Beverly, Right Here by Kate DiCamillo

Beverly, Right Here

by Kate DiCamillo

I love Kate DiCamillo books, they are fun, relatable and the 5th graders just love them!  Here Louisiana, Raymie and Beverly characters are so great and the books are top notch!  I read Louisiana's Way Home last year and it is by far my favorite of the three!  Beverly came in second and Raymie was third.

I just finished Beverly and I liked her story.  She is a brave girl who thinks no one cares about her and can't figure out why people care.  Throughout the book she opens up and learns to trust people and learns that she is worthy of love.  This is a book that did leave me with some questions about what would happen in Beverly's future as well as what Iola decides to do. 

Many of the girls in my class love this book and love the others as well, it is a great group of books about the trio of friends and the troubles and different situations in their lives.  You do not have to read them in any order and they can be read as stand alone books as well.  Overall one of my favorite 5th grade books of 2019-2020 school year!

Newberry Goal Book 1- Walk Two Moons

So this past week I worked with my kids on making reading goals.  We had a fantastic speaker at school and I have been reading some of the books he has written for educators, and needless to say he is so inspiring!  Who is this fantastic man I am talking about... Steven Layne.  If you don't know who he is, and you are a teacher, you need to find out.  I have known who he is and read parts of his work but now I am sitting down taking notes and incorporating his amazing ideas in my classroom.  One of his ideas which I have done is goal setting but we looked at it in a different way, rather than how much can I read in one day, or I want to read a certain number of books (some still did this goal) we tried to be a tad more specific.  So my goal is to read three Newberry Medal Books by Christmas.  Others focused on a certain author or a series of books.  But anyways, I am so happy with how amazing the kids did this activity and how serious they made their goals.  Happy teacher!

Anyways.... I decided to start my goals, I mean you have to be a role model for kids... RIGHT!  So I decided on my book and I am now reading Walk Two Moons and let me tell you, I have been missing out and so are you if you have not read this fantastic novel.  

So Walk Two Moons is about a girl named Sal and she is going on a road trip with her Gram and Gramps.  They are on their way to visit her month who left around three months ago, her and her father moved to a new town to get off the farm because it reminds her father too much of Sal's mother.  This has me questioning so many things throughout this story about why the mother left, because let me tell you, I am about half way through and still have not learned that answer, and it is making it hard for me to even type this because I want to keep reading to figure this out!!! While on this trip she tells the story of her friend Phoebe and the things that happen with her family.  Phoebe has a family that looks perfect to outsiders but many wild things start happening to them, random strangers 'lunatic' shows up at the door, notes are being left on the front step and they don't know who they are from and Phoebe thinks the neighbor lady is a murderer!  While she is telling the story of Phoebe you start to learn more and more about Sal's life.  So you are reading basically two stories in one.  Seriously amazing!  I can't wait to tell the kiddos at school about this book so they have the opportunity to read it as well!!!!

Life Goal #1

Goal Setting.  This is a topic that I spend a lot of time talking about.  As a teacher and a coach, goal setting is something we discuss almost on a daily basis.  We talk about how to make realistic goals, and which goals might be a tad to far fetched.  So when I am talking about goal setting, I needed to have an example of a goal for when kids asked me what my goals are.  This got me thinking... A LOT!  

Now I do have this goal already determined and I have been working on it, just a little.  But as of this morning I made my goal public with 23 fifth graders, therefore I have to do it now.  I am well aware that this is a goal that is not going to be accomplished this year, and I am ok with it as long as I get it started and show that I am serious about reaching my goal.  I, of course want to be a good example for my students on goal setting and working to accomplish a goal.

So what is this goal you might ask, I want to read all the books on the Newberry Award Winning List.  I have a poster up in my classroom library and everyday I look at it and am just telling myself I need to read those books.  So I have started and on my night stand sits the book Walk Two Moons.  I know it is quite strange that I have not read this book.  I have told a couple of people of my goal and they are shocked that I did not read this book in elementary school.  But I didn't so now is the time!  Wish me luck friends and don't bug me cause I am probably busy with my nose in a book trying to accomplish this goal!

A few of my favorite things

These are a few of my favorite things!  I love the Packers and tonight at back to school night one of my new littles brought me a new leather Go Pack Go bracelet.  Simply Amazing!

These pens are awesome!  When I moved back to my hometown, I was at my parents house and used a pen and fell in love.  It is a Zebra Stainless Steel pen and the way it writes is simply the best.  I went searching to get more and saw how expensive they were and never bought them.  I found them at reasonable price and bought black and blue so now I have three of the best pens EVER!

 I just purchased these and they are super fun colors and they smell delish.  They are Mr. Sketch colored pencils, I also bought the markers and crayons as well.  I might be obsessed with Mr. Sketch.

Sharpie Felt tip pens are the best.  They are crazy fun colors and look really pretty when you write.  One downfall is that they bleed through the paper, have no fear I found a solution!  They make a Sharpie pen and they are also in fun colors and they don't bleed through the paper.  Lucky me!

Do I really need to explain this picture?  It is beautiful and all the crayons are perfect and there are so many colors!  I can't wait to color with these!

So I might have an obsession with writing tools and I'm not even mad about it!  I wonder what new writings tools I will find next!

Monday's Takeaway

School starts Wednesday so today we had our staff meeting where we discuss all the new things in the handbook along with some other house keeping issues.   It was really a pretty quick meeting and only lasted till about 11:15.  Typically I listen and take some notes and do a whole lot of doodling in my notebook with about ten different colored pens.  Today was different though I only took four pens and my notebook only had doodles on the tops of the page.  

We started the meeting, and our mental health person for the district did a little presentation with our principal and it caught my attention and made me think all day.  It was about the book Drive by David Pink.  It is about what truly motivates you and makes you get up and do what you do everyday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyRu7k70Jhc

They showed this video and  I still haven't come up with the answers to the questions they asked but it definitely has made my brain hurt! They handed out a slip of paper the asked these two questions:

What's my sentence?

Was I better today than yesterday?

We didn't have to fill out the paper there thank goodness because I still haven't come up with my sentence.  If this one sentence is what I am defining why I do what I do, that is a lot of pressure for one sentence.  Watching the video you learn having a paragraph is too much so in all reality it needs to be one sentence... just ONE!  But how do you take everything that you do and turn it into one sentence that makes you who you are.  I don't know the answer to this question, but I do know I will not be able to answer it tonight because quite frankly I just don't know.  

The second question 'Was I better today than yesterday?'  is a pretty loaded question because you can turn this into many different aspects of life.  I am only going to use this question for school at the moment, and honestly I feel like I want to use this question in my relationship building with my students.  Did I make a student feel worth?  Did I help a student get to that aha moment?  Did a help a child build their confidence?  Did I let a child know that I truly care about them?  Did I make the students in my classroom feel special?  These are things I want to ask myself and I hope that these are things that I am doing.

So as the rain pours and the thunder roars, it is time for me to crawl into bed and turn my brain off for a while.  But I challenge you, even if only a couple people read this, watch the video and think about those two questions and see what you can come up with.