Room 241 Newscast - May 23, 2008

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What Are You Reading?

In our classroom, we are continually talking about books. Students are always sharing their reading life with their friends - always on the lookout for an incredible book. I was able to do a lot of reading this weekend, so I thought I'd share with you some of my reading life (in hopes that you will share about yours!).

The Shack
by William P. Young
Fiction

A good friend of mine recommended this book to me - it really impacted his life. In the story, a horrific tragedy strikes Mack's family when his daughter is kidnapped. Several years later, Mack gets a mysterious note in the mail from God - inviting him to meet and talk. Not knowing exactly what to think, Mack steps out and accepts the invitation. The rest of the story shows Mack and his conversations with God. It's an amazing dialogue that really challenged a lot of my previous thinking. Mack and God talk about evil, independence, relationships, and forgiveness. It's a book that covers a lot of ideas - I'm looking forward to working through it all. If you'd read this book, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Gossamer
by Lois Lowry
Young Adult Fiction (Fantasy)

I've always loved Lois Lowry. Number the Stars and The Giver have always been two of my favorites. I was finally able to order Gossamer through Scholastic, and it did not disappoint. Littlest One is a dream-giver, and she and Thin Elderly visit an older woman's home each night. Littlest One learns to collect "fragments" by touching objects in the home, collecting memories to bestow to the older woman in her dreams. The older woman takes in an eight year old foster child with a troubled past - and along with the foster child comes the Sinisteeds, who bestow nightmares upon their victims. Littlest One and Thin Elderly decide to stand up against the Sinisteeds and protect the young boy and older woman. I know it all sounds a little strange (my wife put the book down after just a few chapters), but it really puts forth a good message. The boy (John) had a terrible home life, but the older woman loves him unconditionally. It's a story about good being stronger than evil, and love being able to heal pain.

The Year of the Dog
by Grace Lin
Children's Fiction

I've heard great reviews about this book from several blogs, so I was ecstatic when Virginia donated it to our classroom library. Grace is the only Taiwanese-American in her elementary school. It's the Year of the Dog, which her mother explains is a good year to find true friends and to find yourself. Grace sets out to accomplish both. Each story tells a different story from Grace's life. I loved reading about the various traditions her family practiced and the different types of food they ate - so much centered around food! It was also very interesting to see how Grace was pulled between two cultures, and how she dealt with being the only Asian girl in her school. There were lots of strong messages in this story. I recommend it to all my students!

What are you reading? What's on your "to-read" list? Parents, friends, educators, students - please let us know what you're reading by leaving a comment below. As we wind the school year down, this is a great chance for all our blog readers (whoever you may be) to connect to one another. We look forward to hearing about your reading life!

Civil War Timelines

To conclude our unit on the Civil War, we created timelines highlighting the major events of the war. Partners worked together to correctly place events on their timeline, and then describe and illustrate four events. I really enjoyed watching the various approaches partners took to this project - everyone's timeline looked a little different. After everyone was finished, we participated in a "museum walk." We quietly walked around the room and viewed everyone's timeline, leaving our comments, questions, and responses on post-it notes.

Garvin and Anna C. work on adding illustrations to their project.

Rachael and Kelkcee begin adding events to their timeline.

Here is a portion of Taurus and Caroline's project.

Virginia, Charlie, and Kelkcee use post-it notes to respond to other timelines.

Preparing for PACT Writing

In order to prepare for the PACT writing portion, I decided to have the kids analyze and evaluate some student writing samples. I first created a kid-friendly PACT writing rubric, based on the official PACT rubric. I used our classroom language, words we use to describe and talk about the writing process. The four areas in which our kids' writing will be evaluated are content, organization, voice, and conventions. Students can score a 0-4 in each area (except for voice which has a high score of 3). We evaluated one writing sample together, then partners got together to evaluate one on their own. Partners then met up with another set of partners to discuss and defend their evaluations. I learned our students are very tough evaluators! They had extremely high standards for writing. Afterwards, we talked about how this activity would affect our own writing on the PACT test. Many students were able to clearly articulate their own goals for PACT writing. I was extremely pleased with how well our students were able to critique writing AND identify effective writing strategies they could use.

