responsive literacy giveaway!

You are going to love Responsive Literacy: A Comprehensive Framework! This book will not only explain in great detail what this framework is all about, but SHOW you in a multitude of colorful photos about every aspect of this framework.

If you're familiar with balanced literacy, you're right on track with responsive literacy. This framework is all about providing structures for students to engage in literacy via reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but thought a multitude of modalities. Students will find these experiences in the Reading, Writing, and Word Study Workshop formats.

The foundations of this framework rest in the Zone of Proximal Development, teaching students to be participants in active thinking, engaging conversations, and authentic reflections about texts. Students engage in this work as the teacher plans with the workshop model in mind:

• Whole Group Teaching in mini-lesson, including interactive read-aloud, literature discussions, and shared and interactive writing
• Workshop time, where students have an opportunity for application of new learning on their own, in pairs or triads, or in small-group meetings with their teacher
• Share time, which is typically a celebration of learning related to the mini-lesson and closure for the day's learning

This workshop model works for reading, writing, and word study instruction, each practiced overviewed in detail in this comprehensive text. This book in broken down into six sections:

1. Professional Learning
2. Organizing for Learning
3. Reading
4. Writing
5. Building Blocks of Language
6. A Learning Community: Students, Teachers, Principals, and Families

Some of my favorite parts of the book include:

• Discussion of Author's Craft, pages 44-55
• Starting the Reading Workshop: The first 30 days, pages124-147
• Systems of Strategic Actions Wheel, and descriptions of thinking Within the Text, About the Text, and Beyond the text, page 196
• All of the references to quality books that serve as mentor texts for students, which are found throughout the text
• Possible ideas for writer's notebook entries, page 266
• "Your goal is to lift the writer, not fix the piece." page 273
• A WHOLE CHAPTER on handwriting!! Page 305 and Specific and Consistent Language for lower and uppercase letter formation - a dream for all of the K-2 teachers who scaffold their students to write the letters correctly! Page 311
• The last section that is of particular use to Literacy Coaches and Administrators, so that a building-wide culture can be built around this framework

If you are new to this framework, this book has it all, and thorough explanations and so many photos of classrooms, organization systems, student work, student-teacher interactions - everything! This book is geared toward K-6, but ideas can be adapted up to seventh and eighth as well.

I have a copy of this book to give away to one lucky winner! In order to win, leave a comment or question on this blog post and follow me on Instagram (@bigtimeliteracy). Can't wait to share the wealth of information with someone from this book!

Happy Saturday!

pretty little things {sol 3.4.16}

I've been watching these shoes online for like a year and a half:

They're pretty, right? Ballerina pink flats, by Tieks. The reason it took me so long to obtain a pair is because they are $175 - Yes, One hundred. *And. Seventy-five dollars. At least there was no tax or shipping - that would have totally put me over the edge and I would have never ordered.

For Christmas, I got a gift card for this website. Then, I had to wait until now to save up the rest of the money. I ordered them last Saturday, after a two month wait!

On Monday, I walked into the foyer of my apartment building and was disappointed that there wasn't a box outside of the mailboxes. But it totally fit in my mailbox! I got in my apartment, unwrapped it, and the presentation was so pretty:

Those little shoes, those shoes that are hand sewn from the best leather were wrapped up, and tissue-papered up in this cute little box and topped with a flower. I was feeling pretty good about this over-the-top purchase!

I unwrapped them and unpacked them and put them on. Walked around the apartment a little. I looked in the mirror a few times. Under the light in my apartment, they looked more nude than pink. I figured I would wear them to school the next day for a better assessment.

The next day, under the lights at school, they looked a little pinkier. Good. And I got complimented from like three people when I ran into them. Win! But, I wore them without any socks, so all day long my feet were squishing around in those pretty little shoes, making odd noises. Someone even noticed!

It's four days later and I haven't worn them since. I wish I loved, them, but I wasn't blown away. For $175, I expect...I don't know, the best shoes of my life? Ultimate comfort? Beautiful color? Fireworks? idk...something though.

Isn't that the worst? When you build something up in your mind so, so much, and then you're just disappointed? At least it was a pair of shoes, and not, let's say... a vacation in the Bahamas with rainy and cold weather every day of the trip.

Had any disappointments lately? I sure hope not!

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posh purple pencil sharpener launches today!

Are pencils causing you a major headache in your classroom? Does your pencil collection end up looking all sad and beat up, like this one?

Do you feel like this when you think about how to get your pencils sharpened?

Do you wish you could have a stylish purple pencil sharpener to brighten up the mood in your classroom? If so, Classroom Friendly Supplies is here with the answer for you!

This company and the most amazing pencil sharpener ever was created by an elementary teacher who was so over the loud, annoying pencil sharpeners that were expensive and broke so easily. So, they created a great new pencil sharpener and are releasing a purple version of it today!

I was lucky to get one ahead of time to keep pencils in my classroom sharp and ready to use to get work done. Check out one of my students helping me out with pencil sharpening:

The sharpener works great, and gets the pencils super sharp. It's easy to use and makes kids...and teachers happy!

Make sure you head over to Classroom Friendly Supplies for a great product that was designed by a teacher and is for teachers and students! I hope that you can get a hold of this pencil sharpener and then you can experience the pure purple bliss we did last week in class.

Have a great week!