Who would be in what group?
What books would we read?
How would we group the kiddos?
First of all we decided that the students would be cross grouped.
This would allow some peer learning to occur. I also wasn't worried because we had enough teachers to support each group.
Secondly, we decided that we would allow the students to give input on the book they were interested in reading. This would allow a more invested reader. How did we do this? Well very much like the Academy Awards night, during the first day of our kick off, we had each teacher take 2 books (different titles) and every so often we would pause the day one discussion and read aloud to present each book. Every student heard all 8 titles and plot. The following day (Wednesday) the students completed a google doc in the computer lab to specify their 1st and 2nd choices and why.
What a great idea!
On Thursday, Sue and I met and laid out all the groups with the teachers.
We took a few things into consideration of course: Reading levels, behaviors, other scheduling concerns, etc.
We actually didn't have any students choose BFG, so in the end we had 7 groups.
Thirdly, I gathered all the books. I actually had all of them (because I am a crazy book lady, I visit used book sales like it's my second job). And we also wanted the students to have meaningful work that they would complete when they weren't working on their jobs and waiting for their groups. One of my favorite TPT sellers TheBookUmbrella, has just right novel work and they have all the novels that we were working on. I am also using a James and the Giant Peach book companion by Creekside Teacher Tales, because the vocabulary cards are awesome!
I'm looking forward to sharing more with you, especially the official start of our different novel groups!
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