Teaching Character Traits using the Kevin Henkes mouse books

The past few weeks we have been immersed in my favorite books of the whole year: all of the Kevin Henkes mouse books! My students always love these books every year. I’m certain it is because the characters are quite relatable and SO much like my first graders! While I read these books they were all so interested and captivated! I heard so many connections while I was reading as well. My kiddos love the mouse characters!

After reading, I created some matching cards that had the book covers and a summary without any of the mouse names. They worked with a partner and read the cards and matched them with the correct book cover. After matching, they took a picture of their matches- they LOVED that part! It was also so easy for me to check their work. I’ll definitely use that as a way to check work again- possibly during stations.

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Organizing My Classroom Library (Freebie)

I’m here to give you a quick peek at how I organize my classroom library. I have all of my books labeled with a sticker that corresponds to what basket it goes in. Some of them are sorted by the genre of the book and some are sorted by favorite authors. I don’t have my books sorted by level because my students choose these books as interest books. They have other (leveled) books in their book boxes that come from our school’s book room.

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