Synthesizing, Counting Change, & Dewey!

That's right, folks. It's the last week of school and you better believe we're still learning! I know, I'm an eeeevil teacher. :)

Today we talked about synthesizing - when our thinking changes as we read. I read The Littlest Matryoshka by Corinne Demas Bliss last week to introduce the idea of nesting dolls and how the littlest doll fits inside of the next doll which fits inside of the next, and so on. The nesting dolls become a concrete example for explaining synthesizing. We start with a small idea of what a topic or book is about, and as we read more, we add more and more layers to our original thinking to deepen our understanding of a text.

During the mini-lesson, I actually modeled my own process of synthesizing using a non-fiction text on competitive horse shows. I started by writing on my first post-it what I knew about competitive horse racing. As I read a few more pages, my understanding deepened which caused my thinking to change so I recorded my new thinking on the next post-it, and so on. As I wrote each post it, I used my real nesting dolls to show how each layer built upon the one before it. Concrete examples are so helpful for kids learning complex processes like this! (The idea came from Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor!)

Through my DonorsChoose.org project that I proposed and got funded in March of 2012, I was able to purchase several high-interest non-fiction readers of varied reading levels that I decided to have my students use to practice synthesizing. I gave each student a book at his/her reading level and also had them glue a similar nesting doll anchor chart into their Thoughtful Logs.

As students read through their readers, they stopped after every of couple pages to put together their new learning with what they already knew to form new thoughts about their topic.

Thank you to all my DonorsChoose.org donors! Even when I told the kids they could put their books away, I found that most of the class didn't want to! They just wanted to finish 'one more page'! Not too shabby for the last week of school! Go, 4B!

Last week we also started working more with money and using the 'counting up' method for making change. I put students in pairs to work together to find the right amount of change without needing to use subtraction at all!

Lastly, Casey (my boyfriend) and his dog came down to visit this weekend. Casey and I did a workout (Insanity!) video in my classroom since my home DVD player wasn't hooked up. Dewey (Casey's adorable Vizsla (pronounced 'veesh-la')). came with us into my classroom and found a nice home ... IN THE BATHTUB! He didn't want to go outside, and his ears perked up when I asked Dewey if he wanted to read a book! Love that dog! :) I tell stories about Dewey often to my fourth graders so I showed them this video this morning of Dewey in the tub, and they loved it so much they asked me to put it on the blog. Here it is!

A few more great shots that we got...

Too cute!

Compare & Contrast

Last week we started talking more about compare and contrast text structure. I bolded all the compare and contrast signal words in the Frogs & Toads text below to highlight the focus of the lesson.

As a class we recorded all the compare and contrast signal words as we read. We also discussed how a Venn diagram is a graphic organizer we use to organize information for comparing and contrasting. After we created our anchor chart of compare and contrast words, I had students practice using these signal words orally. I modeled by saying, "Mrs. Erickson and I are both teachers. However, she is still in college and I am not." and "One similarity between Elisa and me is that we are both wearing earrings, although Elisa's earrings are small and short and my earrings are long." For guided practice, students verbally compared and contrasted themselves with other kids in the room using our signal words. We shared out so students had several good examples.

To link students learning to writing, I had them write two compare and contrast statements about themselves and a peer in their Thoughtful Logs.

Today we continued on with compare and contrast. I read a short folktale and modeled how to fill in a Venn diagram of the two characters' similarities and differences. I then modeled how to write a compare and contrast paragraph using the signal words from our anchor chart. 

 For independent practice, I had students read a different short story about a milkmaid and a magician. Students filled out their own Venn diagrams for the characters and wrote a compare and contrast paragraph using our signal words!

Flagging Our Thoughts, Problem/Solution Text Structure, Figurative Language, & Crayfish!

One of the books I used recently for a literature discussion group was Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine. You can see I placed a 'common focus post-it' on the inside back cover so students would constantly 'have it in their face' as to what they were to be thinking deeply about and flagging. This student also flagged symbolism she noted while reading. When I previewed the book with this group, I told them to see if they could figure out the symbolism behind the birds, humming, the crate, and the leaves that appear throughout the text.

Students also know that after they've finished reading the assigned text, they are to write a response that addressed the 'common focus flag' and any other thoughts they flagged. Here you can see this student responded in her first paragraph to the important historical figures she connected to while reading the book. Her second paragraph captures in writing the symbolism she noted in the text. 

 My literacy coach, Candice Johnson, came two days last week to do back-to-back mini-lessons on problem/solution text structure. She modeled using a text about frogs. (Note: Books about animals are excellent mentor texts to use for problem/solution because they will almost always have a problem and solution section near the end of the text or article.) She recorded the problems frogs face and solutions discussed in the text for helping to save and protect frogs.

