Newbery Medal

Today the Newbery Medal was announced and the winning book for this year was Flora and Ulysses.  I am so excited about this announcement.  A few years ago when Mr. Franz became our principal we sat at the Junior High and went around the room and shared some of our goals.  I remember my goal was to read aloud or book talk the Newbery winner to the class before it was announced.

In the past I had book talked and read aloud honor books but never the medal winner.  Last year my luck started to change.  I read the book The One and Only Ivan to my class and then it won the Newbery Medal.

This year the winner is Flora and Ulysses.  

Sorry I could not find a picture that had the medal just yet.  I love that as a class we have found this book before it was announced.  Sure we are not finished with the book, but now as we finish the book we can start to think about why this book was selected over the other amazing titles that the committee considered.  

One of the reasons that I picked to read Flora and Ulysses for our next read aloud is that it fits with the theme of our next topic in reading.  Today during reading we started to discuss our next big idea...heroes.  Over the next several weeks we are going to discuss the idea of a hero.  Today we started by having the class write about what they think makes a hero.

I was so impressed with the writing/thinking around the room.  Two students who shared at the rocking chair shared a common idea.  To paraphrase their thinking, "a hero does not have to wear a costume or have gadgets or superhuman powers, they just have to help and protect others."  I loved this thinking and we just started.  I cannot wait to see where our thinking goes after thinking about this topic a bit more.  

Hope you are all having a great start to your week.