Happy 2016 to All!

Happy New Year to all of my students and their families! May 2016 bring you peace and happiness in all that you do!

Our classroom will be incredibly busy this week as student show all that we've learned about nonfiction reading by independently reading a nonfiction text of his or her choice and completing the end of unit project. Additionally we will wrap up our habitat web research project and begin our habitat essay and mini presentation board. All while we will continue on with our word study program, math unit on division, and finish the week having our Antarctica/Penguin vocabulary quiz. Nothing like hitting the ground running!
       

       

This week I will begin our mystery read aloud, modeling the appropriate thinking and think notes for the genre. I like to use, Lucky Lottery an A to Z Mystery by Ron Roy. It is a just right model for many of the mystery characteristics students will be expected to recognize in their future group and independent reading. Some of the genre characteristics that we will experience together are cliff hangers, red herrings, and an integral setting. Ron Roy is a very descriptive author using many similes and idioms that we discuss as a class. We will also visit Ron Roy's website. Stay tuned for future blogs with pictures of our in class anchor charts. If you are interested in talking to your child about the genre study or asking questions as they are reading, you will both be able to speak the same language.

     During our mystery study we will also listen/watch some mystery books being read to us on Tumble books to gain experience with note taking while watching and listening, not just as part of an independent reading activity. This is really a very specific skill set that will be needed when students take the Smarter Balanced Assessments later this year! Practice in this area is beneficial!