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!

 

 

 Here is her website if you would like more information about her: http://www.lolaschaefer.com

 

 These are a few other of books she has written:  

Salt Dough Landforms

This was such a fun activity! The kids brought salt dough from home and created salt dough maps of the United States' landforms. They look awesome so far! We will paint them and add a map key in a few days after they have dried.


Working on our border!

Focused on making an awesome model of the landforms.

 

 

 

 

  

Finished Mission Statement

Yesterday we finished our classroom mission statement. The kids did such a wonderful job! They worked with a partner on a class mission statement and put it on an index card. They came out great! We voted on one that we felt fit our class the best and incorporated ideas we felt strongly about in our classroom. Then we discussed how we could make it even better, adding words, taking words out. We combined other ideas from other groups cards and this is what we came up with! As a school, we are required to post these mission statements on our door. It was an amazing experience and the kids have really taken ownership of it!

 

Finishing Up Character Changes!

Today we finished up our character changes activities and BOY are they pros at it now! I pulled this lesson from a 5th grade blog so it was a little challenging for my kids but we LOVE challenges! They all did a wonderful job and their work came out better than I ever imagined. We have been reading the book 'Mrs. Mack' by the same author as 'Thank You, Mr. Falker'- Patricia Polacco. It was awesome because the kids were able to make connections between books. Both books almost made me cry! We analyzed how the main character Patricia changed throughout the story and the reasons why. Here's some of their awesome work they did on their foldable! Tomorrow and Friday will be full days of math and social studies to catch up! I like to really go in depth with my kids an have them thinking at high levels before we move on to another skill. Looking at their reading tests yesterday, these kids are doing so awesome! 75% of them scored 100's and the rest were 90's! Go kids! So proud. :)

Zoooooom Books!

Oh how these books are so awesome! Earlier in the year we read the picture book 'Zoom' where we discussed how when reading, you can read pictures that tell a story also. In the book, it 'zoomed' out in each picture and we tried to figure out what the next page was going to have on it. These books tied into this book and the "Me On The Map"  and gave the students a perspective on where we actually are in relation to the world! Here are some example that were amazing!

 

 

 

 

Our Mission Statement

Today we created a bubble thinking map to brainstorm for our mission statement. We viewed a PowerPoint on what a mission statement was, then we talked about words we thought described things that were the most important to us in our classroom. Then we narrowed it down to the top 5 words we thought we should include in our mission statement and put a box around them. We will finish (or at least come up with a rough draft) of our mission statement tomorrow!

Inferences & Character Changes

Yesterday we had an awesome lesson in inferencing and character changes! I have to say, this is probably the best lesson we have had all year! We read the story 'Thank you, Mr. Falker' and filled out this chart while reading. The kids put post it notes on the chart during the beginning, middle, and end. They worked with a partner and inferred how the character was feeling and why they thought that based on what the author was SHOWING them and not TELLING them. Their inferences were amazing! This will lead us into making a summary using a beginning, middle and end for next week. :)