Surviving Reading Groups

Today was a good day with my seventh graders, with everyone actually. I think part of it was being sick last week but it felt like the longest week ever. I only taught for 3.5 days with the teacher inservice on Friday and calling in sick on Monday, but it was the longest week ever. It made today seem a little daunting but I went in ever optimistic. I knew that we would be starting reading groups with my seventh graders, which meant that I was juggling a major routine change along with FOUR reading groups. I have another adult to help with one of the reading groups, but I still had to prep for it. (I handed him discussion questions and a list of vocabulary words for the reading assignment for the day.)

I've decided to keep it kind of uniform--the same reading skill activity but applied to different books. I never wanted to read Bunnicula and I still didn't want to. Surprisingly, it's a fun little story. I'm finally getting to read The Egypt Game and I love that there's a character named Melanie in it. I have a group reading The Giver, and thank goodness I've read that book in the last year or so. The other group is reading The Incredible Journey but I have Scott reading it with them. I want to read it but there actually isn't any extra copies of the book.

Here's to a better week. I do have past blogs to put up some time, but I just wanted to say a little something now. Yay for some classroom management success! (I think it helps that the kids like me even if they don't like reading or school or whatever.)