For guided practice, she handed out a double-side sheet. On one side of the sheet, Mrs. Johnson had copied a page out of a book about lions that told about the problems lions face. On the back side was a section about the solutions to lions' problems. 

 

Students recorded lions' problems and solutions on their own chart that had been glued into their Thoughtful Logs prior to the lesson.

 

Students shared out what they had learned, and Mrs. Johnson added their thinking to her animal problems and solutions anchor chart.

Here's a close-up of the chart we created that day:

For independent practice, students got their own animal reader and recorded problems and solutions for their animal.

 

The next day, Mrs. Johnson helped us identify problem and solution signal words. These are words that frequently signal the kind of information we are reading about to deepen our understanding. Using a photocopied version of the frog pages she modeled with the day before for identifying actual problems and solutions, Mrs. Johnson highlighted problem and solution signal words and recorded them on a T-chart.

 Students recorded these signal words in their Thoughtful Logs.

Then they broke up into small groups to find problem and solution signal words in their own texts about one specific animal. This group looked through the book about wolves.

 This group recorded problem and solution signal words found in a book about sea turtles.

We gathered together as a class for students to share out the additional problem and solution words they had found while reading their books.

 Here's the final list of the problem and solution signal words our class found. Kids now know that many words can signal that you are reading about a problem or a solution. It may not be specifically stated in the text!

In reading we've also continued discussing figurative language. One lesson focused specifically on personification. We used the book Sierra by Diane Seibert as our mentor text. In her book, she personifies a mountain by giving it human traits like the ability to breathe, feel, and and whisper.

Another form of figurative language is onomatopoeia. We used Rattletrap Car by Phillis Root as our mentor text. We recorded examples of onomatopoeia from the text. During independent reading, students looked for examples in their own texts. We added students' discoveries to our chart! 

 

We also 'read' Sector 7 by David Wiesner. It is a wordless picture book. Students recorded onomatopoeia words to go along with the action on each page. By the time we were done, they had a word bank of onomatopoeia words! To apply their new learning, I told students to write one paragraph using four onomatopoeia words about a character going to either a cave or a haunted house. Here are two writing samples!

*Scritch, scratch. Crrrk, crrrk, crrrk.* What's that NOISE? Onomatopoeia words? YES! But really, did you know we have crayfish?! Students are observing and learning about these creepy, crawly creatures in science!

Figurative Langauge: Literal vs. Author's Meaning

Last week in reading, we introduced figurative language. We will dive into all of the sub-categories of figurative language (including similes/metaphors, idioms, exaggerations, hyperboles, etc.) this coming week. I used this anchor chart to demonstrate the literal meaning and the author's meaning of "a frown that breaks rocks" - a phrase from one of our mentor texts. (Please don't judge my frown with big muscles. I've never claimed to be a good artist!)

When students came to the carpet for our lesson, I had them each bring a post-it on a hard surface and a pencil. For guided practice, I paired students up and asked them to draw the literal and author's meaning for the following phrase from one of our mentor texts: "Slowly dusk pours the syrup of darkness into the forest."

Students who had to draw the literal meaning for this phrase came up first. Each student described what they
drew. We saw a lot of pictures of dusk with real hands squeezing an actual syrup bottle over the top of trees in a forest. Two of the pictures had other trees asking, "Where are the waffles!" It made us laugh and truly helped to establish that we can't always take author's words literally when we read.

 

Understanding figurative language means we need to think beyond the literal meaning of words. I was pleased to see that the author's meaning drawings students made for "slowly dusk pours the syrup of darkness into the forest" didn't have any actual syrup bottles in them. Students simply drew a peaceful forest getting darker.

As a class, we wrote out in words the literal meaning and the author's meaning for our phrase.

For independent practice, students returned to their desks and glued the following chart into their Author's Craft section of their Thoughtful Logs. Students drew a picture and wrote out in words the literal meaning and the author's meaning for the phrase: "a laugh that creates tidal waves..."

In other news, we have been working on pre-writing, drafting, editing, and publishing our Mother's Day projects. For the sake of wanting to surprise any of our mothers who follow our blog, I'm going to refrain from posting too many pictures of what we're doing so that I don't completely give away what your little munchkins will be giving you. Here they are in the publishing process:

Last week, we also worked on writing our thank you cards to the Jefferson County Courthouse and the Kutz Farm for letting us visit and learn about government and agriculture. I printed off several pictures from our field trips and each student used one of the pictures on each of their cards to kind of 'personalize' our experience at each place. Prior to writing, we reviewed the parts of a friendly letter, in addition to a topic sentence, three supporting detail sentences, and a closing sentence for a strong paragraph.

Lastly, Nina was our Person of the Week last week. She brought in her dog, Meatball!So tiny and so very cute. :)