Million Minutes of Reading 2015

Meet the challenge!

Join the CAC elementary and middle schools as we collectively read one million minutes this year!

How are we going to do this?

All students, parents, and teachers at CAC's ES and MS are invited to log the time they spend reading on this Google form, which will be posted on the CAC Dashboard as well as on ES blogs, including this one. You will need to log in to the CAC website with your CAC Single Sign On.

http://goo.gl/forms/wQsTRxOrhv

Why are we doing this?

The goals of the Million Minutes of Reading Challenge are to:

• build community by working towards a common goal
• help our students build reading stamina
• provide motivation for our reluctant students
• highlight the importance of teachers and parents as reading models

Also, we will have a celebration when we reach our goal. ;-)

When do we start?

Tuesday, October 26. There will be an announcement on CACN. The form will be available before that for practice, but it will be cleared at 7:30 am on October 26, and set fresh to start the counting. 

How will we know how far along we are?

There will be an electronic progress indicator on the CAC dashboard, and we will also have a paper indicator on the CAC campus.

What counts as reading?

Any type of sustained reading counts: reading for homework, ebooks, audiobooks, graphic novels, listening to a read-aloud in class or at home. As long as you are reading for a sustained amount of time and you are making meaning of what you read (i.e., you understand), that counts. 

Can we read in languages other than English?

We want you to read in any of the languages that you know and can understand, so reading in your mother tongue or in another language in which you can read and comprehend counts too. We have a large collection of books in Arabic in the library, and we also have books in many of the languages our community speaks.

How much time will each of us have to read?

Most students in the elementary school already have 20 minutes of reading for homework. Log those and any other reading you do.

How long will this take us?

We've calculated that if only the 313 elementary students join the challenge, each would have to read 53 hours. Since every student reads 20 minutes for homework a day, and there's at least 20 minutes of reading at school, that comes out to about 2 months and a half - not counting weekends. But, teachers, parents and the middle school will be joining us, so we're hoping we'll be done much sooner.

What about parents?

Parents, we're counting on you reading too. Be sure to count the time you spend reading aloud to your children at home. That counts double: the parent can log in the time they spend reading out loud and the children can log in the time they spend listening to the read aloud. To log in minutes as a parent, find the homeroom or advisory of one of your children. It will be added to the total for that homeroom or advisory. If you have more than one child, you may want to alternate. 

What if I'm not a student, teacher or parent, but I still want to join the challenge?

Log your numbers under library in the homeroom/advisory list.

Any other questions? 

Leave them in the comments and I'll add the answers to this list of FAQs. 

This Week in the ES Library

We will have several collaboration classes this week and our library assistants will have training from Dr. Purcell, who will be demonstrating "interactive read-alouds," a technique that is used by our ES teachers to help students deepen their understanding of texts. Here's a summary of the week by grade level.

PreK. Ms. Wafaa read Construction, by Sally Sutton, a New Zealand award winning author. Construction takes readers through the process of building a library. It features many different types of machines and lots of fun construction sounds.

Kg. Ms. Wafaa read Silly Billy, by Anthony Browne. This is the story of Billy, who always worried about lots and lots of things. He was such a worrier that he could never sleep well. One day he went to spend the night at his grandmother's house and she gave him some worry dolls to tell his worries too. He slept great that night and the next, but then he started to feel worried again. Our library lesson focused on noticing the picture clues the author illustrator gives about Billy's feelings, and empathizing with his worries. Don't be surprised if your kindergartener wants to make worry dolls this week! Here's a link to a page for making worry dolls out of pipe cleaners. 

Grade 1. Dr. Purcell will be reading Love and Roast Chicken, by Barbara Knudson. This will be a training opportunity for our library assistants, who this year are taking on the responsibility of teaching one grade level's lessons. Dr. Purcell and the assistants met last week to plan the read-aloud and she will be leading the first session with grade 1 to demonstrate for the assistants, after which Ms. Enas will be repeating with the second class of first graders. Dr. Purcell and the assistants will meet again to debrief the lesson.

Grade 2. As grade 2 is currently studying the solar system, Mrs. Fitzgerald will be reading Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars, by Douglas Florian. This is a collection of poems on celestial bodies. We will be having a poet visit CAC the first week of December, and this is a good time to hook students onto poetry. We will be having an open mic poetry reading at the parent picnic on November 11, and I'm hoping some of our second grade students will be inspired to read poems from this book then.

