Readers in Training

Ugh. Sorry I'm a bit late in getting this post up, but that long Labor Day weekend was a real treat! I hope you all enjoyed some mornings sleepin' in and some seriously sweet family time as well!

I wanted to let you in on a little secret...

Shhhh, we have to be very quiet when we talk about this. 

Our class has been in training for a marathon of sorts, called Reading Stamina. Every student in the class has their very own book box which they fill every week with five books that they choose from the classroom library. This is a great time for students to select books that really interest them and you would be surprised at how many science, weather and aquatic animal books are chosen every week. 

Then, every day during our 90 minute reading block, we have our stamina time. Perhaps this is where I should insert a quick review of what stamina is. Here is the poster that is hanging in our classroom that explains why we do what we do during Reading Stamina: 

And that is our goal. On the second day of school we set the timer for two minutes and we read quietly to ourselves without any interruptions, and when the timer went off we marked the time down on the board. The next day we challenged ourselves to three minutes and succeeded! 

Stamina - doing anything for a long period of time without getting tired or giving up. 

These students are definitely not giving up! I'm so excited to share that as of today our class Reading Stamina is at thirteen minutes! And for an extra treat, here are a few pics I snagged last week of the students reading during our stamina time. 

Enjoy!