read this book will find out about some famous scientists as well as connecting with Ellie, the main character.  I highly recommend this book!  Look for this one later this month.

As many other bloggers have said about this book, it will be an important one to add to class libraries when it comes out in the fall.  The protagonist and narrator of this book is a girl with Asperger’s syndrome.  There are many challenges for her in her daily life.  As an adult, I just wanted to get in this book and beat some sense into her father.  I think this will be an excellent book for students to read because they will be able to connect with Rose through her connection with her dog, Rain.  I cannot say enough great things about this book.  You should order Rain, Reign by Ann M. Martin when it comes out in October.

I had not read any of the Squish graphic novels before this week.  It is such a cute series.  I will definitely keep looking for these books to add to my class library.

This graphic novel is about the author and how he started writing comics.  I think it will be a great book to have in the class library.  I really enjoyed reading it.

I started reading Article 5 by Kristen Simmons at bedtime one night.  Big mistake.  I read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more…way into the wee small hours.  Then, I read the next morning until I finished the book.  This is another dystopian book and I could definitely imagine our world getting to this state.  The romance part of the book bothered me a little bit because it is another book in which the girl doubts whether the guy loves her and spends a lot of time being insecure about the relationship.  I think it rings true to how a teenager would be in a relationship, but it always bothers me a little.  I feel like getting in her face and yelling “IDIOT, of course he loves you!”  Overall, though, I really liked the book and will be looking for the other ones in this series.

The Literacy Teacher’s Playbook by Jennifer Serravallo is a very interesting professional read about reading assessment and analyzing the data.  I read this one on the Digital Campus on Heinemann’s website, but might need to order a copy to keep nearby.  Her approach to collecting and analyzing data is straightforward and easy to follow.  This is such an important skill to develop in order to really do the best we can for all students.  I highly recommend this book to reading teachers in elementary school.

Books I Am Currently Reading:

I am still working my way through Bird by Bird and Escaping into the Open.  I also am still reading Gulp! and listening to The Clockwork Princess. I also just started reading En el tiempo de las mariposas (In the Time of the Butterflies) in order to continue reading in Spanish.

What’s Next?

I borrowed a copy of The Right to Write from my mother so I hope to get to that this week.  I also just got Absolutely, Almost from the library. Otherwise, it will really depend on my mood.

Blog Posts This Week

What did you read this week? Any recommendations for me? I would love to hear from you in the comments! 

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? July 28

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.

Books I Finished This Week:

I really enjoyed Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue.  The entire Origami Yoda series is so much fun.  The rebel alliance continues to make waves in this book.  I highly recommend the series.  
I definitely will recommend the Infinity Ring series to my students (especially any students who really liked The 39 Clues series).  The adventures remind me somewhat of The Magic Tree House, because they are traveling through history to fix some anomalies.  It is science fiction because the world of the protagonists is vastly different from ours because of the anomalies in historical events.  These are fast-paced books and I enjoy reading them. 
 Middleworld by Jon Voelkel is the first book in the Jaguar Stones series.  It is an adventure book about Maya artifacts and temples.  This book reminded me of City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende.  The american kid,who is completely in love with the materialistic society, ends up in the middle of nowhere and scrambling to stay alive.  There is some magic that happens and he ends up believing in some of the legends.  This book would be a good one for fans of Rick Riordan.  I highly recommend this book and will be looking for the other books in the series.  
Crafting Digital Writing by Troy Hicks is brimming with excellent ideas and resources for teachers to do more digital writing in their workshops.  I really liked the ideas in this book and it really got me thinking about how to incorporate technology into our every day lives in the classroom.  I already have my students blogging, but this book brought so many more ideas.  I was especially interested in the idea of creating more audio texts.  I am going to look for his first book The Digital Writing Workshop as well.  

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am reading El misterio de la cripta embrujada by Eduardo Mendoza.  I also picked up two books about writing to inspire me.  I am reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Escaping into the Open by Elizabeth Berg.  I also started Gulp! by Mary Roach and a memoir of a man who went back to his summer camp for one last summer working there before he got married.  I also started re-reading Reading in the Wild.  It is because of this scattered reading that I did not finish much last week.  

What’s Next? 

My goal this week is to continue with the books I have already started.  I will most likely grab some middle grade titles to go along with these books as well.  I will also continue to write more. 

Blog Posts from this week:

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