Grade 4. We will be reviewing the Big6 research process this week with grade 4 and creating a map that will be the base for their unit on Native Americans. (Grades 3 to 6 use the Big6 to help them go through the process of research.) As with other social studies and science units, grade 4 has a page on the Visual Tab full of links and book lists for this unit.

Grade 5. We will be having a very short tour of the library resources on poetry for grade 5's writing unit. The tour will include the resources on the Visual Tab's poetry page as well as our print collection. Grade 5 students will be helping us to select the best poetry books to keep as we prepare to weed our poetry book collection, as it is quite large but is aging. They are also invited to look at the links we have for Brod Bagert, the poet who will be visiting CAC in December, thanks to a generous grant by the PTO.

(Did you notice that we have not listed grade 3? That's because we are not currently collaborating with them for a particular project, but stay tuned, as we soon will be.)

Grade 5 Book Talk - Characterization

Grade 5 is starting a reading unit on characterization. I will be presenting a book talk tomorrow to give them some titles and authors that will help them explore how authors develop characters.

See the slide show here. All images from TitlePeek, through our library catalog.

Here are a few of the books that I will present tomorrow. I hope our grade 5 students will recommend their favorites as well.

Rules, by Cynthia Lord
Realistic fiction - Scholastic Press, 2006
Newbery Honor, 2007

12-year-old Catherine has an autistic brother. He loves rules and videos, but doesn't like loud noises or anything wet on his body. He is a source of annoyance and embarrassment to Catherine, who wishes she had a normal family. She would love to have a friend in the neighborhood, but when a new girl moves in next door, she isn't quite what Catherine expects. In the meantime, she meets Jason, a disabled 12-year-old who cannot talk and communicates through cards, and against her expectations becomes friends with him. Themes of friendship, family and perceptions of disability.

Love that Dog, by Sharon Creech
Realistic fiction, novel in verse - Joanna Cotler Books, 2004

Love that book. It's a wonderful novel in verse about a boy who doesn't think he likes poetry and who thinks he certainly can write poetry, but turns out to have a fine poetic voice. His poems are addressed to his teacher and little by little we learn more about him and the dog he loves. The ending is sad but this will endear the book even more to its readers. Themes of love, pets, and belief in one's abilities. The sequel Hate that Cat is perhaps even better, but I have a soft spot for dogs so I like this first one better.

The Whipping Boy, by Sid Fleischman
Fantasy - Greenwillow Books, 1986
Newbery Award, 1987

It is illegal to hit a prince, so Prince Brat has a whipping boy to take his punishment. Prince Brat is well named by his people. He's thoroughly spoiled. When he gets in his head to run away because he's bored, he demands his whipping boy comes with him. The adventures that follow are pure slapstick, with incompetent highwaymen and dancing bears, but in the end, the prince becomes wiser. The story is enjoyable and the character development is obvious, making it a good title for this unit.

A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park
Historical fiction - Clarion Books, 2001
Newbery Award, 2002

Wonderful historical fiction novel set in Korea in the 12th century. The protagonist, Tree Ear, is a homeless orphan who lives under a bridge with an older crippled man. Their village is home to many master potters, who made precious objects of celadon clay. Tree Ear is fascinated by the process and manages to get himself hired by Master Min, who is as talented as he is grumpy. Tree Ear's life as an apprentice is hard and uncertain, but he proves himself time and again. This novel offers opportunities for lots of discussion on the customs of 12th century Korea and celadon pottery, the plight of orphans, and the ethical questions that Tree Ear poses to his crippled guardian.

Note to CAC community: Sign in to the library catalog using your single sign on username and password, and then click on any of these titles. You will be taken to the record for each book where you can place a hold on the title. Here is a fuller list of books that fit with this grade 5 unit. 

Responsibility in the library

This month, the elementary school will be focusing on the CAC core value of responsibility. We have a display of library books that illustrate this value. Students are encouraged to read them and check them out this month.

How do you show responsibility in the library?

• You return your books on time and always bring a bag
• You take good care of the library materials that you take home
• You always remember that we share the library with everyone else in the school
• You cite the sources you have found when doing school work
• You clean up after yourself 

We are very proud of KgS and 1T because every single student in those classes showed responsibility last week by bringing in their books and bags! We are so happy that they are becoming so independent and responsible, and as a great reward for their responsibility, they all got to take books home to share with parents and family members. We hope they will keep that up all year long and that their example will inspire all the other homerooms too!