Sarah Humiston
I got this book at a reading conference. Although it doesn't make this claim I was hoping the strategies would translate to reading but they don't. I found the description of different mathematical discussions helpful. I am excited to use the discussion formats in my classroom next year. I hope that it will give me more purpose in my math discussions. I was a little disappointed in the book because I was hoping it would give me more guidance on how to set up my classroom to be more discussion friendly. It did have some tips for how to get discussions going but not as many as I had hoped. That is the reason I gave it four instead of five stars.
This book is one of my new favorite books about teaching. It was so interesting and inspiring that I read it until late in the night. I have wanted to implement inquiry in my classroom for years, but haven't quite known how to do that. After reading this book I feel excited about implementing these in my classroom next year.
Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Smokey Daniels do a great job of balancing rationale with real world examples of how inquiry can work in many different grade levels.
I would highly recommend this book for creating a student led classroom where kids get to learn in depth about subjects that they are interested in.
My students are obsessed with this series and I enjoyed it too. There were times that I actually laughed out loud. It is great when a children's book can entertain both kids and adults too.
My students and I were laughing out loud to this book. It is so clever with lots of little things to find with re-reading.
Testing the Ice is a true story told from the perspective of Jackie Robinson's daughter. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It shows how Jackie Robinson showed courage not just in his professional life, but also his personal life.
I am a teacher and love reading this book to my students. They enjoy the vivid pictures and story line they can connect to. It makes a sometimes larger than life person, Jackie Robinson, seem very personal.
Wow, just wow! This book was amazing. The writing is poetic and beautiful and the lesson is one that everyone needs to hear. What an important book!
This is my favorite cookbook of all time! The recipes are clear and easy to follow. When I bake things using this cookbook I feel like I am learning new techniques not just following the steps to make something. I have made at least ten recipes from here and all but one have been the best of that particular item I have had. Bonus that she seems to be fighting diet culture which demonizes desserts. Love this book!
I have been looking for a good book that I can lose myself in for a little while. The last few books that I have read have just not pulled me in. This book however sucked me in. I read it all in one sitting. What a lovely story about finding joy again after sorrow. I highly recommend this book and the recently released Lost in the Sun which follows a different character from Umbrella Summer. Lisa Graff has a talent for creating lovable characters.
I loved the historical fiction aspect of this series. I enjoyed seeing what Christ's life might have been like, but the fictional characters are not very well rounded and fall into cliche situations.
I was sucked into many of the stories wishing they were full novel length not just a short story, but had a hard time with some of the other stories.
The authors use several outlying anecdotes as if those represent what is happening on all college campuses. They lack data for the first half of the book, purely anecdotes. And even when they do use data in the second half or so, they often say things like “maybe” and “probably” when stating causality.
They pretty much only talk about problems on the left even though they claim the problems are on both sides. There is one chapter where they discuss extremism on the right, but it is only a small portion of the overall book.
The solutions they posit are almost all reasonable, but there is no proof that they will actually solve the “problems” they identify.
It is also clear that they don't fully understand some of the things they discuss like microaggresions and anti-racism because they make many misleading or completely untrue statements.
Finally the authors decry both fragility and catastrophizing when they do those things many times throughout the book. They come across as fragile white men who don't want anything to change. They also constantly talk about all the possible worst case scenarios about what might happen if the things continue the way they see it going.
Overall it is written in a way that is easy to read, but their logic and data are too weak and obviously biased to make the book any good.
Brain Rules was fascinating. I am a teacher and plan on using many of the things from the book in my classroom. I found it a relatively easy read even for someone who hasn't read much about brain research before.
This is now one of my favorite books of all time. It is so sweet and had many quotes I just had to write down.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I have never read a book by Jennifer Brown so I wasn't sure what it would be like. I expected it to be fun and light hearted, but wasn't prepared for how heart warming it was. The main character, Luke, is such a lovable character. One of my pet peeves in middle grade novels is when the “bad guy” gets what is coming to him, but this book doesn't fall into that trap. Luke learns that even those who aren't kind usually have their reasons and hard things they are going through. What a surprisingly lovely book!
One of my all time favorite books. Such a touching story about a girl going into foster care.