Social Issues Reading Unit

      We've just begun our social issues unit with a read aloud of The Hundred Dresses, by Elenor Estes. In researching this book a bit for this blog post, I have learned that the story takes place in 1930's Connecticut!  The gist of the story is that two girls in a third grade class pick-on/bully another classmate,Wanda, because she wears the same dress each day, but she insists she has 100 dresses. Wanda Petronski  is also an immigrant to America with an unusual sounding name and a bit of a different look about her.
      This initial reading will allow us to investigate questions such as: "What is bullying?",  "Who bullies?",  and "What can be done about bulling?" In investigating these questions we will look at some nonfiction passages. This will lead us to a discussion about how do we know we can trust information we find in a in a text. Additionally, we will investigate what life was like for an immigrant in 1930's America. This will give our third graders a little bit of background knowledge for their immigration unit next year.
      Finally, we will be studying some vocabulary from the book, so when you see the word webs coming home please take the time to discuss the webs with your child and if possible use the words during everyday conversation. All of these efforts will help build vocabulary and improve overall reading comprehension!!

Stay tuned for more information about our Social Issues Reading Unit!

     

What Are Your Big Rocks?

Habit 3-Put First Things First

After reading the January Habit 3 story, Put First Things First, I decided we should spend a bit more time identifying what the important things are in each of our lives?

On Friday, we began by watching a very cool video that made the abstract idea of time management very visual and real for the third grade students. Please take the time to check it out by clicking on The Jar of Life link below. 

The Jar of Life

Once we discussed the significance of the video we charted somethings that are sand, pebbles and rocks in our own lives. Then each student had time to think about the big rocks in his/her life. We wrote significant words on the big rocks and glue those to our jars first, leaving some space for the pebbles and sand.

Ask your child, "What Are Your Big Rocks?

The students really seemed to understand the idea of working before playing in order to get the most important people and things taken care of before all of the time in a day is used up. Now practice makes perfect, so I'll continue to remind students to put first things first at school, and you can feel free to remind your child of this very important habit at home as well!

We Are Investigating the Mystery Genre!

We are almost done reading the whole class read aloud mystery, Lucky Lottery by Ron Roy. The students are loving the book and we are having MANY opportunities for shared thinking and discussion about features of the mystery genre.

Students have just begun reading in a just right reading group. This will allow them to more closely read and discuss a mystery with the support of other classmates. We will work in these groups for about a week and then each student will take on his/her own mystery book to apply all that has been learned and practiced in whole group and small group reading. These are the five book that we are sharing in 6 groups.

I have copied 2 anchor charts. These serve as the basis for our discussion in whole class and small group.  These questions can help you "speak the same language" when you and your child are discussing any mystery! Happy Sleuthing!

One last reminder: We are working on vocabulary for the mystery unit. Students have received the first set of flash cards to be used as nightly practice. Another set will be given on Tuesday. During the unit students are working to use the new vocabulary in whole class and small group discussions. Please help your child practice the vocabulary by way of a memory style game or simply flashcard practice each night. At the end of the unit there will be quiz as part of the final assessment.

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!

Learning Farm Opportunity

                                      

I wanted to let everyone know that I have signed up for a trial account with Learning Farm
https://www.learningfarm.com/. I did this so students could use the Main Idea and Details link to practice at one of our centers last week.
The good news is that it is a one month trial account, set to end around 12/30/15. If you would like to have your child practice reading skills we have learned in class, they could log on at home and play various games as they have time during the next month. There is also a math tab. Please understand this is not assigned homework, just a fun opportunity for anyone who is interested. 
Login:  student's first name.
Password: abc123
Enjoy!

Its Monday! What Are You Reading?

This week we will continue our exploration of nonfiction text structure by delving into a nonfiction book called, Animal Homes.  This fascinating book immediately engages readers by asking why people need homes. The author reveals that animal homes serve the same basic functions as our homes do— they provide shelter, a place to store and make food, and a safe place to raise families. This topic fits perfectly with our science unit on Habitats! (Double Bang for our Buck!)
On Monday, I will model reading two chapters and determining the main ideas and supporting details. On Tuesday, Students will work with a partner for support. They will read the next chapter and will collaborate to decide on a main idea statement and supporting details. Finally, on Wednesday students will move toward independently finding the main idea and details of the last chapters.

Next, the process of determining main idea and detail will become hands on with center practice on our shortened conference days. 

Students will work on four centers:

• Each student will use laptops to visit web sites with main idea/detail games. 
• Other centers will feature manipulatives to organize and categorize big ideas and match details that support. 
• Finally, small groups will meet with me to read a passage at the appropriate reading level and write a main idea statement and details.

This will wrap up a busy short week with a big focus on determining main idea and detail. This is a  comprehension strategy that will prove important in reading nonfiction text!

Nonfiction Reading of All Kinds!

What a busy time it is in our classroom! It is hard to believe we soon will be entering our third unit in reading. We have read and enjoyed an extensive unit on nonfiction. The unit began with expository nonfiction which is mainly facts and information and highlighted with many text features such as diagrams, maps, and photographs with captions. We've had several lessons on 'reading around' an unknown word to figure out the meaning. We found that nonfiction author's uses context clue words such as: is, or, called etc to aid the reader. Other times there are clues such as synonyms, antonyms or examples that help guide us to the unknown word's meaning. We focused on writing main idea and detail as well as using this structure to write a summary.
The unit finished up with a focus on narrative nonfiction, which featured biographies. We took a look at several individuals such as children's book illustrator, Ezra Jack Keats and writer, speaker, activist, Helen Keller. We learned in order to read a biography well we need to pay attention to the life story of the subject, but also to gain facts and information about the time period the person lived in, and to take note of the way the subject led his/her life. We also found that very often the life lessons the subject learns are lesson for anyone to learn including the reader!
      Since are close to completing the nonfiction reading and students have gained skills in this area, I'd like to take the time to mention two fantastic website for the whole family. The activities on these websites would support the learning  that we have done in class. Don't worry too much about reading levels just choose a topic of interest to all of you and Enjoy!
Non-fiction reading that Kids Love: The following article discusses areas of the newspaper that are appropriate and enjoyable for kids to read. The article is written by Scholastic especially for parents.
Reading Adventure Packs for Families: Reading rockets is a website for teachers, students and parents. It has lots of information about many different aspects in reading. I will link you to this site again and again in the future. It is an awesome resource that I use in class as well. This link will take you to a page that has Adventure packs of books specifically designs for parent and children to investigate together. The creators have paired excellent fiction stories with logical nonfiction topics. For example, the outstanding author, Patricia Polocco has a book called, The Bee Tree which has a theme of maintaining stamina to learn to do something worthwhile and then enjoying the rewards. This has been paired with a nonfiction book, The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci. There is a free PDF that can be downloaded which provides questions and activities for you and your children to further explore the topics. Either book on its own would have great value, together they will create a wonderful learning experience for you and your child that will be treasured.
Keep these ideas in mind as the colder months approach and there is more indoor time to be spent together.
Finally, I am attaching a link so that you will have a small selection of before, during and after reading activities for you to discuss as your child reads nonfiction books at home.
Nonfiction questions 1- Just nonfiction
Nonfiction questions 2 - Fiction and Nonfiction
How to Ask Questions to Check Comprehension - Blog article
I hope these are helpful tools for you and your family,