Red Queen

I recently read Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. This new young adult series is about a girl named Mare Barrow. She is a poor thief from the Stilts, dreading her upcoming conscription on her 18th birthday. For over a hundred years Red soldiers have fought a Silver war, spilling their common red blood to protect their gifted, silver-blooded kings. Mare's story is one of bravery and courage. She stands up for what she believes in and will do anything for the people she loves. That's why it is so important for her to avoid being sent to war. For Mare's people, war means death.

You see, there are two kinds of people in the Kingdom of Norta. There are Silvers (Kings, Queens, Lords and Ladies) who have money, power, summer palaces and winter palaces. And there's everyone else, Reds like Mare, whose only purpose in life is to serve the Silvers. They are forced to be laborers, working hard for very little pay. The Reds outnumber the Silvers so why don't they fight back? Silver blood comes with supernatural abilities, powers that Reds don't have. Magnetrons can control metal, shadows can bend light, nymphs can control water, and strongarms have immense strength. But these are only a few of the amazing abilities silvers possess. 

Their blood is a threat, a warning, a promise. We are not the same and never will be. This is the true division between Silvers and Reds: the color of our blood. This simple difference somehow makes them stronger, smarter, better than us. (page 9) 

One day, Mare discovers that despite her Red blood she has a superior Silver ability, an ability that could save her or doom her. Of course Mare makes this discovery in front of the entire Silver community where all eyes were on her! No one can know of her Red blood, so she must turn her back on everything she has ever know, anyone she's ever loved, and lie to the world. Pretending to be a Silver princess, Mare is forced to hide her true identity. 

She has only one choice to make... 

...play along or join the rising Red rebellion. 

No spoilers here! You'll have to grab a copy of Red Queen to find out!

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy novel. Victoria Aveyard expertly creates a world where anything seems possible. She makes the Kingdom of Norta feel like it's the town right next door. Best of all, Mare's story does not end here! After devouring Red Queen, check out the sequel Glass Sword and the novella Cruel Crown. (The action and suspense really builds in Glass Sword!) Aveyard is still writing the third book in the trilogy and I cannot wait to see where Mare's journey ends!

This book would make a great addition to your middle/high school classroom library. The Accelerated Reader level is 5.2 and the content is not too mature for your advanced middle school readers (no need to worry about language or sexual themes in this series). I put 2 copies of this out in my 5-6th grade classroom and they were snatched up right away. My students are making great connections between Mare and Katniss (Hunger Games). One student even said that "Red Queen helped to fill the void left behind when she finished the Hunger Games Trilogy!"

Sunday Scoop + a GIVEAWAY!

I had some new things to share so I decided to link up with Teaching Trio for this week's Sunday Scoop and to give away a copy of my new TPT product!!

This week our school is participating in Renaissance Learning's Read Quest

Our school uses the STAR assessment and one great component of that is Accelerated Reader (AR). Students can independently take quizzes after reading any novel or story in our text book. The quizzes are quick (only 10 questions each) and provide a quick check of the student's comprehension.

On Friday, February 26th, the site is hosting Read Quest to see how many AR quizzes students can take in one day. My class participated last year and it was a lot of fun. They took quizzes on their own books that they recently finished and they also read to younger students, then helped them take their first quiz. My 5th and 6th graders will be doing the same thing this year, reading to students in 1st and 2nd grade.

I'm also using Read Quest to help kick off a month long reading celebration! Our 2nd Annual Battle of the Books will begin next week!
Here's a picture of last year's bracket:

Our new bracket (with all new books) will be going up this week. I'll post some pictures once it's finished. You can read more about last year's Read Quest and Battle of the Books {HERE}

Now, about that giveaway I mentioned... :)
This year I revamped my classroom library. I wanted to go for a more mature look since I would be teaching in the middle school for the first time. I teach reading and language arts and wanted to bring my love (more like passion) for books into the classroom.

So I started compiling a list of great quotes from Young Adult and Middle Grade novels. I've posted them on a wall in my classroom to pique student interest. I wanted them to see that a book is often more than it's cover.

Students LOVE the quote wall and it often leads to exploration of the featured books! Mission accomplished!

My gift, to the first person who comments on this post, it's a free copy of my Read Together Quote Display!

Here is one of my favorite quotes...

So, leave your comments below and I will contact the lucky one who comments first with their freebie!

THANKS :)

I looked UP

Sometimes books evoke a strong reaction from the reader.

I threw this book onto the other side of the couch with a WTF that was a little too loud for 10:30pm and sleeping children in the house!

I just finished reading We All Looked Up, by Tommy Wallach. This book had been on my radar for a while, stuck in the never ending queue of my Barnes and Noble cart. However when I came across it at Target during a recent grocery shopping trip I couldn't resist.

