Third Grade Thinkers: Summary and Theme

Today was such a fun day! We began our day by enjoying a story read to us by our custodian Juan. He talked to the kids about making a plan when you do things and read a short story from 'The 7 Habits of Happy Kids' book by Sean Covey. The kids really enjoyed it!

In Reading we learned how to create a summary using BME- beginning, middle, end. We made this anchor chart together and I read the book 'Smiley Shark'.

We practiced on this page how to create a summary and talked about how to only include the important events in the story. Then we discussed what a theme was and made an anchor chart for that. We listened to the story on Tumble Books 'When Turtle Grew Feathers' and discussed as a group what the theme was. The students then wrote a summary of the story independently. They did a great job! We will be discussing fables, themes, and creating summaries on various fiction texts the rest of the week.

At the end of the day we went and listened to Lola Schaefer, she is an author from Georgia. Her presentation was amazing! She talked about her book An Island Grows. She discussed how it is a non fiction book although it looks as if it would be a fiction book. She discussed the different literary elements she used in this book and how she did her research in order to create this piece. It was truly an amazing experience and the kids really enjoyed it. Have them tell you about her new book coming out...I couldn't keep a straight face!