Animal Research - Parts 11 & 12, Learning Fair, Biographies, & Determining Importance (PHEW!)

In our last blog posting (Part 10), students wrote the introduction to their animal reports. Today, we talked about writing a satisfying conclusion. I used the slide below to identify that a conclusion appears at the end of a piece of writing!

We analyzed the conclusions of several published authors. This is the conclusion from a book about tigers. We noticed that the author made us feel like we were right in the environment/habitat of the tiger!

In this conclusion from a book on pelicans, we discussed how the author briefly reviewed some of the surprising information she didn't want us to forget from her book. She also invited us to learn even more about pelicans!

This conclusion from a book on owls also put us right in the environment of an owl and told us what to do if we spotted one!

I made a template to help students combine all these wonderful characteristics of good conclusions. I wrote my own conclusion for my report on owls and left an open template for students to fill in their own. (Please note, the word 'jungle' in the first line of the slide below should say 'forest'! Mistakes happen, right?)

 Here is a conclusion one student wrote for his report on pandas.

Here's another student's conclusion to his report on crocodiles:

The past two days in writing, we've been peer conferencing. Students took their introduction, their habitat paragraph, their diet paragraph, their defense mechanisms paragraph, and their conclusion and stapled it together to make one complete draft of their animal report. I partnered students up, and they worked together to do a "5-4-3-2-1" peer conference. Students were to help each other add 5 descriptive adjectives, 4 lively verbs, 3 sound effects, 2 similes, and put tallies down (we call these the 1's) for any capitals or punctuation that needed to be added.

Click here to see how I structured the publishing stage of the writing process for our animal research! Visit my TpT site if you're interested in getting all the student sheets used in this animal research unit.

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In different news, every spring our P.T.O. helps students meet at lunch time a few days a week to explore any topic of their choice to present on a poster at the Learning Fair. The Learning Fair is optional but an awesome opportunity for students to go above and beyond! Here were the kids from our room who participated:

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In reading last Thursday, we discussed the difference between narration and dialogue. Authors of biographies use both kinds of text, but they typically use narration more, with just a few sentences of dialogue here and there to help the book come alive. Direct quotes are a great way to show you've done your research and have talked to real people from the person's life! I highlighted in orange for all the narration on one page of our mentor text and explained that narration should be read with a normal, natural voice. I used pink to highlight the dialogue sentences and the quotation marks and explained that dialogue should be read with a little more expression, since it's a direct quote from someone else!

For guided practice, I copied a different page from our mentor text that had narration with some scattered dialogue and had students color-code to show they understood the difference. They also practiced reading the narration and dialogue fluently using the two different types of voices we talked about.

In reading last Friday, we discussed how you can gain a lot of information about a person's time period and culture from reading a biography book. I used a page from a book about Franklin D. Roosevelt to model my thinking. I highlighted parts of the text that revealed information about the time period and culture in which F.D.R. lived. (My thoughts are in pink...)

For guided practice, I handed out a different page from the F.D.R. mentor text. Students read the page and they shared out on what they had learned about the 1930's. (Students' thoughts are in orange writing on the anchor chart above.) They were shocked that kids had to work back in the 1930's - barefoot! - and that sometimes people married their cousins. Students wondered if that was legal back then, and if that's even legal now.

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In reading today, we switched gears into talking about our Quarter 3 reading comprehension strategy focus - DETERMINING IMPORTANCE. To demonstrate this strategy, I used two plastic containers, noodles, water, and a strainer. (P.S. - This is a lesson idea I got from Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor. Awesome book! You must get it!)

I explained that determining importance is a lot like straining noodles. The container with water and noodles is like a book you pick up off the shelf. Inside the book is all sorts of information - some is very important information (like the noodles), while other information isn't as important (like the water), but that you need all of it to make the book what it is.

As you start reading a book and after you've finished it, it's your brain's job (strainer) to determine what's important (noodles) and what's not (water). Your brain should hold on to the important information, key topics, and main ideas, and let the rest pass through, just like when we strain noodles!

We anchored our learning on this chart. (After all, real noodles only stay fresh for so long!)

Students did a response to explain what they understood about our noodle metaphor for determining importance.

During independent reading, students were to think about the 'noodles' and the 'water' of the books they were reading to see if they could find what was important versus unimportant about their books.

Animal Research - Part 10 & Biography Genre Focus

In our last blog posting (Part 9), students finished drafting their habitat paragraphs and defense mechanism paragraphs for their non-fiction reports. Normally you would think we would write an introduction to our reports FIRST, but instead I had kids research and draft the body of their reports first so students would truly be informed on their animals. I used the slide below to help students get a better idea of the 'big picture' of their research since we've been doing our research/writing in parts.

Now that we had the body of our animal reports written (the paragraphs about habitat, diet, and defense mechanisms), it was time for students to write their introductions. A good introduction HOOKS a reader into wanting to read more!

In order to know how to write an introduction that hooks a reader, we analyzed several introductions from real non-fiction authors to see how they did it! This introduction came from a book about pelicans. We noticed that this introduction included DESCRIPTION and QUESTIONS.

