Colby Sharp on his Favorite Part of the School Year

Thomas Nixon

1 month ago

The article below came courtesy of Colby Sharp’s Substack Newsletter. Colby has generously agreed to share it with our readers, listeners, and watchers.

____________________

“I do my best to try to find joy in all parts of the school. Other than the two weeks we are doing state testing, I am a big fan of it all. With that being said, I think the stretch from Presidents’ Day to spring break might be my favorite. These four to six weeks are magical.

Our classroom is buzzing. The kids know each other so well, and at times we are a pretty well-oiled machine. It doesn’t feel like anyone is uber focused on the end of the school year, we have all of the beginning of the year shenanigans out of the way, and our mid-year testing is complete.

My favorite part of the day during this part of year is our read aloud time. We read aloud from a chapter book 10-15 minutes each day, and we end each day reading aloud a picture book.

Some of our silly little picture book routines bring us so much joy. As the kids settle onto the carpet to read a picture book at the end of the day, I walk over to them in a very dramatic way carrying the book we are going to read, while “A Song of Fire and Ice” plays on the speaker. This is something new we added a couple of weeks ago, and the kids sort of freak out when I do it. It is magical.

Once I get to the carpet, I share the title, the creators, and I often give a little anecdote about the book. They always ask if the book’s case is different from the cover. If it is, THEY GET REAL excited. When the case is different from the cover, I hold the opened book up with the front and back cover facing them. From there, I start playing Taylor’ Swift’s “Are you Ready for It?” at the one-minute mark.

At this point in the school year, the kids are all-in. Most of them sing along, and I dramatically raise the case to reveal the cover at the exact moment that Taylor sings, “Are you ready for it?” The kids are so jacked to see the treat the illustrator has gifted us under the cover.

From there, the real magic begins as we dive into the reading and our discussion of the book.

We have read well over 100 books together. You can find the entire list of our read alouds here.

I hope you are enjoying these late winter days with your kiddos. I’ll leave you with my latest video where I talk about ten of the magical books we shared during the month of February.”