The Power of the Read Aloud

I've been on hiatus and have definitely not been adhering to my schedule.  Ladies (and Gents if you are reading), I'm KNEE-DEEP in work.  It's up to my eyeballs and oozing from my ears.  When I get home my still-nursing-very-beautiful-17 month old wants all of my attention, and whatever I intended to complete on the ride home gets thrown out of the window!

Anyway, I wanted to post a quick blog about a cool unit I launched during the month of March.  Since March is Women's History Month, I created a unit called "Girls Rock!".  My boys moaned and groaned when they heard the title, so I had to get to find a way to get them to "buy in" to what I thought would be a wonderful way to celebrate girls/women.  It's important to note hear that I have a total of 28 third graders, but only 8 of them are girls.  Yes...that means that TWENTY are boys!  You feel my pain and joy now...lol

I selected a daily read aloud about both fictional and real characters that I hope would get everybody interested.  My girls perked up immediately but the boys were not buying it...until I read this book...

Well that did it!  One read aloud had my boys salivating for the next book, and the next book, and the next book!

They even began recommending books from our classroom library that featured female protagonists like....

I have the whole class totally hooked now!  When read aloud time is announced, I see nothing but straight backs, folded hands, and bright eyes.

...and you know Zuri is getting her read aloud time on too!  I made a video of our read aloud time for one of my classes and got an A!!!

Read Alouds are powerful and educators and parents need to ensure they are happening daily!

Hmmm...maybe this girl, this teacher, this wife, this Umi rocks too!

This is Zuri's Umi...follow my chronicles!!!