Non-Fiction Fridays

I love Friday mornings. No assignments to copy down. No morning work. Everyone has a happy feeling because it's the end of another week. On some Fridays, we have "Non-Fiction Friday." Kids grab an interesting non-fiction book or magazine and just enjoy reading. Some kids read with a friend, some like reading independently. On this particular Friday morning, there was a big clump of kids all on the carpet. They were all sharing, smiling, and laughing with each other as they read. It was fun to watch. Here are some pictures from our morning together...

Non Fiction Friday

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How Much Snow?

We were lucky to get some snow this school year - it's been a long time since we've had some March snow. With two snow days and a two hour delay, I was WAY behind on my lesson plans. When we came back to school that Wednesday, I was ready to jump back in the curriculum. But...as the kids walked in and greeted each other, there was so much talk about snow. We shared our experiences about the snow and gave descriptions of what it was like at each of our houses. There was a lot of talk about how much snow we received. So, I asked each child to make an estimate about the amount of snow fall at their house (we got out our rulers and reviewed inches), and everyone recorded their data on a post-it note. We put all our data on a line plot and analyzed it. We noticed lots of interesting trends (which we charted)! In order to show our results in different ways, teams of students create bar graphs, pie graphs, and pictographs. Below are some pictures of our work...

How Much Snow?

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Studycast - Social Studies Chapter 10

Click here to listen to the studycast for Chapter 10. You can download the audio file by right-clicking on the link and choosing "Save target as..." The study guide came home on Wednesday, March 25th, and the test is on Tuesday, March 31st. If you need an extra copy of the study guide, click here. You can download the study guide from our class website's homework page.

If you have any questions about the material, just send me an email or leave a comment below this post. I'd love to hear from you!

Tiger Rising Projects

I mentioned in an earlier post how our kids created projects based on what they learned from reading The Tiger Rising. The students created all kinds of projects: readers' theaters from the important scenes, commercials, new front and back cover of the book, and book recommendations. For the majority of our students, I was very pleased with the effort and creativity they put forth into the project. Here are a few pictures of our kids creating their projects...

Jo'nae, Alaina, and Julian are studying other book recommendations in order to write their own.

Cameron, Coco, and Andrea are creating a new front and back cover for the book.

Richie had to measure the poster board in order to cut it in half - isn't it amazing how we use math all the time?!

Exploring Area

We had a fun time exploring area last week. We used one inch and three inch squares to find the area of two dimensional shapes around our classroom. Our kids quickly found out that you don't have to cover the entire shape to find the area. Rebekah figured out that you could lay out your squares on one row, and then find out how many squares would go into each row. Lots of our students began using multiplication to help them find their answers. Here are some pictures of the kids at work.

Alex and Rebekah had to work together to find the area of a cinder block face.

You can see how Coco has recorded her findings in her math notebook.

Jo'nae, Clayton, and Alaina are trying to find the area of a writer's notebook.

Preparing for Book Clubs

It's been a long time since I've posted...sorry about that. With ITBS testing, the PASS writing test, MAPs testing, and the Spring Production, life in Room 241 has been a little crazy. I'm hoping that these next few weeks will bring us a little bit of normalcy.

Here are a few pictures of the kids reading and responding in their book club journals. As a class, we read The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. I started off reading the first ten chapters aloud, demonstrating how I would respond in my own journal. For the second week, the kids worked with a partner to read and respond. We also began holding small book club discussions to get a feel for how readers discuss books. By the third week, students were reading independently and holding their own book club discussions about the book. After we finished reading, we reflected about what makes a great book club discussion (we posted our ideas on a chart hanging up in our room), and we also created projects to show the class what we had learned.

Students are now in their own book clubs, reading a book they selected as a group. We're about halfway through the process, and I'm extremely proud of the way they're reading, responding, and digging deep into a text. If you could listen in to some of these conversations, you would be amazed at the thought and deep insight our kids are able to bring out of their books. Hopefully, I'll have some more posts to keep you updated on our progress.

Coco and Nakia are reading and responding.

Anne and Caitlyn are capturing their thoughts in their response journals.

Solar System Studycast

Click here to listen to the studycast for our upcoming astronomy test. You can also download the audio file by right-clicking on the link and choosing "save target as." If you have any questions, just click on the comment link below this post and leave me your question. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks!

Valentine's Day

After our poetry celebration, we spent our morning passing out and reading through our valentines. A big thanks goes out to Mrs. Riordan for making a delicious chocolate cake that we thoroughly enjoyed. Enjoy the photos below...

Valentine’S Day

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Brownbuck's Bistro

We had an incredible time at our poetry celebration today. Our classroom was transformed into a coffeehouse (a big thanks goes out to Mrs. Baumgardner and Mrs. Dowdy), and we had a wonderful gathering of parents, grandparents, friends, and school staff. Candles, lamps, jazz, and the warm aroma of coffee filled our classroom. Each student selected three of his or her best poems to share. As the students shared, the poems were projected onto our Promethean board. This enabled the audience to understand the line breaks, see the illustrations, and gather the full meaning of the poet's message. We laughed, cried, and thought a little more about life. I was truly amazed at the depth of our students' perspectives and their willingness to share from their heart. Everyone in the audience was moved. Below are some photographs from this special day.

Poetrycelebration

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The Relatives Came

We just finished up a unit of study focused on "Reading like Writers." We began the study by immersing ourselves in Cynthia Rylant's The Relatives Came. We identified striking places in the text - places that made us smile, think, feel, or places that we just liked the way the words sounded together. Small groups of students got together and created poems using the striking places they found in the text (that video is below). After this immersion, we started to identify the writing techniques and tools Cynthia Rylant used. We hypothesized why she used these tools, gave these techniques named, and then envisioned ourselves using them in our own writing. I was so impressed with all the tools and strategies our kids were able to identify. They really developed their ability to "read like writers."

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