Day 19: Rainy Day Reading

So this week, it happened-- one of my favorite moments to share with my kids. It was a dark, cloudy, rainy day. One of those days where you have nothing else to do besides wanting to curl up and get lost in a good book while listening to the rain. Ok, so maybe I didn't have the whole 'nothing else to do' part going for me. I had a classroom full of 25 eager students to teach. But I also had the opportunity for a great moment to share with my class the excitement that readers can feel over the simple act of reading.

Our Current Class Read Aloud

Our class recently finished our last read aloud book (Jennifer Murdley's Toad by Bruce Coville) and voted on starting 39 Clues: Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan as our next read. (Secretly I was just as excited for their choice as they were because anyone who knows me well, knows about my undying love for all things 39 Clues.)

Well, we were just at the part in the book where Amy and Dan discover a narrow, dark passageway to a secret underground library at their grandmother's mansion.  The timing couldn't have been any better. What better way to read this chapter than to turn off all of the lights and sit in our very own narrow, dark library passageway in on our classroom while listening to the rain pour down outside?? 

I told the class that I was so excited about reading in the rain to them and explained how I love to turn off the lights on rainy days to set the scene for parts of the book just like this. Immediately, they were hooked (and also bummed that there was no way for us to make our room completely dark because of the emergency light near our classroom door).

Once Amy and Dan discovered the secret entrance to the library, I asked the students if they wanted to move to our secret library hallway. They all excitedly got up and we crowded together in the back of the room, squished in the space between our lockers and bookshelves to listen to the rest of the reading. Despite being cramped knee-to-knee on the floor, every student was sitting quietly and listening, hanging on Riordan's every word.
It was only a few brief minutes of reading huddled together like this, but it was a hit. The kids loved it and were so disappointed when it was time to stop reading and move on to science. They've even requested doing it again for read aloud every day this week since.

Our recreation of the class listening intently (unfortunately taken on a sunnier day).

Instead of just listening to me tell you about what they thought, here are some of their own words that they came up with together as a class to tell why they enjoyed this experience:

"Hi World! We liked reading this way because we were reading about a tunnel and it was like being in the tunnel because it was a dark and rainy day outside. Since we were all crowded together and it was dark it kinda felt like there was a whole bunch of creepy stuff around us. It felt like I was actually there. When we were back there, in the library area, it helped us to visualize how creepy it was to walk around down there."

I love sharing the excitement that readers can experience with my students by taking advantage of these little moments, like the joy of reading on a rainy day.

Now just keep your fingers crossed that clouds are in the forecast for the part where Amy and Dan venture down into the underground catacombs of Paris...

Happy Reading!