Mentor Text Linky {Math Mentor Texts}

I'm linking up with Stacia and Amanda at Collaboration Cuties for another Mentor Text Linky! This week, I'll be sharing my favorite Mentor Text for Math:  Math Curse by Jon Sciescka and Lane Smith!

Amazon 

This book is a little different than other Math Read Alouds like A Remainder of One and The Greedy Triangle.  Rather than introducing one topic, this book shows us all of the math we are surrounded by everyday.  It's a GREAT beginning of year read aloud and I think will make a fun read aloud for the end of the year too!

The story focuses on a child whose math teacher, Mrs. Fibonacci, tells the class that there are numbers all around.  Then the child sees math everywhere!  There are fraction problems at lunch, probability while getting dressed, division when it's time to share cupcakes and logic while the parents decide who is right.  It's such a fun book with so many opportunities to have your students stop and solve the problems, but beware that the answers are on the back cover!

I love this book because its so fun for the reader to act out.  As the story evolves, I like to read with a sort of frenetic voice to mimic the character's energy as he is plagued by all the math following him around!  The kids get really into it!

I also love this book because it is a great way to get your students to think about all of the applications of math they use every single day.  When I read this with my students, I have them write their own scenes to add into the book.  Without fail, I have students who come to school the next day and want to tell the class about the math they saw when they left school!

What book do you use to help you teach math?  Be sure to link up with the Collaboration Cuties!

Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato

I'm so excited for St.Patrick's Day!  Every year, I read Tomie dePaola's Irish folktale Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato.  It's been a tradition in my classroom for 10 years!  I love the character Jamie and I love all of the dialogue.  I read the book in my best Irish accent because I think the dialogue just begs for it!  Fun side note, I lived in Scotland for 6 months and spent St.Patrick's Day on the Isle of Skye. Sadly, this was before the days of digital cameras so I have no pictures to share :-(

Amazon

Since this is my favorite St. Patrick's Day book, I created a bunch of fun activities aligned to Common Core Standards for Grades 3 to 5 to go along with it!

Link to TpT

In our classroom this year, I'll spend two days reading Jamie O'Rourke.  Even though the story isn't terribly difficult to understand, I want to provide lots of time for my students to discuss how Jamie responds to the challenges he faces.

I made this graphic organizer for students to write how Jamie responds to challenges and then also write what they think about Jamie's choice.  For example, when Eileen wrenches her back and cannot tend to the garden, Jamie heads to the church to prepare for his death.  I can't wait to hear my kids' thoughts about that!  I'm sure they will have some judgments about Jamie!


 On the second day, we will spend time discussing the illustrations and how they deepen our understanding of the text.

We spent some time a few weeks ago analyzing the images from Dr.Seuss' The Lorax, so I'm looking for some deeper observations about the images and what they tell us about the characters and perhaps a hidden message from the author.  This is a common core standard my kiddos had some difficulty with when we took our practice ELA, so it's important that I keep hitting on this standard (RL5.7).  I made some discussion cards and a response sheet for my students to focus their thinking on images.

The actual product contains much more than I've outlined right here.  Check out the TpT listing for all of the details!  But please know, these activities are based on the book.  They aren't generic prompts that could work with any text.  The questions are all text dependent and aligned to Common Core Standards.

I love this little collection of activities so much that I'm going to giveaway two copies to the first two people who leave me a comment {please include your email address!}! 
Tell me, what do you have planned for your class to celebrate St. Patrick's Day?