Naomi and Jordan are working as partners to evaluate the writing sample. You can see the writing rubric in front of Jordan.


Here is a group of four discussing their evaluations. Groups had to defend why they gave each sample its particular score.

Borenya African Dance

Last week Stone Academy was incredibly fortunate to host our artist in residence, Borenya. All 5th graders were taught African drumming, while all 4th grade classes were taught African dances. As our class danced, Mrs. Page's 5th grade class drummed. I was extremely proud of the way our class conducted itself. Our kids showed themselves to be wonderful dancers - no one was inhibited to show off their dance moves! The dance was so full of motion, it was difficult to capture with still pictures. Nonetheless, I hope you're able to get a glimpse of what went on. Be sure to ask your child to demonstrate the dance we learned - I know they'll be happy to show it off!

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Water Cycle Dance

After our hands-on experiment with the water cycle, we decided to deepen our understanding by using dance. Small groups of students were asked to create a dance highlighting the parts of the water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and run-off. Students were also asked to utilize the elements of dance effectively -body, energy, space, time, transitions, and levels. After each group performed, our audience members gave feedback. I was so impressed with how our students recognized not only science content, but how they also connected the elements of dance to the water cycle. Here are some pictures from our performance.

Water-Cycle-in-a-Cup

We began our study of the water cycle with a hands-on experiment - a "water-cycle-in-a-cup." Students first poured a small amount of liquid water on black construction paper and placed it on the hot cement (right outside the cafeteria doors). We then placed a clear plastic cup on top of the liquid, with an ice cube on top of the cup. Here is Virginia's prediction of what will happen during the experiment. You can also see the observations she made - I love how she included exact drawings and strong written details to describe her observations.



We inferred that the heat of the cement and black construction paper caused the liquid water to evaporate and rise to the top of the cup. When the water vapor reached the top of the cup, it became cooler (due to the ice cube). The water vapor then condensed back into liquid water. We predicted that the liquid water would run down the sides of the cup and back to the hot cement, where the cycle would start again. Our students are true scientists - what smart thinking! Here is Mira's conclusion to the experiment. I love how she included small drawings along with her written explanation.

Comparing Tall Tales, Folktales, and Fables

A week or two ago, I blogged about our study of tall tales, folktales, and fables. As small groups read and studied various examples, we learned about the elements of each genre. As a culminating activity, small groups of students created poster-size Venn diagrams to compare the three genres. After creating their diagrams, the groups did a "museum walk" around the classroom, observing each other's work. Students were encouraged to respond to their classmates' posters by leaving post-it notes on their Venn diagrams. Some comments included, "Hey, I never thought of that!" Or "I think I may disagree with this statement because..." Or "Our group thought the same thing!" Our kids were comparing, contrasting, and revising their thinking as they encountered new ideas from the other groups. I loved watching our kids react and respond to each other.

Betsy and Maribeth are responding to another group's Venn diagram.

Look at all the comments left on this group's Venn diagram! You can see Jaylin adding his own thinking on a post-it note.

Caroline and Jordan are reading their classmates' comments, while Anna R. responds with her own thinking.

Math Happenings

It's been awhile since I've posted - sorry about that! We've engaged in a lot of interesting math investigations during our Geometry unit. We learned a fun game (similar to battleship) called Queens and Knights. It teaches kids to use coordinate points, adding strategies, and visual reasoning. Here are a few pictures from class:

George has set up his grid and is thinking about his strategy. He wants to capture his opponent's queen before his own is captured.

Just look at their faces - can't you just feel the fierce competition?

We spent another day investigating 3-D shapes. To fully understanding the properties of geometric solids, we built lots of examples with twist-ties and straws. This hands-on activity really enabled the kids to analyze and compare the various characteristics of 3-D shapes.

Can you identify the shape Justin has created? I'm pretty sure it's a trapezoidal prism.

Atticus and George just finished creating a triangular pyramid. They are extending their thinking by connecting another triangular pyramid to its base - very smart thinking. By the way, can you see Anna C. in the background? Do you think she's having fun? (She's probably laughing at one of my very funny jokes - HA!).