First of all, the cover is minimalistically beautiful and so soft to the touch. One look and I knew it had to be mine!

I binge read this book, polishing it off in less than a week (while also being a full-time working mommy of 3 little ones). Wallach's clean, clear writing reads effortlessly, making it possible to loose yourself within his pages for hours. This part below, was so good that I stuck it up on my classroom wall:

The best books, they don't talk about things you never thought about before. They talk about things you'd always thought about, but that you didn't think anyone else had thought about. You read them, and suddenly you're a little bit less alone in the world.

The story follows four teenagers as their lives intertwine while awaiting the arrival of an asteroid that has a 66.6% chance of wiping out the Earth. The characters see this as an opportunity to shed the labels that have controlled their young lives; the athlete, the slacker, the overachiever, and the promiscuous girl. It's like the Breakfast Club except that impending doom is all that is waiting on the other side of the library doors.

Challenges plague each character as they try to achieve their end of the world goals. Controlling parents, distant parents, partying, riots, and even a stint in prison doesn't break their spirit. Wallach makes you care deeply for each character. SO deeply in fact that the ending will leave you speechless. Then, when the words finally do come, you will find yourself venting to your husband as he's trying to fall asleep. The real reason why your blood pressure skyrockets at the end....

Spoiler alert!!!
I REALLY don't want to ruin this book for you, however the author spoils the end on his website too, so I figured it was ok for me to do the same here.

The book just ends.

It's the day that the asteroid is expected to hit, the characters are together, they "all look up", and then it ends. Does the asteroid hit or not?!?!!

At first I was furious. How could he end the story here? I flipped the last few pages back and forth, over and over again, thinking that maybe I had missed something that would suddenly appear. But then, after processing it for a few moments, I realized that the ending was perfect. It was too expected to go for the "happy everyone lives" ending and if he went with the "tragic everyone dies" ending then there would be no narrator left to tell the story. Ending it where he did leaves our beloved characters still intact and our minds racing with possibilities. What more could you ask for?

Recommendation: Must read! While I discussed some details of this book with my 5th - 6th grade students, I will not be releasing it into general population in my classroom. The concept of this book and the mature themes (teenage partying, sex, drugs) make it more suitable for the high school crowd. This book will live on my mature readers shelf where any brave soul who borrows from there knows they need parental permission first.

Currently December

Apparently the only time I blog anymore is for Farely's Currently... (blogger fail)

The life of a working teacher/mother/wife/aspiring writer is busy, so blogging has taken a backseat. However I do have something exciting to share...

My 6th graders complete NaNoWriMo this week and were all WINNERS!

NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November.

My students met their lofty word count goals and have completed rough drafts of their first novels! Now begins the long tedious process of editing and revising as we get our novels ready for printing in January. Fast Pencil (a sponsor of NaNoWriMo) is professionally printing paperback novels for students who met their word count goal! My students can't wait to see their stories in print!

And, just to brag a little, I've peeked at their writing... It's pretty darn good!

Check out this passage:

Autumn couldn’t distinguish how long it was before she had woken up. Thinking she should just sit and wait for death to come, but then she realized Summer was still in danger. Trying to crawl out of the car she sees Adrianna lying there. DEAD.
“ADRIANNA NO YOU ARE NOT DYING TODAY.”  Autumn yells, holding Adrianna in her arms, now covered in her best friend’s blood. She places her face against her chest, crying, hoping her tears would bring her back to life just like in the movies. After a few more minutes Autumn crawls out of the car and whispers “Goodbye Adrianna.” With tears still dripping down her face, Autumn starts to run as fast as her injured leg will allow.

And this one:

You know that feeling when someone’s watching you, studying your movement and your breathing? Well, I’m feeling that right now, and I’m not appreciating it waking me up at one o’clock in the morning. Now I’m wide awake and there is no way I’m falling back asleep without doing a little investigating first. On my way out my bedroom door, I see them. Green, glowing eyes right there across the room.

I took part in NaNoWriMo with my students too! Here's something from my work in progress:

The sound of trees rustling in the breeze drifts through my window. It’s as if the trees are whispering secrets to be carried on by the wind. The way school children play telephone. Each tree changes the secret slightly, adding the arrangement of their leaves and branches to the cacophony of nighttime sounds. Their secret ends with me, drifting into my window, gently tickling my ear, and lulling me to sleep. Their soft breath wraps around me like a blanket and carries me into morning.

I am so glad that I decided to embark on this journey with my students. I was hesitant to at first, convinced that writing nonstop for a month would create anarchy in my classroom and start the Great Language Arts Rebellion of 2015.

However, I read this book over the summer Teach Like a Pirate, by Dave Burgess. In it he said that teachers need to be passionate. Burgess wrote "It doesn't matter what subject you teach. You can become totally engaging to your audience if they can feel your passion and love for what you are doing. You will draw students in as if by some magnetic force." By participating in NaNoWriMo along with my students I let them be a part of something that I am very passionate about. They mirrored my enthusiasm for writing and were eager to start typing each day.

Every Friday during NaNoWriMo we had "Proud Paragraph Parties" where students shared their favorite paragraph they had written during the week. I shared what I was working on as well and in doing so I became one of them. We were equals, all working and collaborating together. It was such a rewarding experience!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Currently November

I can't believe it's November already!! Time to link up with Farley for this month's currently:

Fall is my FAVORITE season of all time! I love the colors, the smells, and snuggling up with loved ones on cool autumn nights. However this fall I have a whole new reason to be excited... NaNoWriMo (aka - National Novel Writing Month)!!

I stumbled across this over the summer as I embarked on my own writing adventure. Essentially it is the idea that if you write 1,666 words per day for the month of November you will have a 50,000 word novel at the end of the month. Sounds like a neat idea, but requires a whole lot of commitment and self-discipline!

My 6th grade Language Arts class got excited about a journal prompt one day and asked if they could turn it into a longer writing piece (most asked to write novels!) So I went to the NaNoWriMo site and found that they have a whole Young Writers Program!

They have a whole curriculum with lesson plans and FREE workbooks for all grade levels (elementary, middle, and high school). I printed them out and bound them for my class and they were super excited. Here's the final product:

The best part, the whole workbook is written in language a middle schooler would use! My reluctant-to-do-anything 6th graders devoured this and actually read ahead!!

I also scored a NaNoWriMo classroom kit! It included a poster for tracking progress, stickers, buttons, and a deck of writers block cards:

I am so excited to begin writing with them tomorrow!! We've been working on the prep activities in the workbook and they have some pretty creative and unique story ideas. I've reserved the laptop cart for the whole month so we can write every day! My plan is to try a flipped classroom strategy where students watch video lessons at home for homework and then complete the actual work in class. Nothing but writing for our whole 45 minute block!!

If this sounds like something your students might be interested in, head on over to NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program.

Don't forget to head back to Farley's page for more great Currently posts!

NaNoWriMo :)

I had a breakthrough last Friday with my 6th grade Language Arts class!

They loved Friday's journal prompt so much that they asked if they could turn them into short stories or novels. I had planned to have students choose a journal entry to develop into a larger writing piece later on in the school year. However, their enthusiasm convinced me to embark on the adventure now!

The biggest question was how to structure novel writing for my 6th grade students whom I only see for 45 minutes a day?

During the launch of my own novel writing adventure this summer, I discovered NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's a great website designed to get you writing and keep you motivated. I remembered that November is NaNoWriMo (the timing couldn't be more perfect)! I checked out their site and found that they have a Young Writers Program geared towards educators and classrooms.

Best of all... they have FREE workbooks you can download for your students! Click on the logo to the right to visit their site and check out their free resources for educators. I will be binding workbooks together for my students tomorrow morning :)

I used NaNoWriMo's middle school workbook to plan out the remaining weeks till writing begins in November. The workbook includes everything students will need to plan their stories, including content vocabulary definitions. I'm going to try to FLIP my classroom, having students complete the lessons and do most of the reading at home so we can focus on writing in the classroom. Here's my rough outline:

Check out NaNoWriMo's free notebooks {HERE}. They have one for elementary, middle, and secondary grade levels! It is an amazing resource. I can't believe it's FREE!!

I can't wait to set out on this adventure with my class! I think we are going to learn a lot from each other! I will post updates along the way :)

Coming Back with the Sunday Scoop!

I've been a bad, bad blogger....
Not quite sure what happened in the month's of August and September, but it seems that I have completely neglected this little blog.
A comeback is much needed and I can't think of a better way than to kick it off with Teaching Trio's Sunday Scoop!

I've taken on a new teaching role this year... I have always taught self-contained classrooms, however this year I looped with my students and now teach 5th and 6th grade ELA in a middle school model! It has been so hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of switching classes. I only get them for 45 minute periods and it goes by so fast!!

Since I have most of the same students as last year, I wanted to change my room up for them. I didn't want last year's fourth graders to come into fifth grade feeling like they were still stuck in an elementary classroom. So I spent the summer working on some new decor, rearranging furniture, and organizing materials. I'm pretty thrilled with how it came out!

To put the icing on the cake... My SMART Board was installed this week!!! I'm so excited to use it!!!

Here's one of the quotes up on my wall. Soon the whole display will be available at my TpT store!

Thanks for taking a tour of my room! Don't forget to stop by the Teaching Trio for more Sunday Scoops!