This introduction came from a book on wolves. We noticed that this author also asked QUESTIONS, CONNECTED TO OUR SCHEMA, and shared SURPRISING INFORMATION.

 And in this introduction from a book on owls, the author PAYS THE ANIMAL A COMPLIMENT and INVITES THE READER to read more.

We added all this great information to our organization anchor chart we created earlier in the year. (All of our new learning is in orange.)

 To help scaffold my kiddos into writing an introduction that included all of the 'hooking characteristics' we learned from the mentor texts we analyzed, I wrote my own introduction for my own report on owls and also created a template for students.

Students wrote their own introductions using the template so that their introduction would HOOK US! This template and all the other sheets students have and will be using in this unit can be found here! :)

Here is the introduction Casey wrote for his report on lynx!

Here is the introduction Blake wrote for his report on deer!

Tomorrow, we will be following this same process for writing our conclusions to our animal reports.

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Our third quarter reading genre focus is BIOGRAPHY. Yesterday I introduced the genre to our kids. I also listed several characteristics of most biographies.

Prior to my lesson, I put post-its where I located all of the features and showed each example as we filled in the anchor chart of all the characteristics.

For guided practice, we handed out biography books to pairs of students. We asked them to page through their books to see if they, too, could locate all the characteristics of a biography.

Here's some footage of their biography characteristic hunt!

Students got a chance to share their discoveries. One of the discoveries was that it was a little difficult to locate the birth information. It didn't appear on the first page as students had thought! This student-initiated discovery became my mini-lesson for today. :) (I love it when that happens!)

Today we zoomed in on characteristic #5: Chronological order. I had specifically left a box on our anchor chart from yesterday so that I could address the unique structure of most biographies - the first chapter or introduction is written to HOOK US, then the next part of the book goes into the beginning of the person's life.

For guided practice today, students got another biography book and analyzed the first chapter/introduction to identify how it hooked them, followed by locating the birth information in the next chapter. Students used the sentence stems on the chart to formulate their response for when we shared. This study of introductions really went hand-in-hand with our lesson in Writer's Workshop on writing an introduction for our animal research! (Again, I love it when that works out!) To see the next lessons from our biography unit, click here!

Animal Research - Part 9

In our last blog posting (Part 8), students learned to expand their habitat notes into complete sentences to make a paragraph.

Today, we followed the same process using our green notes on our animals' diets. On the left are my notes in the order I thought gave them the best flow. On the right, you'll see the paragraph I wrote from my notes. I highlighted where my notes appeared in my paragraph so students could see the relationship between the two pieces and that I had to use my own brain and words to expand my notes. You'll also notice I taught students to carry over the resource code to give credit for where each of our ideas come from.

Before I set them loose to practice the process themselves, we watched the clip I took yesterday as they drafted their habitat paragraphs. I told them how impressed I was at how focused everyone was! We noticed how everyone was on task, no one was talking, kids were looking back and forth from their notes to their notebook, kids were rereading, the list went on! I think this technique of having students watch themselves truly inspires them to be the best writers they can be.

Here are some still shots of students drafting their diet paragraphs:

And here's a clip of what they looked and sounded like as they drafted today! I was proud, once again, of their work today!

Here's the paragraph one of my kiddo's wrote about the diet of a polar bear!

Students followed this same process for drafting their defense mechanism paragraphs! In our next lesson (Part 10), we will write our introductions to our reports. Visit my TpT site if you're interested in getting all the student sheets used in this animal research unit.

Animal Research - Part 8, Team-Building, & Kidnetic.com

In our last last blog posting (Part 7), we finished organizing our defense mechanism notes.

Our journey continues as we learn to be mindful writers of research. Today I modeled for students how to draft a paragraph from their organized notes. We focused solely on the habitat notes and drafting the habitat paragraph. I had already written up my paragraph ahead of time so that I could really EXPLAIN how to expand notes into complete sentences using both my notes and my own words. I highlighted each of the main ideas of each sentence so students could see that every one of my notes was expanded in my draft. I discussed how to include a citation like (R1), (R2), and (R3) at the end of a sentence to indicate which resource each idea came from. You'll also notice my blue arrows on my pink notes on the left. While I was drafting, I made a decision as a writer to actually write about my notes in a slightly different order than I had glued them down. I explained to students why I decided to do this and that good writers need to constantly evaluate the best order for things. As much as we try to stick to our plan, sometimes we make decisions later on that we believe are right for our writing, even if it goes against the plan or wasn't included in the plan.

Here's some footage of the kids as they attempt this process on their own using their own notes. Notice their eyes and fingers going back and forth from their notes to their draft. AWESOME!

A few still shots of students expanding their notes into complete sentences.

This student expanded each of her habitat notes to draft a paragraph about the habitat of wild horses. She added some of her own words to each of her ideas and included a citation at the end of each sentence to give credit to the source where she got her information!

This student followed the same process for the habitat of a lynx.

To see pictures and footage from the next lesson in this animal research unit, visit this blog posting (Part 9).

Visit my TpT site if you're interested in getting all the student sheets used in this animal research unit.

