Accelerated Reader and Read to Self are BFF's

I don't know about y'all but I HEART read to self from The Daily Five! It has turned my students into independent readers. If you have no idea what I am talking about, which if you are a blogger, you already know what I am talking about!
Well my kids have hit the 15 minute mark and now they read in the morning. We have Accelerated Reader at our school. It is an awesome program where students take quizzes on specific books. There is a HUGE library of quizzes for books too! It does cost money for the school though :(, but I have heard that there is a website called book adventure that is formed around the same concept!

This is how we roll...
After morning work they read a book from their book box. 

 Once they finish they complete a book look:

These are from Babbling Abby's Classroom Clipboard Activities. This a great way for them to reflect on what they read and then let me know that they actually read the book. :)
After they complete their book look, they put their class number in our AR quiz line. I can then see who is ready and I call the number for them to come to the computer to take their quiz. Ms. Simoneaux came up with this easy way last year and I love it!

It is an easy no-fuss way to keep them organized. I originally let them line up and it was a hot mess. This works so much better. While they wait, they know to review the book they are going to take a quiz on.
Acclerated Reader has these crazy login's and passwords which make it hard for my kids to remember, so I make cards with all of their names and login's.

I call them back and check their book look and then they take their quiz!

It gives them the score right after, and if they get a 100% I sign this log.

I only sign if they get a 100. I did ten 100's last year, but I am doing more this year. The first person to get 10 100's last year I brought them subway for lunch. It was nice treat and also motivated the others to read their books well to get a 100.  :)
After each quiz it prints out a TOPS report (the opportunity to praise students!) and I have a student hole punch these and they go in a large binder for record keeping.

I love AR, because it allows my students to read for a purpose and it builds comprehension. It also helps me keep a check of how they are reading and how many books we have read!

Do you have AR at your school?

Also, a big shout out to my Teacher BFF Ms. Simoneaux because she will be MRS. soon! So happy for her! Love you!
And.....my tigers are 12-0! WOOP!

Happy Thursday!

Way down in the deep blue sea!

We started our science unit on Monday! I LOVE science, I feel like I can do so much with it!
We are studying about water animals for this unit, due to our science kit that is coming soon! We have a grant in our parish (county for out of state folks) that gives us four of the FOSS science kits for the last two years. This first one coming is called "Observing an Aquarium". We get thirty real fish, craziness and jumping fish happened last year so who know what will come this year!
To start off the unit, I decided to talk all about ocean animals and move into freshwater. We used Deanna Jump's Ocean Animals unit! So freaking cute, go check it out on the TPT page! She is the goddess of all themed units!

We started out the week talking about living things, and what they need. I made this anchor chart for remembering.

We also read the book Deanna included about all the different ocean animals we would be learning about. The next day we watched some awesome brainpop jr. videos on ocean habitats and freshwater habitats. P.S. brainpop jr. is the bomb.com

Today we talked and learned about our first ocean animal the SHARK! We read all the facts that are included in Deanna's unit, and then made our sharks with our tree map. They turned out awesome!

Too cute right? Even for a shark! More animals are joining the habitat, stay tuned!

Also, my kids went to read to self for the first time today....and get this...they went the full 2 minutes! For those of you who know and love Daily 5 you understand why I almost melted into the floor today. It was so exciting. Here are some pics, more info to come as we keep building stamina!

Last thing! I wanted to post this earlier, I made a little insert for a book bag. I use it for buddy reading workstation. It has the directions for buddy reading, and then a book inside. The students know what to do and it keeps the book in a safe place. I use these bags:

 Here it is!
Buddy Reading Bag Insert