Sunday, April 8, 2018

Books Read In March of 2018

Well I reached my personal goal of 2,000,000 words by the end of March.  What a fantastic run.  Enjoyed just about every book I read and continue to encourage my elementary school students to read books on their own.  Now that I have met my goal, I will spend some time reading other books that are not listed on the Accelerated Reader list.  Many of these books will be non-fiction, based in Christianity or other types of non-fiction genre.  Although I have read over 2,000,000 words, there are several students who are ahead of me.  Do I dare try to catch them and surpass them?  Tough to decide but still they are ferocious readers and I admire the fact that many of them are at 3,000,000, 4,000,000, or 5,000,000.  I must admit, I am proud of them and jealous because they are reading so many other books that I want to read some day.

Of all the books I read in the month of March I earned one 70% and one 80% on the quizzes I took.  All the remaining titles, I earned either a 90% or 100% on the quiz.  I have discovered three things while taking these quizzes:  1) if it is a picture book or preprimer book, they only have 5 questions and if you miss one question, you are automatically down to 80%.  2) if I don't like the topic of the book (i.e. sports, basketball, etc...) I am not as invested as I should be.  Typically, I start off with a chip on my shoulder and it is hard to recover from that.  The third thing I learned is that is seems to be easier to take an AR quiz on chapter books rather than picture books.  Chapter book quizzes tend to look at the big picture and the questions are more global rather than specific in nature.  The questions also seem to cover main points or pivotal points in the story.  I like that much better than the razor sharp questions that are asked of in picture books and preprimers (non-chapter books).

FUTURE GOALS:
Some future goals for reading are the following:
1.  Read all of the Newbury Award Winning books.
2.  Complete the Magic Tree House series.
3.  Complete the Magic Tree House non-fiction series.
4.  Read all of the Flat Stanley series.
5.  Read all of the Dunc and Amos series by Gary Paulsen.
6.  Read all of Gary Paulsen's books (i.e. child, youth, young adult, and adult).
7.  Complete the Left Behind series.
8.  Start to read a variety of non-fiction texts.

MARCH BOOKS:
Now onto the books I have read during the month of March:

Dunc's Dump by Gary Paulsen
Leonardo a Vinci: A nonfiction Companion to Monday with a Mad Genius
Lawn Boy Returns by Gary Paulsen
The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Newberry)
Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen
Sarny: A Life Remembered by Gary Paulsen
Dunc and the Scam Artists by Gary Paulsen
Dunc and Amos Go to the Dogs by Gary Paulsen
Canoe Days by Gary Paulsen ((80%)
Bobbie the Wonder Dog:  A True Story
Dunc and Amos and the Red Tattoos by Gary Paulsen
The Amazing Life of Birds: the twenth-day puberty journal of Duane Homer Leech by Gary Paulsen
Dunc's Undercover Christmas by Gary Paulsen
Soul Harvest:  The World Takes Sides by Tim LaHaye
Apollyon:  The Destroyer is Unleashed by Tim LaHaye
The Words of Ronald Reagan by Michael Reagan (no quiz)
WillMaker Plus by Nolo (no quiz)
Night Rituals by Gary Paulsen (no quiz)
Notes from the Dog by Gary Paulsen
Last Stop on Market Street (Newberry)
My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen
A Wrinkle in Time (Newberry)
The War That Saved My Life
The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle
The Hero's Guide to Becoming an Outlaw
Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Osborne
The Knight at Dawn by Mary Osborne
The Wild Culpepper Cruise by Gary Paulsen
The Higher Power of Lucky (Newberry)
Liar, Liar by Gary Paulsen
The Crossover (Newberry) (70%)
The Underwater Planet by Geranemo Stilton
The Way of the Samurai by Geranemo Stilton

I am already excited about the months of April and May.  There will be many other books to read.  We will see if I can keep up the pace or scale back a bit.  But I do know that I will be reading or at least looking at more non-fiction texts over the next couple of months.

Here's to the journey!  Read on!