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Teaching with a Mountain View

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Teaching with a Mountain View
Novels & Picture Books

Novels & Picture Books

I’m passionate about incorporating authentic picture books and novels into my classroom on a daily basis. Whether you’re looking to use picture books to teach reading skills, implement novel studies, or incorporate books into your morning meeting to address essential social and emotional skills, you’ll find it all here!


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  • Engaging Novel Projects for Any Book
  • Thoughtful Tips for How to Select Novels in Upper Elementary
  • Incorporating Picture Books in Your Upper Elementary Classroom
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Free Rockefeller Christmas Tree Literacy Activities

It’s no secret that I love incorporating paired passages into my seasonal instruction, and this Christmas paired text activity is one of my favorites! Over the past several years, there…

First Chapter Fridays and Novel Read-Aloud Engagement Tips

Are you looking for an engaging way to introduce your students to new books, authors, and genres they might not have explored otherwise? Then you need to give First Chapter…

Using Picture Books to Help Students Build Relationship Skills

Using picture books in your classroom can do wonders for your students’ literacy skills while also helping them build relationship skills. These picture books support your students’ social and emotional…

Using Picture Books to Build Self-Awareness

Picture books are a great resource for introducing social-emotional learning concepts to children in an accessible and engaging way. Through relatable stories and illustrations, picture books can help children explore…

Using Picture Books to Teach Writing 

Using picture books to teach writing in your classroom is one of the most effective ways to engage your students AND teach them critical writing skills. I love their ability…

The Benefits of Wordless Picture Books

Wordless picture books are magic tools that we can use in our classrooms to help students make connections and draw inferences effortlessly!  Right about now, you might be thinking, Wait,…

Novel & Picture Book Resources

  • Character Education Podcasts for Reading and Listening Comprehension | SEL

    Character Education Podcasts for Reading and Listening Comprehension | SEL

    $5.99
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  • Novel Study Activities | Reading Comprehension for ANY book

    Novel Study Activities | Reading Comprehension for ANY book

    $26.99
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  • Text Evidence Activities

    Text Evidence Activities

    $3.19
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  • Novel Study Journal for Any Novel

    Novel Study Journal for Any Novel

    $5.49
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hey, I’m Mary

I’m so glad you are here. I’m a current gifted and talented teacher in a small town in Colorado, and I’ve been in education since 2009. My passion (other than my family and cookies) is for making teachers’ lives easier and classrooms more engaging.

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💡 🧠 I’ve been pulling riddles from these b 💡 🧠 I’ve been pulling riddles from these books since 2021, and our entire school (even staff) loves them! I post one each week and students and staff spend all week figuring it out. Highly recommend for any classroom! 

🤗 🥰 Drop a comment, and I’ll send you a link.
If you’re not using pictures to introduce litera If you’re not using pictures to introduce literal and inferential observations, back to school (right now!!) is the time to start. 😉 Comment below, and I’ll send you free resources to get started, tons of sample anchor charts, and a link to this resource! 🩷 📸
✨ FREE ✨ Five Days of Fluency Lessons for uppe ✨ FREE ✨ Five Days of Fluency Lessons for upper elementary! 👏 Drop a comment below, and I’ll send you everything you need to explicitly teach students the elements of fluent reading. Includes everything you need and tons of tips for getting started with fluency practice in your classroom. 🩷
🎤 🎧 Listening Comprehension + Reading Skills 🎤 🎧 Listening Comprehension + Reading Skills + Super High Interest format AND topics = 😍😍😍 

🫶 Comment below, and I’ll send you a link to a FREE sample and more info for implementing in your classroom! 

Over the last two years, we’ve worked hard to create these school-specific podcasts and LOVE hearing how engaged kids are while using them! Topics range from sports to history to character development and types of writing, and each set includes recorded podcasts, transcripts, show notes, after show activities, and more! 👏
💡 👓 I got this idea from @heyhopeking years 💡 👓 I got this idea from @heyhopeking years ago, and my glasses have patiently been waiting to be used ever since then. I am SO glad I pulled them out of my closet this year to use them as a back to school activity! My students LOVED creating their All About Me glasses, and I plan to create more character glasses throughout the year for different books we read!

🌟 Comment below, and I’ll send you the link to the glasses we used. 

I borrowed some of our at-home Lego collection and let my students go to town building symbols on the glasses that represented different things about them. We had everything from big mountains, pineapples representing cultural roots in Hawaii, Taylor Swift figurines to display a love of music, and plenty of musical instruments and animals! I LOVED hearing my students stand in front of the class and talk about their creative symbols!

The kids don’t get to keep the glasses so I can use them throughout the year, but we will leave them on display for the next few weeks! If we’d have had more time, I would have had them write a short paragraph and take a picture with their glasses to display. 🩷
💡 Fun Fact: I originally posted the OG GROUPS p 💡 Fun Fact: I originally posted the OG GROUPS poster on my blog over 10 years ago! 💕💕 Comment below, and I’ll send you a one-page printable version for student reference!

Letters on my new board are from @steppintoelementary and so cute and easy to cut and use …. Also, please pay no mind to my wrinkly paper. 🤣
✨ This is the anchor chart that hangs in my clas ✨ This is the anchor chart that hangs in my classroom ALL year long!!

👀 Is it okay to not understand something? 10000000x YES! 💯 BUT, it’s not okay to simply say “I don’t get it.” 

Instead, at the beginning of every year, it’s my goal to equip students with strategies so tricky tasks don’t become roadblocks.🚧 👍 This anchor chart has become a STAPLE in my classroom. 

✏️ The top section comes from 7 Steps to a Language-Rich Classroom. I added the tricky problem sentences to give students clear strategies and sentence stems for tackling tricky tasks.
Back to school activity that you can use all year Back to school activity that you can use all year long. 👏 Giant Scrabble has been a staple in my first month of school plans for YEARS, and today I used the giant letters to play a human-sized version of Tapple! 

Comment below, and I’ll send you ready to print letters so you can implement it immediately! 👏 

This is always one of our first lessons and experiences with productive struggle. It’s always amazing to see them complete the task — and they beg for its return all year long. 🧩 💡 We also used it as an opportunity to talk about how some students work better under pressure and it can be intimidating to others. That doesn’t mean anyone is better than another person. 💕🩷

We don’t REALLY keep score on either of the games. The point is to get them excited about overcoming obstacles and continuing a task that seems impossible or difficult. Most kids aren’t familiar with the games, so some variations and exceptions are allowed. 

Shoutout to @topdogteaching for the idea to use the letters and adapt to Tapple! 👏
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