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In social studies today, students worked in their tribes to brainstorm different uses for items the Europeans brought to trade at fur trading posts. Each member took a turn writing. This lesson helped the tribes work together. Their evaluation skills will be applied as they have to prioritize and rank which items their tribe believe are most important and least important to trade for in our mock fur trade later this week!

Our lessons in health/guidance right now is about nutrition, advertising, and healthy habits. I reserved the lab so we could visit Kidnetic.com. There are some great activities in the 'Move' section of the site. Students can go on a scavenger hunt by him or herself or against a sibling or a friend, do a fitness challenge, or invent a dance. Either way, all kids need is a COMPUTER to GET MOVING! Imagine that! It's a perfect site for kids who are bored with nothing to do at home...

Fluency, Science Fair, Tribes, & Animal Research - Part 7!

Every year, our school participates in the South Kettle Moraine Interpretive Reading Contest. Students are encouraged to read 3-5 minutes from a text of their choice and are judged on their eye contact, diction (pronunciation & enunciation), vocal volume and rate, vocal variety and expression (pleasant & interesting voice), posture and overall appearance, facial expression (appropriate and not distracting), poise (seems well practiced, minimizes errors, not memorized), understanding (conveys main ideas of selection), and audience appeal. Two students are selected from each class to advance to the school-wide competition, and then one student from each grade level moves on to the finals.

To help prepare for the Interpretive Reading Contest, we spent a lot of last month learning about fluency. We studied the different dimensions of fluency: pausing, phrasing, intonation, stress, pace/rate, and integration. Between teacher modeling, shared reading, and independent practice, students worked to adopt all the dimensions of fluency while reading.

I kept my fingers crossed that with our month-long study of fluency, we'd have some kids sign up to do the Interpretive Reading Contest, and lo and behold....we had nine kids sign up to participate! (We had one missing today who was sick. He'll read tomorrow!)

Today we held our classroom competition. Here are the brave students who got up in front of their class to get judged as they read. Our two finalists who will move on to the school-wide competition will be announced tomorrow! It is definitely going to be a TOUGH decision. We had a lot of excellent candidates read today.

Here is Nina who read a section from The Dog Who Cried Wolf by Keiko Kasza.

Here is Cyndi who read Silverlicious by Victoria Kann.

Elie read a section from Word After Word After Word by Patricia MacLachlan.

Summer read a section from The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Bob Hartman.

Cody read a section from Miss Alaineus by Debra Frasier.

Tyler's selection came from The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups by David Wisniewski.

Katie read Nice Try, Tooth Fairy by Mary W. Olson and Katherine Tillotson.

Elisa's book was My School's A Zoo by Stu Smith.

Yesterday we had a chance to go visit the Science Fair at the Hoard Museum. On display were all the science projects and essays of students (K-12) who participated.

Here are some of the K-2 projects. It's proof that you can be a scientist no matter how old or young you are!

There was an essay contest for the older kids.

We only had 3 brave fourth graders submit science fair projects. Here Teagan stands proudly next to her 'Perfect Polish' project in which she tested how long cheap, middle-ranged, and expensive nail polish lasted on both her and her mom's nails! Her results: Expensive nail polish really DOES last longer!

Here is Seeger standing next to his science fair project.

And Megan stands proudly next to her project!

While we were at the Hoard Museum, we asked if we could take our exit route through the Mysteries of the Mounds exhibit, which is exactly what we are studying in Social Studies right now!

In Social Studies today, I put students into 'tribes'. These small groups will be participating in a fur trade with me (the European) next week. To help build community among their tribes and to unify each tribe, I had students create necklaces with the other members of their tribe. Group members got the same color yarn but each of them could design their necklaces using any of the picture symbols they wanted. Teams made decisions as to which colored beads they would all put on their necklaces too. This was the first step to working together, problem-solving, and cooperating, which they will need to do next week during our fur trade.
Here's our orange tribe.

Here's the blue tribe (minus a member who was sick today!)

Here's a close-up of the maroon tribe.

The yellow tribe working diligently!

As Social Studies came to a close, several students asked if we could make a new seating arrangement to allow tribes to sit together every day. They claimed it would help them continue to problem solve throughout the day and build unity. I definitely couldn't argue with that, and because I believe in a democratic classroom, I told them I honored their voices, and we'd give it a try, as long as they could problem-solve as a whole class, get the desks where they needed to go, and could continue to earn the privilege. Below is the seating arrangement they came up with. :)

I guess only time will tell as to how well this will go over. I'm hoping that because they took ownership for the idea, they'll be more invested in making sure they keep each other in check!

In Writer's Workshop today, we continued on with our animal research. In my last blog posting (Part 6), we organized our diet notes so they were in the best order. Today we organized our defense mechanism notes so they were in the best order. We will begin drafting our paragraphs next week!

Here is Tyson as he organizes his notes on an alligator's defense mechanisms.

This is another student's order for his notes on an alligator's defense mechanisms.

To see pictures and footage from the next lesson in this animal research unit, visit this blog posting (Part 8).

Visit my TpT site if you're interested in getting all the student sheets used in this animal research unit.