Shining Willow Books and Visualizing

This morning Mrs. Arlene Low (one of the Learning Coaches  in our division) visited our classroom to introduce the Shining Willow book nominees for this year to our class.  She told a little about each book and then read one (The Busy Beaver) to the class.  We will be reading all the nominated books in a few weeks.  Students then get to vote for their favourite book.  Children from all over Saskatchewan vote and the book that receives the most votes wins the Shining Willow award.  For more information about this year's nominees, go to:  http://www.willowawards.ca/nominated-books/2012/shining-willow

Students listening attentively to the The Busy Beaver

We continue to work on the Visualizing reading strategy.  Yesterday I read a book to the students called The Magic Fish by Freya Littledale (without letting them see the pictures!)  We discussed different kinds of mental pictures they might have about different parts of the story.  Today  I read it again and stopped to allow students to draw their mental images on a "thinking strip".  They then used these pictures to help them retell the story.

The children are drawing their mental images for different parts of the story The Magic Fish.

Using clipboards is fun too!

A completed thinking strip

Students using their thinking strips to retell the story to a partner.