This week, I introduced my new students to the concept of DEAR (Drop Everything And Read), which we do every day after lunch. (When I was in gradeschool, it was called Sustained Silent Reading, or SSR, but I have a problem with the "silent" part of that concept... first grade reading is never silent.)
Allow me a brief digression: My reading corner is my pride and joy. It took me almost a year to get it set up exactly the way I envisioned it, but the end result was well worth it. Instead of books on shelves, I bought baskets in all sizes and colors (mostly from the dollar store) and sorted the books by subject, author, season or concept.
My reading corner
Some of my book baskets
So anyway, in my cat basket is a non-fiction book about cats. It includes pictures of newborn kittens, and for that reason alone, it has become one of the most poplar books in my classroom. Yesterday one of my girls had that book and she began waving her hand wildly in the air to get my attention.
"What's up?" I asked her.
She got a dreamy look on her face and said, "Miss M... can anyone resist kittens?"
"Excuse me? Did you say resist?"
"Yes. Can anyone resist them? They're just so cute!" She hugged the book to her chest with a smile.
Wow. Can anyone resist such a precious comment?
3 comments:
How sweet!
I'm a junior in college, studying to teach elementary. That story is really cute! But, I love your idea about the colored baskets for different genres of books. It's fun to get different ideas from other teachers about ways to organize materials like that.
I've got a similar setup for books in my home (we homeschool) but instead of baskets I use dishpans. The books sit up and the plate dividers keep them straight even if one of the kids grabs a handful of books.
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