Room 241 Tells Our Tales

This morning we held our writing celebration for our personal narratives. The kids were ecstatic to have an audience to share their writing with (not to mention the muffins, fruit, and juice that were provided). Parents and kids had the opportunity to walk around and read everyone's writing project. As they read, parents left comments on post-it notes - which the kids were thrilled to read. You'll probably notice some yellow post-its sticking out of the kids' writing when you see the video below. Several kids were also able to share their writing aloud with the whole group. A big thanks goes out to Mrs. Baumgarnder and Mrs. Dowdy for making it all happen. We hope you enjoy the pictures from our celebration.

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Tymeir Revises

Today we learned how to have authors' circles in order to get feedback for our narrative writing pieces. I was so proud of how our students listened to each other and gave each other important feedback. At the beginning of writer's workshop, Tymeir looked at his piece and realized he needed to revise. I sat down with him and prompted him to use storytelling as a way to prepare himself to write. After telling his story a few times, Tymeir wrote a 2nd draft. Here's his first draft:

This is how the games goes. Well, someone throws the football up in the air and whoever catches the ball, they got to try to get a touchdown. And if you get tackled, you have to throw the ball up in the air. But if you make a touchdown, you're good to keep going on.

Here's his second draft:

The quarterback hikes the ball hard on my belly as I run looking at the defense. I am holding the ball tightly. I was running so fast the air was blowing hard on my face. I was gasping for air. Suddenly, I get hit hard in my legs. As... (this is as far as he got today)

You can see Tymeir explain his revisions in the video below. I love how he describes the process - breaking down the story into "little actions." Tymeir really zoomed in on a small moment and has begun to tell the story step-by-step. I love all the exact details he's included in his second draft - it's a great piece of writing. Leave Tymeir a comment by clicking on the "Comment" button below this post. I know he'd love to hear your thoughts.

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Studycast - Magnets and Electricity

Click here to listen to the Magnets and Electricity Studycast.

The study guide came home on Tuesday, October 21st, and the test is on Friday, October 24th. If you need an extra copy of the study guide, visit our class homework page to download a copy. If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment at the bottom of this post. I'll be sure to get back to you shortly. Good luck and have fun!

Sharing with Reading Partners

After becoming proficient at using the stop-think-react strategy, we decided to practice the strategy on our own. Each student read an article from our National Geographic Explorer magazines - it was about animals that drink blood (awesome!). As they read, they used post-it notes to record their reactions to the text. When everyone was finished, reading partners got together to discuss their reactions. There were so many great conversations. After the conversations were over, I asked the class - How does this strategy help you understand the text better? The students gave a variety of responses - it helps them slow down and think, they notice their thinking more, they ask more questions, they make more connections, they feel like they understand what they read in a better way. Once again, I'm thrilled. Here are some of the conversations that were going on...

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Stop - Think - React

Good readers stop, think, and react when they read a text. We've been practicing this way of thinking in class, and I've really been impressed with how well our kids have used this strategy. We started by practicing together, everyone reading the same article as I demonstrated my thinking. We then practiced reading a text with a partner - stopping, thinking, and sharing our reactions with a partner. It was a beautiful thing. The kids were so active and excited about reading and sharing their ideas with a friend. I wanted to show you what this was like, so I used my video camera to capture some partners at work. It's a little hard to hear due to the background noise, but you'll still get a picture of what an active, engaging process reading can be.

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Two Great Sayings

One of the reasons I love being a teacher is the fact that I get to spend the majority of my day with 24 interesting, curious, and smart kids. I love when they ask questions, make connections, laugh, sing class songs, share jokes, invent, create, and learn. They're a fun bunch. I wanted to share two comments that Andrea and Julian shared recently.

We were in reading workshop. Our current unit of study is monitoring our comprehension (thinking about our thinking), and we had been figuring out what good readers do when they come across unknown words. We had spent a few days sharing strategies and practicing those strategies. At the end of workshop time Andrea raised her hand and said, "Mr. Brown, I've been trying out some of those strategies when I read at home, and they really work. They've really helped me understand what I'm reading better. I'm not just skipping over words I don't know. I'm actually taking the time to figure them out." I smiled.

