Realistic Fiction Reading - Starts Today!

The students are finally bringing home their realistic fiction book they selected to read at home.  This is an activity I have mentioned before in my blog, but we always seem to be too busy or have snow days that we run out of time.  Not today!  We are ready and the students each have one they are to be reading at home!

What  I would like them to do (and I have explained this to them), is to make a blog post on their student blog pages each week about their book. We are currently studying realistic fiction in writing and have discussed how realistic fiction can take place at present time, has real events that could happen but are not real characters, has a problem and solution, as well as determined character traits.  Writing and reading go hand in hand so we are going to try and connect our writing to reading realistic fiction books.

I am not assigning a certain number of pages to be read each week or anything, but I would like the students to have their book done by middle of February.  No one has a really long book so this should be feasible.  In order to respond each week, students need to be reading.  In order to get the book done though, students need to read more than 10 minutes one night a week.  I told the students I would love to see students reading EVERY NIGHT, but I realize some nights things come up.  Do the best you can to read every night, but maybe miss a night if life is busy.

Here is what I need from the students by Friday of this week (February 3rd):
     1.  Tell the title and author of your book and write a summary about what you have read thus far.  Remember the "WIN" strategy for summarizing. (W- who and what, I-important information, and N-few number of words.)
     2.  How would you describe the main character thus far?  Why?  What has he/she done to make you think that?  Try to come up with two or more ways to describe the main character and tell what he/she has done in the book to make you feel that way.
     3.  How do you know this is realistic fiction?  Tell us how you know.
     4.  Optional:  If you are far enough in your book, what is the main problem?  Tell us about it and predict how you think it will be solved.  If you know, tell us what the resolution was.
     5.  What do you think of your book so far?  Are you enjoying it?  Why or why not?

If your child finishes his/her book very quickly and does a post about it, please have them return their book and I will give them another one to read at home.

I have also told the students that if they do not have a computer at home, they can do their response post at school.  It is their responsibility to talk to me and let me know when they want to work on it though.

I think this will be a great way to encourage students to read more at home as well as connect our reading and writing together.  The students are very excited about it and have selected some wonderful books to read!  Students may also use this time reading towards their minutes for Book-It.  (January calendars are due Wednesday or Thursday of this week.)

I look forward to reading their first post about their books this Friday!

Decimals, Levers, Multiplication Facts and Realistic Fiction

Hopefully everyone is enjoying their nice, long weekend.  Although I am sitting at meetings today, it is nice that the students had an extra day to relax.

As the title to my blog states, we are jumping into decimals in math.  While it is challenging to start with, students are grasping the concepts as long as we model it with base 10 blocks and use the language of "longs" for tenths and "cubes" for hundredths.  I also try to relate it to money as dimes are "tenths" and pennies are "hundredths".  We will be working on decimals this week as well.  I will also be adding some online games to the right of my blog that focus on place value, but some of the "place value" online games listed already do contain decimal place value.  Keep practicing them at home as well as reviewing multiplication facts.

Levers....our first simple machine for science.  While we are just getting started with simple machines, the students have a great understanding of force and motion thanks partly to our previous literacy theme on "Science and Sports".  We will be experimenting with friction and motion Wednesday and Thursday as well.

As writers, we are going to leap into the genre of realistic fiction and pull in some "word choice" activities and lessons.  I would like to connect this to some independent reading.  Sometime this week, I will be sending home a realistic fiction book for your child to read at home.  A letter will be sent as well explaining responses/activities I would like the students to do as well to build their comprehension skills as well as fluency.  Each 3B child will be responsible for reading the book at home and doing the activities.  (The letter will explain more, but I wanted to give you a heads up.)    Look for the book to be sent by the end of the week.

Miss Ogden, our JTerm student from Luther, has taken over the read aloud to the students at the end of the day.  She has also been working with small groups throughout the day (with my guidance) to gain a better understanding of teaching as well as students.  She is fitting in well, and we are lucky to have her!

A letter is coming home today or tomorrow explaining an incentive activity we are doing to encourage students to work on their multiplication facts.  It is called the "Walking Taco" celebration, and the details are explained in the letter.  When your child has mastered a fact family (such as the 5 family), please have them let me know so that I can assess them quickly and they can begin practicing other facts.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

You may have noticed that I have added something new to the right of the blog.  I am hoping that by sharing some comprehension strategies we are working on at school, parents can reinforce them at home as well when students are reading.  I am just getting started and have listed a few with more to come.  Definitions, ways to help at home, and online practice will be included once I get it going.  (Give me a few days to finish those that are there, please.)  If you have any questions about any of these, feel free to contact me.

Enjoy the rest of the week and stay warm!

Great Start to 3rd Quarter!

Well..we are back at it and having fun!  I am so pleased with the students and how hard they are working after returning from a holiday break!  They amaze me every day, and I love it!  I couldn't be more fortunate to have such a great bunch of students and parents to work with!

Hopefully you received your child's report card yesterday.  They were sent home in an envelope that required parent's signature.  If you have not seen your child's report card, please ask him/her for it.  I would also like all envelopes with signatures returned by this Friday!  Remember that if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to call or email me.  I did take some time to go over report cards (scoring, literacy, math, etc.) with the students so that they understood what the report card stated about them. Hopefully there were no surprises for the students.

Last week I introduced a new online program that can be used to create digital movies and video.  It is a program called Animoto, and a letter was sent home to all parents explaining the program and how to use it.  I also sent home my login name and password for the students to create their own videos at home through my account.  We used the program in our literacy curriculum to create digital video about our theme of science and sports.  The students LOVED the program so much, and it is so easy, that I see many students are making their own videos at home!  Excellent!  I will be sharing the Animoto videos via my blog page when they are all completed.  If you can't wait, have your child log in to my account and have them show you their creations!  Lots of great learning and application from our literacy reading to create a visual presentation!

3B is lucky to have a JTerm student from Luther this month.  Miss Ogden joined us yesterday and will be with us throughout the month observing and starting to work with students.  I have asked that she create a letter to you, the parents, introducing herself and explaining why she is here so I will not go into much.  I just wanted to welcome her and be sure you knew about her if your 3B child has mentioned it at home.

Remember that if you did not return your December Book-It calendar to do so.  They were due last Friday.  A new calendar for January was sent home last week.  The required time has gone up each month so keep reading!

We have started our new literacy theme about communities and geography.  It goes nicely with the social studies studies unit we just completed so students are grasping the concepts and vocabulary very well.  In writing, we are finishing up some letters to our pen pals, doing a creative writing activity with similes about our family members (look out!), and will be moving into writing realistic fiction pieces that focus on word choice and organization. We have also started our new science unit titled Force and Motion.  This also is good transition from our last literacy theme of science and sports.  (Isn't it nice how everything blends together????  :)  The students loved the start of our science unit as they had a chance to play with toys and talk about how they work.  Super fun!

Enjoy the sunshine and gorgeous day today.  I hear cold weather is coming, but we really can't complain can we?  It is January.  Have a great week!