Lovin' Literacy!

Our study of non-fiction text features continues. Yesterday and today we focused on insets and sidebars. We added them to our list of non-fiction text features!

Yesterday we focused specifically on insets. I modeled my own thinking of how my brain processed an inset that I had found in one of our social studies readers. We have been studying the economy of the five regions of the U.S. so this text helped to combine literacy and our social studies content.

For guided practice, I photocopied a different page from the text about strawberries in California.

Students recorded their thinking in their Thoughtful Logs in the Genre Learning tab.

During guided practice, I noticed there were a few kids who still struggled with connecting the text, the bigger pictures, and the inset. I pulled these students during guided reading and used yet another page from our social studies reader to practice the skill one more time. Students read about rice plants in Louisiana.

Students recorded their thinking in their Thoughtful Logs after telling me verbally what their thoughts were for each step of our process in regards to understanding insets.

Today we reviewed our learning of insets from yesterday and then focused on sidebars.

I modeled my thinking using a page from our social studies reader that informed me of a potato festival in the Midwest.

For guided practice, I photocopied a different page from the same reader that had a sidebar in it. The text overlapped with our social studies content and discussed an oyster festival in the Northeast.

After students read the guided practice page, they recorded their thinking in their Thoughtful Logs.

Here is one student's response:

As I've mentioned several times in this blog, we are studying the economy of each of the five U.S. regions. Today we focused specifically on the Northeast. I assigned each student to a reader at his/her independent level. Students summarized what they learned about one specific industry or product in the Northeast.

I worked with some students to read about the fishing industry in the Northeast. Together we wrote a summary of what we learned about fishing and recorded it on our notes sheet that we will later use to create a magazine about our nation's economy!

April read about cranberries in the Northeast. She used her own words and key words from the text to help her write her summary! 

In Writer's Workshop today, we used two pages from the mentor text Bubba the Cowboy Prince to continue our exploration of verbs and adverbs. We highlighted the verbs in yellow.

I focused more specifically on the word 'perfectly' on this page to introduce adverbs.

We recorded our learning in our Thoughtful Logs in the Powerful Words and Phrases section.

Students selected three verbs and three appropriate adverbs and wrote sentences to demonstrate their understanding.

I had a teacher email me and ask if I could post all my anchor charts for our writing process. Here they are!

In other literacy activities, we got to meet with our second-grade buddies in Mrs. Adams' class. We helped our buddies learn to use a great spelling website. Students any age can use this website at home to practice their spelling words!

And last but certainly not least, students who left the classroom during learning time only 5 times or less during Quarter 1 (to go to the bathroom, get a drink, or get something from their backpack) got to eat lunch in the classroom. I love students who value their time IN the classroom! Way to to Natasha, Tyler, Summer, Blake, Adam, Casey, Cody, Katie, and Elisa!

Homework:

1. Reading - 15 mins., Turkey Log

2. Math - 10 mins. facts, 8.4 

3. Spelling - Sentences, Test Fri.

4. Social Studies - North America Map Test, Fri.

                         - Finish Northeast notes

5 Days in 1 Blog Post...

Honestly, it's been that busy of a week... phew!

We started our WKCE state testing this week. Students took the reading and math sections of the test on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and they will continue to take the other science, language arts, and social studies sections in the weeks to come

One of the skills we learned during Writer's Workshop this week was how to use a thesaurus. A thesaurus is a reference book students can use to find a synonym for a word they may be overusing in their writing and/or to find more powerful words. Students practiced looking up synonyms for words fourth-graders commonly overuse (like 'nice', 'good', 'said', and 'fun').

We combined our new skills with the fall season by making Turkey Thesauruses! Students put a common word on the belly of a turkey and used their thesauruses to find synonyms for that word to put on the feathers. I pulled up a picture from our blog from last year when my students made these same projects so my current students could see a final product and connect their learning to a 5th grader they know! This is way blogging can be used to enhance learning in the classroom. It can be used as a visual reference for what students are learning using students they already admire. I think it helps to make learning more meaningful and connect the idea that we are a community of learners!

You will see in the next two pictures that Tyson (in the first picture) and Elisa (in the second picture) are both looking at the picture on the blog to help guide the creation of their turkeys.

While I was gone, we had a great reading lesson going on in our room that was taught by Mrs. Pierce, my co-teacher during reading! She used the mentor text The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson to practice the strategy that good readers infer characters' feelings and actions through reading their dialogue and what other characters' say about them. Mrs. Pierce explained her inferred thinking using a few of the pages from the book. She set up part of the anchor chart ahead of time but it's the co-construction of the anchor chart (the messier handwriting) that truly helps students connect to their learning. One thing I learned early on in this literacy model is that it's OK to not have perfect handwriting when you're writing on an anchor chart in front of the kids - the fact that you're constructing their learning WITH them is what makes anchor charts so meaningful for our kids.

For guided practice, Mrs. Pierce photocopied another page from The Other Side and asked students to record what the text said and what they inferred about the characters' feelings from the dialogue or actions. You'll notice the chart students glued into their My Strategies tab of their Thoughtful Logs matches the language on the anchor chart. The example below shows evidence of one student's inferential thinking during guided practice.

This next example shows what another student inferred during guided practice. It also shows evidence of a one more example that he recorded during independent reading. Students are always encouraged to keep their Thoughtful Logs open during independent reading so they can continue to record examples of their strategy use.

On a totally different note, today was the end of our first quarter. Students who met their reading goal for this first quarter got to chew gum for the first two hours of the day (in which we were in our classroom and not in any other part of the building). It was a fun, simple reward that Mr. T approved!

And as if that isn't enough excitement, we also had Ana's dog, Angus, come visit us at the end of the day today. Ana was Person of the Week because her birthday was on Monday. Ana's family adopted Angus from the Humane Society recently. He was such a sweet dog!

Homework:
1. Reading - 15 mins., Turkey Log
2. Math - 10 mins. facts
3. Thursday envelope
4. Conference slip - Due back Wednesday!

Don't forget Fall Family Fun Night at Barrie on Tues., Nov. 7 from 5:30 - 7pm!

Spinning Our Way Into Halloween!

Today was a day of excitement for the kids. We had to get through a whole day of learning before our Halloween party and parade this afternoon. We began a new chapter on Probability where students got with a partner to do a series of experiments using spinners and coins. Outcomes were recorded in a table, and students were to interpret their results.

At 2:00 it was finally time to get in our costumes for our Halloween party. Our whole school met in the gym before we started our annual costume parade around the school for parents.

We had a nice spread of snacks, too, and played a quick game of Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin!

One of my favorite costumes from the day was a fifth grader who I had last year who was Forrest Gump. Although most of the kids didn't now who Forrest Gump was, we adults loved it! :) Thanks for the smile, Larson!

Enjoy your long weekend, everyone!

Homework:
1. Reading - 15 mins./night, Pizza Log
2. Math - 10 mins. of facts
            -  Sign Ch. 7 Math Test Slip
            -  Sheet 27.1 (book problems on back side of sheet)
3. Writing - Indenting for a changed topic
4. Thursday envelope
5. Library Books
6. Long socks & helmets for rollerblading (bring for Wednesday!)