We were in science. I asked the class - How could you make an electromagnet stronger? Our students got in their science teams, developed a plan, wrote procedures, carried out their experiment, and then recorded their results. Based on our findings, we found there were several factors that could make an electromagnet stronger. As we wrapped up our exploration, Julian said, "You know what Mr. Brown? At the end of the year, we could take our notebooks home and do all these experiments by ourselves at home! Wouldn't that be cool?" I responded, "Why don't you take them home NOW and conduct your own experiments whenever you want? Learning happens all the time - not just within the walls of our classroom."

Isn't it exciting to see our kids becoming learners and thinkers? I love it.

Learning Our Multiplication Facts

I remember when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, my teacher gave me a piece of paper with all the multiplication facts on them. She then told me to memorize them. I remember sitting on the back porch with my dad, going over and over and over the facts. It took lots of time, practice, and determination for me to memorize the multiplication tables. Those three criteria still apply to our kids today. Fortunately, we've developed some more "fun" ways to memorize the facts. In class, we used flash cards to determine what facts we know and what facts we still need to practice. We've played Name That Number, Multiplication Top-It, Beat the Calculator, and Multiplication Baseball. All of these games help kids memorize their multiplication tables. But parents - I encourage you talk to your child and identify those facts that he or she does not know. Practice them in the car, make flash cards, play games - do what it takes. Remember- time, practice, and determination. Here are some pictures of the kids playing math games in our classroom...

Coco and Mia are playing Name That Number (one of my favorites).

Austin and Porter think over their facts as they play Multiplication Baseball.

Conductors and Insulators

I love studying about electricity. It's such a hands-on unit of study, and it's always full of surprises. Earlier in the year, we tested objects to see if they would be attracted to magnets. We were surprised to find that brass, aluminum, and copper objects were not attracted to magnets. This past week, we used that same bag of objects to ask the question - What objects are conductors or insulators? We were again surprised that brass, aluminum, and copper were conductors - even though they're not attracted to magnets. Based on our results, we inferred that all metals are conductors of electricity. Here's a few pictures from our exploration...

Alex and Bethany are recording the results of their experiment into their science notebooks.

Here is one group's objects sorted into conductors and insulators.

A Special Guest

A few weeks ago, we were privileged to have a Julia as a special guest in our classroom. Julia is from Germany, and she is spending a few weeks with Alex's family. During our morning meeting, Julia shared a popular children's book from her home country - and she read it in German! The kids were silent with smiles as they listened intently to the music of another language. After Julia read, the kids took turns asking her questions about life in Germany. I was really proud of all the smart questions they asked. We were so thankful to have Julia spend the morning with us.

Writing About Small Moments

Last week during Writer's Workshop, we learned how to take our small moment ideas and write them in a step-by-step way. We learned how to slow the moment down, see the "movie" in our mind, and tell true, exact details about what happened. We learned that good personal narrative writers tell lots of specific details - what they're thinking, what their hands are doing, what their face looks like, what they're feeling, what they see. Here are two examples from our Room 241 writers...

This is one of Ben's entries from last week. Boys love to write about sports, and I thought Ben did an excellent job of zooming in on the most important part of his story. I love all the exact details that he includes.

This is an example from Alaina's notebook. She did an incredible job of taking an ordinary, small moment and turning it into a beautiful piece of writing.

Students have now selected a small moment from their writer's notebook that they want to work into a published piece. We'll spend the next few weeks drafting, revising, and editing this one writing piece. This week we're learning how to use timelines, quotation marks, and effective leads as we begin drafting our stories. I can't wait to see what our students will write!

Studycast - Social Studies Chapter 3-4

The study guide for the Chapter 3-4 test came home on Monday, October 6th. The test will be on Friday, October 10th. We will be covering the final lesson (Chapter 4, Lesson 3) on Tuesday. We'll review in class on Wednesday and Thursday to prepare for the test. If you need to download another copy of the study guide, visit the "Homework" link on the blog's side bar. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to click on the "Comment" link right below this post.

Click here to listen to the Social Studies Chapter 3-4 studycast!