I think I have renamed Monday, "Read More Monday".

That seems to be the essence of Miller's words of wisdom: get the kids reading more. And make sure that teachers are reading "more" too; teachers are reading role models for students.   

I've got to share some book excitement with you.  Friday was a Professional Development Day for us.  And you know how they always have displays of amazing books and toys and resources for the classroom.  Well, a few things just called my name so loudly, I was compelled to buy them.  (And a few colleagues added their persuasion when I erroneously thought that I did not really need a new underwear book!)   

Here are my buys.  


Only four books and an amazing puppet - but the school book fair is only a couple weeks away.  I have to pace myself.


Chapter 6 is titled Cutting the Teacher Strings.  It's time to take a good hard look at things I do because they are things that I have always done.
The toe bone's connected to the foot bone.
The foot bone's connected to the ankle bone.
The ankle bone's connected to the leg bone.
These bone's are gonna rise again.

We don't have our anatomy quite right.  But we're okay with that.  


Because our skeletons have personality




Do we love Pete?

Goodness yes!!


We could not resist starting off our school year with Pete.


He is pretty much the coolest cat in school.


And we are learning from his groovy attitude.



It's two weeks before Halloween.

I know that this statement does not seem to have a lot to do with The Book Whisperer. But it does.

Two week before Halloween I get out the Halloween "stuff".  

Including the Halloween books.  

I am not crazy about the ghoulishness and blood and gore of Halloween.  I definitely am not a fan of kids having Halloween candy for breakfast  and then coming to school -- and then a crapload more if of it in their lunches.

But Halloween books.  There are so many wonderful Halloween books.  Today we will be reading The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.  A wonderful book for retelling.  Pumpkin Pumpkin is a lovely, gentle story about the life cycle of pumpkins (and all plants).  The Big Pumpkin is also great for retelling and is an adaptation of a folk tale (thinking book genres from chapter 4).  I love reading The Runaway Pumpkin aloud for its rollicking rhythm.  And there are so many others?  What are some of your favourites?

Chapter 5 of Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer, Walking the Walk, is all about sharing enthusiasm for reading with students. 

I love peeking into other people's classrooms.

Here is your invitation to peek into mine.  




My goal is to make our classroom a welcoming place for my students and their families.  
I want it to be a backdrop for the kids' learning and their work. 
I want it to pique their curiosity without being overwhelming. 
I want it to be about the kids who spend a year learning and growing in kindergarten. 

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving.  

I am very thankful for the gift of reading.  A perfect day would definitely include time somewhere warm (either sunshine or cosy wood stove) with a wonderful book.  (And someone to bring me either hot or cold drinks on demand!)

My gratitude to my mum who read books aloud to me and my brother, teaching us about the cadence of language, and who made going to the library to bring home mountains of books part of our regular life routine.  Thanks to my teachers who encouraged a love of reading to the best of their knowledge and ability, especially my high school English teacher whose love of literature was palpable.  And love and thanks to my husband who does not roll his eyes (at least where I can see him) when I drag him to another book store or book selling gift shop "just to look" and come out with a bag of books that I ask him to carry.  


On that note of thankfulness, on to chapter 4, aptly named Freedom to Read, of Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer. 

The Dot by Peter Reynold's is such a fabulous book that it gets its own day.  

Dot Day!  


We celebrated a bit late this year.  But celebrate we did!




I just finished the first full week with my new kindergarten kids. 

I don't know who was more tired Friday afternoon, them or me!  We decided to be kind to each other, and spent a good portion of the afternoon outside playing in  a forested area of our school yard.  It was a good call; when they are bouncing off the walls, remove the walls.   

We are getting into the routine of daily reading.  The first day, there were a few kids who did not look overly impressed.  

Now I know which kids like snake books, which kids head for the shark books (every year, it's snakes and sharks!), who wants to reread the books that we have read together during the day, who wants a Pete the Cat book and who is going to read through our basket of class names.  

On Friday, I even caught a couple of boys poring over Mem Fox's Koala Lou during play time.  When they could have been playing with blocks/trains/playdough/art/animals - anything we have in the classroom. I kept my dance of jubilation inside, and played it cool. I am sure I fooled them. 


hic hic hic

Halloween is just around the corner.

Time to head to the library or local bookstore to find some fun-spooky reading.

One of (the many) books that we read in my kindergarten class sometime in October is Skeleton Hiccups. 

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