Books & Brackets Blog Hop

I’m teaming up with an awesome group of teacher bloggers for #booksandbrackets! When you reach the end of our blog hop, you will have a ton of new resources, and a chance to win some books and a $75 TpT gift card!

When Jackie from Neat Sweet and Hard To Beat first reached out with an idea for a basketball themed blog hop, I was so excited! I was in undergrad at University of Louisville when our men’s basketball team won the national championship and am totally obsessed with college basketball. Sports books are very popular with my first and second graders, so Salt in His Shoes was a big hit when setting goals for our end-of-year MAP test. In this post, I’ll be giving away a copy of this book, along with a goal setting freebie!

Data conferencing can be difficult in a primary classroom. Using this book provides a more concrete model for younger students to understand. I’m going to break down the components of our data conferences so you can easily implement this model in your classroom. Before we get into the importance of sharing data with students in a developmentally appropriate way, I want to share with you how amazing this book is!

Salt in His Shoes tells the story of Michael Jordan’s dream of becoming a successful basketball player, although he was much shorter than the other boys on the court. By practicing, he became stronger and was able to achieve his goal. This message has been particularly inspiring for my students who get easily discouraged.

The book’s storyline is only one reason why this New York Times Bestseller is such a fantastic read-aloud. I make a conscious effort to put books in our classroom library that have main characters who look like my students. Michael Jordan as a child provides a positive and relatable African-American role model for my students. The illustrations are incredible, and the emotions on the character’s faces help my students understand how he is feeling at various points in the text. The book exposes children to rich vocabulary while delivering an important message.

After reading the book during a one-on-one meeting with the child (usually during my prep— I have a class of 42 kids!), we review this poster of our end-of- year MAP Goals. Although this data is specific to only some schools, you can use this with reading or math. I use the same set of questions during any data conference:

1. What can you do today?
2. What do you want to be able to do by (set end date)?
3. What will you do to reach this goal?

You can grab this goal setting freebie in my TpT store!

Giveaways

Enter here to win an $85 TpT gift card!
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http://www.onceuponfirstgrade.com/2016/03/books-brackets-blog-hop.html