Spark Student Motivation: Book Raffles

 Get books off your shelves and into the hand of your students!

 I've always displayed new books on my book displays, and it's usually first come, first served, but it's way more fun to have a BOOK RAFFLE! The way I'd like to start doing book raffles differently is to have them on set days so my students can't wait for the introduction of new books! Then I'll just display my sign, books, and buckets and let the excitement begin!

What are book raffles? When you get new books (not necessarily brand new, but new to your classroom), you let your kids enter to "WIN" a chance to read that new book. In order to build excitement, I had them displayed all day with no explanation and they're not allowed to touch them!! :) (Makes them want them more!) I do a short book talk on each book (short summary, genre, reading level). For the books I haven't read, I allow students who've read the books to do a short talk, or you could find a YouTube video on some too. Even reading the summary on the back of the book would work! Just giving them enough information and a description to make your students want to read the books!

Each student gets one ticket to choose the book they want to read most. There's no set number of books to have a book raffle, but you need to allow time to talk about each book. I have about 6-7 books.

The easy pick is if only one person enters to read a particular book. Then there's the book that half your class wants to read... (see picture below when I was about to pick the winner!!)

 See? Building excitement about reading! You would've thought I was giving away a gift card to a toy store! LOL!

The good news...EVERYONE is a winner! The students who won the chance to read the new book are reading and the ones who didn't WANT to read it! They get put on a waiting list. Depending on the length of the book I give each winner a date to complete the book. If they don't finish before the due date and there's a waiting list, they have to return the book and give it to the next person. The book pictured below was a big hit! I think because they're all into scary movies right now, this scary book enticed all of them!

If you haven't tried Book Raffles, you need to! You and your students will love the excitement about books and reading! You don't have to buy new books...my big hit book above was ten cents at a thrift store! Score!

Want a copy of the Book Raffle sign and waiting list? Click here to get a copy.

I hope you had a wonderful week! Please link up any lessons, ideas, tips, tricks, incentives, ANYTHING you do get your students motivated or excited!

Don't forget to grab my button and link back to this post!

Check out all the wonderful ideas from my friends who link up and don't forget to leave some love by commenting....we LOVE comments!
***Please include the topic in the link up with your blog name.

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Spark Student Motivation: Tune Tuesday!!

Close Reading With Music?!!

That's right! Engage your students and they will LOVE close reading!

 

What better way to spark motivation than to use music in your classroom?

But how will we use music to practice close reading? Reading closely means reading for meaning and understanding. Close reading requires students to read, look, listen more slowly, noticing details, making connections, and asking questions. Close reading takes practice and needs to be practiced regularly. This is why Tune Tuesday is the perfect “scheduled” close reading practice each week.

  

NOBODY is absent on Tuesdays! :)

 We ALL love Tune Tuesdays! I can't wait either!

Several other grade level teachers have come to our class to join us during Tune Tuesday and they get just excited as the kids do! My administration loves it too. It's a fun and refreshing way to teach reading!

Close reading with music has so many benefits!

•Your students will ENJOY close reading!

•Engaging for all students

•Deepens comprehension

•Promotes student talk

•Cite evidence from text

•Analyze song lyrics (helps with poetry and transfers to other types of texts)

•Improves listening and speaking skills

•Helps struggling readers (listen to lyrics first)

•Teach multiple concepts and skills: theme, inferencing, drawing conclusions, vocabulary, author’s purpose, observing details and facts,

•Teaches to all modalities of learning

  

 

 

Music is a way of letting our emotions out and allowing ourselves to express our feelings. Music speaks to people, it inspires people, and it allows people to express themselves…why not teach with music in our classrooms?

Students can make connections with the songs and love singing along. This is such a self-esteem booster for my struggling readers as well because they listen to the lyrics and then are able to read the lyrics. This is a time for them to really be involved in a reading discussion with their peers.
 

 Disclaimer: You don't need a disco ball to do close reading with music! LOL!

 

The discussion they have with each other is simply incredible. They use accountable talk to discuss their findings and points they want to make. I sometimes forget the age of the students I teach (10/11) because they sound like adults when they pick apart the lyrics and defend their thinking.

I have been using these high interest song lyrics to engage my students since last year (I looped with my class) and these lyrics make them want to dig deeper. Practicing with these strategies transfers over to other texts we use in our classroom. It's much easier to get them hooked on a difficult process with an activity that is enjoyable and they can relate to.

 

 

Here's a peek at a lesson in our classroom during Tune Tuesday.
I apologize that the sound quality isn't that great.

YOU HAVE TO TRY IT...YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS WILL LOVE IT!
 

 If you're interested in trying this in your classroom, click on the resources.
 

 

            Set One: 9 Weeks, 9 Songs        Year Long Bundle: 36 Weeks, 36 Songs
 

 

I hope you had a wonderful week! Please link up any lessons, ideas, tips, tricks, incentives, ANYTHING you do get your students motivated or excited!

Don't forget to grab my button and link back to this post!

Check out all the wonderful ideas from my friends who link up and don't forget to leave some love by commenting....we LOVE comments!
***Please include the topic in the link up with your blog name.

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Spark Student Motivation: Get Up and Moving!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS!
I'm hoping to get into a better blogging schedule for 2016, starting with a simple idea I want to share today for my weekly Spark Student Motivation Saturdays!

OK, you know I love being able to share SIMPLE motivational ideas, right?
Well, I have another one for you!!

 

I call it...

 

I Get Up and Moving! I

 

I simply wrote problems to assess their math knowledge on colored index cards and taped them around the room! (That's it! Told you it was simple!)

Wait...I also passed out clipboards!

This get out of your seat assignment could be used with ANY subject. Instead of giving your students a regular worksheet, write the questions on index cards or paper and let them walk around the room. You will see...they will think you're the coolest teacher ever! :)

 

Other ways to use Get Up and Moving:

•  with a partner or group (for introducing new concepts or study buddy)
• vocabulary (fill in the blank, synonyms/antonyms)
• text features
• any math computation
• science review
• multiple choice test
• book genre identification
• any easy fill in the blank questions
• true/false questions
• endless possibilities

 

I just used quick problems that wouldn't be too time consuming, not performance tasks or multi-step problems, just a quick review of the skills I had been teaching that week.

It's not like Scoot (which my students and I do love!) because I don't have control over where they go or how long they take. They simply walk around the room and write the answers to the problems on their paper.
(I number the cards like I'd number a worksheet).

I'm sorry, I did do one more thing...
I created this Get Up and Moving template to make it easy for me to assess!

Snag your Get Up and Moving template here. Use it for any subject for review or a quick formative assessment on your students' understanding.

What do you think? Will you give it a try? Please share what you'd use it with.

 If you haven't grabbed my new "A Teacher's File Cabinet", I will be adding to it this week, so that means the price will increase...check it out!

All sorts of teacher goodies in one place!
 

I hope you had a wonderful week! Please link up any lessons, ideas, tips, tricks, incentives, ANYTHING you do get your students motivated or excited!

Don't forget to grab my button and link back to this post!

Check out all the wonderful ideas from my friends who link up and don't forget to leave some love by commenting....we LOVE comments!
***Please include the topic in the link up with your blog name.

An InLinkz Link-up