Blasting Off to a Great Year Blog Hop

Welcome to the...
Blog Hop!

Several of my literacy bloggy friends and I have gotten together for a fun blog hop with fun ideas you can take back to your classroom!

It is also Book Talk Thursday here!

I have finally started to get into a groove working with some of my student groups.  Second grade is always great at giving me groups of students right at the beginning  We have been working on comprehension strategies I got from the book Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading  by Tanny McGregor.
We have been focusing on metacognition:  Thinking about Thinking all week long, and they love it!  I love the lessons in this book because they use concrete objects and good literature to really make kids think about what they are reading.

We started off the week by listening to Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon.

While reading the book, we made a "Reading Salad", which I forgot to take a picture of, using the text and our thinking.

The next day we reviewed the book and made this poster together to show what metacognition is and what real reading means.

I am not the best artist.  This was my first try at drawing a human head.

On Wednesday, I read the book Grandpa Takes Me to the Moon to the students.

While reading, we showed our thoughts in our "Thought Bubble".  This let us all know that they were thinking about what they were listening to.  This was fun for all of the students, and they had some good thoughts about the book.

The book is about a young boy who loves to listen to his grandfather tell him about his trip to the moon.  In the book, the boy imagines everything his grandfather is telling him and asks questions about the different parts of the mission.  It is a great book to get kids thinking while reading, even though they had some seriously crazy thoughts.  But, they were thoughts from kids who don't tend to think when reading!

How do you help students think about their thinking while reading?

I love these lessons and use them with all of my groups at some point during the year.  Next week we work on schema, which is another fun strategy!

Now that you have a better idea of how you can get students to think about their thinking, head on over to my friend Carla's blog, Comprehension Connection to learn some more guided reading tips!

I hope you enjoy the rest of the hop!  It is full of great reading ideas, tips, and a few freebies sprinkled in!

10 comments

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  3. Andrea...love the great suggestions with metacognition and the book suggestions. I have Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon...love it!

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  4. I love Comprehension Connections AND Molly Lou Melon! That is a great book to teach metacognition. I may have to copy you there!

    Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late

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  5. I love that metacognition chart! I'm going to be teaching my first group of University students and think I will share it with them when we get to metacognition! Thanks for sharing the great idea!
    Michelle
    BigTime Literacy

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  6. I love the reading salad. We will do it during the start of our second half of the year in first. I saw a fake salad at a restaurant last week. They used red and green streamers. It looked so pretty! I think I want to try to do that for our salad this year. We'll see how it turns out.
    Em
    Curious Firsties

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  7. I have not read this book. I may have to put it on my wishlist! It sounds like it has some great lessons in it!

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  8. I'm ordering that book...I've read about so many great lessons that were inspired by reading it. Seriously, I have my credit card out. BTW-I'm in L.O.V.E. with your thought bubble! How adorable!
    Wendy
    Read With Me ABC

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  9. Your thought bubble is such a cute idea! Another idea I'm going to take and run with in my reading room. The trail of literacy blogs within the hop have been amazing. Thanks for organizing the hop with Carla! It's been fantastic. ;)
    Literacy Loving Gals

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