I is for Ivan

I is for Ivan as in The One and Only Ivan, a wonderful novel with lessons for both kids and adults. The novel is based on a true story, a gorilla in Atlanta. We were all taken with the novel and the nonfiction book, Ivan the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla. So, we created a unit for the novel and a read-along guide for the nonfiction book—both pair well. And, then of course we had to add bookmarks, which are free. Give yourself, your students, and/or your children or grandchildren a treat—read both books!

The One and Only Ivan unit includes:

• Instructional Schedule for Unit Plan • 12 Lesson Plans with instructional guide and reproducible student handouts • Introducing the Novel Lesson • Setting Analysis Lesson • Character Analysis Lesson • Ivan-isms Lesson • Habitats, Groups, and Offspring Lesson • Pair Read Aloud & Prediction Lesson • Friendship Lesson • Ivan’s Letters Lesson • Novel Quotes Lesson • Ivan’s Many Families Lesson • Pair Read Aloud and Face-to-Face Slide-By Lesson • Ivan’s Billboard Lesson • Summative Assessment w/Rubric • 1 (19 page) Reproducible Student Literary Log • 16 Reproducible Student Bookmarks • • Unit PowerPoint to Guide Daily Lessons w/Teacher Guide • Formative Assessment PowerPoint (includes 3 quizzes) w/Teacher Guide and Answer Key

Ivan the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla Read-Aloud Guide includes:

• Pre-Reading, During-Reading, and After-Reading Activities
• Pre-Reading and After-Reading
• Vocabulary Activity
• Making a Timeline of Ivan’s Life
• Ivan Mapping Activity
• Advocacy, Protests, and Petitions
• Illustrations in Nonfiction Literature
• Research Project
• Ivan’s Story Cube
• Suggested Resource List
• Ivan Grouping Cards
• Ivan Bookmarks

Sixteen free reproducible bookmarks with quotes from The One and Only Ivan. Use for forming groups or just for fun. Your students will love them.

SALE 20% off May 20-21 The One and Only Ivan Unit and Ivan the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla Read-Aloud Guide

Save more and buy both products in the bundle!

Avoid Teacher Burnout: Help a Colleague

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.   Carl Sandburg

The response to help a colleague may very well be connected to time: There’s barely enough time for the things I have to do—there’s just no time to be collegial. The scarcity of time is often a systemic problem, however, some teachers seem to find that time because they know that the return is energizing. Ben Johnson’s fourth step in avoiding teacher burnout in his article, 10 Ways to Avoid Teacher Burnout, is to help another teacher. He shares some excellent ways to do just that by responding to a blog or starting your own blog; mentoring another teacher; or taking an active role in your professional organization. Here’s 7 more ways to help a colleague:

1. Share a lesson, unit, or resources for a topic with teachers who teach the same grade level or content area.
2. Organize a grade level meeting or content area meeting to plan an end of the semester/year activity and ask everyone to bring an activity or resource to the meeting to share.
3. Share a journal article with a summary of the article and some practical applications attached to the article.
4. Designate a bulletin board or bookshelf in the teachers’ lounge for teachers to share resources, activities, books, lessons, etc.
5. Follow a blog (see suggestions under Resources).
6. Join your professional organization and share the resources from your membership.
7. Check in with a first-year teacher in your building.  The conversation will benefit both of you.

While demands on time don’t always allow for teachers to collaborate with colleagues, when you do collaborate, the effort and end result is always worth it. My partners in Surviving to Thriving LjL have collaborated together on many projects—books, curricular materials, presentations, and workshops. For example, we are currently working on a unit and discussion/activity guide for Animal Farm. Jennifer just finished the unit. Next, I go through the unit, editing, deleting, adding, and then sending it back to Jennifer. She makes her adjustments, then it goes to Linda, who formats it expertly and uploads it to Teachers Pay Teachers. When we wrote two books on classroom management (Thriving in the High School Classroom and From Surviving to Thriving: Mastering the Art of the Elementary Classroom), we sat at Linda’s dining room table and wrote as a team—that was an amazing process. Collaboration benefits all those involved in the collaboration process and often benefits students the most.

References

Johnson, Ben. (April 22, 2014).  10 Steps for Avoiding Teacher Burnout. Edutopia.

Blogs to Check Out

Teach Thought

Middle Web

Hack Learning

Grant Wiggins

From Surviving to Thriving

Thriving LjL

Here’s a list of some of our collaborative work:

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Wonder by R. J. Palacio

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Son by Lois Lowry

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate