"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today, we continued our Gail Gibbons author study after attending an assembly with a wonderful story-teller!  Today, students continued to notice Gail Gibbon's use of different text structures and text features in the book Deserts.  We noticed a variety of text structures, including description, compare/contrast, main idea & details, and cause-and-effect.  The variety of structures help the author share their information in the most appropriate way.  We also noticed many of her commonly used text features once again, including diagrams, vocabulary words, cut-aways, and even in-sets.  Ask your child what these features are and how they help us understand her book about deserts!  Happy reading!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

It's Monday and we are back to a full day's work!  It was great meeting with everyone over the conference days!  Today we started our author study of Gail Gibbons to wrap up our non-fiction unit of study.  She is a well-known author of non-fiction books who has written over 170 books!  Wow!  We will study how she structures her writing (main idea/details, compare/contrast, cause & effect, sequence of events, description...) and her amazing text features.  She will be a "mentor author" for our non-fiction books that we are writing!  Check her work out and ask your child what his or her favorite Gail Gibbons book is throughout our study!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today we started our mini study of animal homes.  As a class, we are reading and discussing the story, Animals Homes, and discussing the main idea, supporting details, and HOW the details support the main idea.  In Book Clubs, students are reading about how different animals build their homes, including birds, spiders and insects, and mammals.  Animals are truly architects and engineers!  During reading, I shared a video of weaver birds building their nests with my "bird" book club.  Check it out!  It's amazing how well they sew!  At reader's round-up, I shared the video below that shows how prairie dogs build their complex burrow system.  Happy reading!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today, we wrapped up our unit on Antarctica by reading about a "Whale of a Debate."  We read the article "Sea Hunt," featured in Time For Kids magazine.  The article discussed two points of view on hunting whales in Antarctica, including both the Japanese (pro) and the IWC (International Whaling Commission-con) points of view.  In our class, most students sided with the IWC, but three students thought Japan was right for hunting whale for scientific research, food, and as an oil resource.  Which would you side with?  In addition to reading critically and debating a point of view, students were also exposed to digital text features, including video links, voice recordings of the text, and vocabulary boxes.  Wow, what a great job our class did with 21st century reading skills!   

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today we started our non-fiction genre study!  Our unit, Navigating Non-Fiction, will focus on reading strategies that are specific to the non-fiction genre, including determining the main idea & supporting details, making predictions, and asking questions.  Students will begin with a study of Antarctica.  Do you know the differences between the Arctic and Antarctica?  Check out this article!  As a class, we will compare and contrast how authors write about the same topic by reading a variety of texts on Antarctica and penguins.  Check out the penguins of Antarctica forming a huddle to keep warm in the frigid temperatures and whipping winds of Antarctica!

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

This week, we are studying how different authors of similar texts portray their message about a similar character.  We will read and compare and contrast the poem "Watchman" to the books Scarecrow and The Lonely Scarecrow.  We will carefully study vocabulary terms that are important to understanding the scarecrow character.  In addition, students will be exposed to blogging!  Check out our kidblog!  Students will begin blogging about their reader's workshop books in class.  Blogging is a great way to share good books, as well as comment on what our classmates are reading.   Directions on how to appropriately comment on blogs will be sent home soon if your child wishes to do that at home.  However, school time will be provided for blogging!  Happy reading!  Perhaps enjoy a good book outside today….

Amazing Pumpkin Characters!

Wow, your pumpkin characters are AWESOME!  If you are unable to make it to Spirit Night and want to see the class's pumpkins, check them out here!

 

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

What a week we have ahead in Reading!  This week, we will finish our Gooney Bird books in book clubs!  We are studying Gooney Bird closely as we wrap up our character trait unit.  In addition to pin-pointing appropriate character traits to various characters, we are also studying ways that characters and their traits drive the events of the text, their motivations, and actions that contribute to the sequence of events in the text.  Students will view, participate, and apply learning to a series of lessons by learnzillion.com that review how to do a "close reading" of literature on The Story of the Three Little Pigs, with a focus on character traits.  Check it out with a subscription FREE with a google account.  It's an excellent resource.  Happy reading!  And I am REALLY looking forward to seeing your pumpkin characters on Wednesday!      

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

Did you know that a man once tight-rope walked between the two World Trade Center buildings?  It's true!  Ask your child about Philippe Petit, an aerialist who "spent almost an hour walking, dancing, and performing tricks a quarter of a mile in the sky."  This was a 'character' who demonstrated traits including bravery, courage, and determination in the book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.  He was goal-oriented and a risk-taker.  Check out real-live footage of Mr. Petit!  Although we read this book at the end of last week, it's such an inspiring story, I really wanted to share it!  We will continue our study of character traits and discuss what moves/contributes to the actions of characters in a story.  We are currently reading different Gooney Bird books in our book clubs and observing her grow and change as a creative, fun-loving, unique character!

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

Today, we continued to discuss our reading strategies/thinking while reading post-its with a focus on Author's Craft.  We talked about John Updike's use of literary devices in his poem, October.  We made great connections to how we feel in the month of October.  However, students were a little stumped on what "frost bites the lawn" might look like in the early October morning.  Perhaps show them one morning!  We also noticed that he intentionally writes with beautiful craft, including personification, similes, metaphors, and imagery.  We discussed some new terms, too, including idiom, hyperbole, and assonance.  See if your child knows these literary devices!  We also continued our discussion of Gooney Bird Greene, noticing that the author writes with a lot of repetition in her story.

  

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

I am officially restarting my meme, "It's Monday…What Are You Reading?" as a way to share what our class is reading together!  What is a meme?  Check it out!  This week, our class is studying what good readers do while independent reading.  I am giving mini lessons on each of the strategy posters that were in the Open House packets, including: Predicting, Questioning, Making T-T Connections, thinking about theme, inferring character traits, and noticing Author's Craft.  I will model through my read-aloud Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry.  What a unique character she is!  At the end of the week, ask your child what makes Gooney Bird so special!  I think your children will enjoy hearing the unique stories she tells in Mrs. Lowry's story.  I also shared the story, The Boy Who Loves Words, with the class today.  See the video below!  It's a great story with a lot of high-level vocabulary in it.  It goes along with our unit, Building a Reading Life, which we just completed and now we move on to Character Traits with Gooney Bird!    

Poetry Journals

This morning, we put together our poetry journals that we will use all year!  These journals are where we will paste in and work with poetry daily, a new poem each week!  We will read and reread the poems each morning then complete the assignment described in our morning message found on the Smartboard.  The assignments will include:  highlight specific author's craft (similes, metaphors, rhyme, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc.), picture the poem, circle special words, underline specific parts of the poem, or illustrate your favorite stanza!  I'll share these journals at conferences in December, then look for this journal to come home in June!  Ask your child about our weekly poem, September, by John Updike!

Book Clubs!

Today during Reading, we started the first of a series of lessons that will teach students how to be active members of a Book Club.  Book Clubs will occur throughout the school year.  During Book Clubs, students will read and discuss a book together that connects to our learning theme, genre, or strategy.  Reader's Workshop will include the following pieces: a minilesson at the rug area, Book Clubs, independent reading, then conclude with Reader's Round-Up.  Check out the video we watched and discussed today to learn what Books Clubs are all about!

Great first week!

We had a great first week of 3rd grade together!  I hope all of the students enjoyed it while adjusting to the schedule and routines in room 23.  In reading, we read lots of great books already that revolve around the theme of feelings, including how to treat others and stay true to yourself.  These books included:  First Day Jitters, Chrysanthemum, Don't Laugh At Me, Have You Filled a Bucket Today?, and A Bad Case of the Stripes.  These books helped to lay the foundation for how I expect my students to treat one another in our classroom.  We will read more of these themed books this week, including my personal favorite Thank You, Mr. Falker, Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon, and Do Unto Otters.  Check out some of these stories on storylineonline.net.  All students finally got to choose a book from our classroom library, and learned what independent readers do at reader's workshop.  Beofre picking, students learned the "I PICK" chant to help them choose a good book!  Check out the chart below for tips on how readers choose a book!  We developed it together after students picked out their first independent reading book of the year.  Stay tuned as I share with you more good reads from our first unit, Building a Reading Life.

Our Classroom Library

Way Readers Choose Books anchor chart

I Pick!

Welcome to 3rd Grade!

Welcome to 3rd grade!  Thanks for visiting my blog.  Here you will find weekly blog entries, photos, and videos connected to what is happening in our classroom.  Today, I want to share a little bit about myself.  This is my tenth year of teaching!  I currently live in Newington with my husband and two daughters.  You will get to hear a lot about them during the school year!  Brooklyn is 3 and Camryn is 1.  During the summer, we spent everyday doing something FUN!  We spent two weeks at our beach cottage, days at the local park, evenings getting ice cream at Carvel,  a day at the farm, and we read lots and LOTS of books!  Both of my daughters love to "read!"  I am sharing a summer mosaic of pictures from our beach vacation of Brooklyn, Camryn, my cousins Emi and Dori, and my nephew Mason.  Enjoy!  I look forward to a SUPER school year with all of you!

Also, check out a video of myself that I created last year!

 

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today I have two great books to share with you!  The first one is a collection of poetry that we will study throughout the week as part of our morning work.  It is from a book called Mirror Mirror and it features poetry written in "reversible verse."  Ask your child what this means!  Today we read "In Reverse," which introduces the craft of the book to readers.  Throughout the rest of the week, we will read, study, and reread "Cinderella's Double Life," as another exposure to a version of Cinderella and two different point of views on the fairy tale.  At Reader's Workshop time, we started the book The Egyptian Cinderella.  As we read this text we are noticing how culture impacts the setting, characters, archetypes, and events of a fairy tale.  Throughout this week, our focus will be noticing cultural effects on fairy tales.  Happy Reading!   

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today we did a variety of activities during reader's workshop.  First, we read and explicated the "May" John Updike poem.  We are certainly ready for spring and this warm weather that has finally arrived!  Mr. Updike does a beautiful job describing the "growing season" that spring is!  We then started the fractured fairy tale, Sidney Rella and the Glass Sneaker.  We read chapter 1 and we are already noticing the changes that the author makes compared to the original version and what she keeps the same.  Tomorrow we will organize our thoughts on a Venn Diagram.  Happy Reading!
 

Math Centers

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Today students took the Blue Ribbon reading test, so we did not get to share a good book.  However, we did have the end of our Reader's Workshop block of time to begin our new genre study of fairy tales!  We will end the school year with a close study of the fairy tale genre, including a study of its special elements, fractured fairy tales, and even spend some time rewriting fairy tales!  It will be a fun, magical way to end the year!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

In our final week studying Social Change, we read Nadia's Hands by Karen English.  This book is one of my favorites, as its message encourages readers to think openly about other cultures.  The story tells about Nadia, a Pakastani girl, who will be her aunt's flower girl in her upcoming wedding.  Prior to the wedding, Nadia's hands are painted with mehndi, a paste made from the leaves of the henna tree.  Nadia worries about what her classmates will think.  What would you think?  Ask yourself, what makes your culture unique?  At the end of the story, Nadia feels confident about going to school with her mehndi hands, as they are an important part of her culture and heritage.

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

This week we are continuing our genre unit of study on Social Change.  We will be studying the life of Jackie Robinson throughout the week by reading a variety of non-fiction and literary non-fiction texts.  Today we started with Teammates.  This is a book about Jackie's start in the Major Leagues with the help of Branch Rickey and teammate Pee Wee Reese.  The book describes Jackie Robinson as a hero for not only breaking the color barrier in baseball, but for enduring the abusive fans in the stadium while he played.  We will also read Testing the Ice, a TFK biography on Jackie Robinson, Promises to Keep, and A Negro League Scrapbook.  We will compare and contrast the information that we learn in each text.  We will also study digit resources, including Jackie Robinson's official website, photos, and videos.   

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

Beatrice is a girl who grew up in in a small village named Kisinga in Uganda.  When she was 9 years old, her family received a goat from Heifer International and her life was forever changed.  The goat provided her family with nutritious milk and two baby kids!  With the money her family received from selling their goat's milk and one of the kids, she was able to attend school.  Eventually, she went on to attend college at Connecticut College!  Be inspired by Beatrice!

As we conclude our study of Beatrice Biira, I thought I would share the anchor chart our class developed last week. This was a tool for the assessment that will go home today as well. 

 

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

In honor of our "One Book, One Community" book and very special friend, Humphrey, I thought I would share my weekend with Humphrey!  It is written from Humphrey's point of view, see what he thought!

MY WEEKEND WITH THE CRAWFORDS

I arrived at the Crawford home Friday afternoon after a rainy, dreary day of teacher professional development.  I didn’t see kids all day so I was quite excited about this adventure.  On my ride home, Mrs. Crawford told me all about her daughters.  Slow-down-Brooklyn is a very busy 3 year old who likes to play in her kitchen, color, read, and run!  Don’t-eat-that Camryn is a happy little 1 year old who puts everything in her mouth!  How funny, I thought, they both remind me of myself in some ways.   

When I arrived, I was greeted by Slow-Down-Brooklyn and her Grammie.  Slow-Down-Brooklyn loves animals so I knew we would get along well, despite her insisting on calling me a mouse.  She was very intrigued by the special things in my cage, but had some concerns as well.  Slow-Down-Brooklyn thought that I need a bridge over my slide in order to reach the toy that hangs from the top of my cage.  Hmmm, smart idea, I thought.  Adults would never think of that!  She also wondered where my mama was.  Mrs. Crawford seemed to ignore that question.  After meeting Slow-Down-Brooklyn, Mrs. Crawford strategically placed my cage on the kitchen counter.  She explained that this would be the perfect spot for me, out of reach of Don’t-eat-that-Camryn, who was still sound asleep in her crib.  Napping did in fact sound like a great idea, so I headed into my igloo and napped for the rest of the evening, even with Slow-Down-Brooklyn repeatedly shouting “come out Humphrey!”    

Later that night, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford watched the UConn basketball game.  We were all a bit nervous towards the end, so I hopped on my wheel and ran out all of my nervous energy.  We were all relieved when the buzzer went off and UConn had won, hitting foul shot after foul shot to clinch it.  After all that running, I had some water and breakfast (I am ‘turnal after all), then I played while the whole house fell silent. 

    Early Saturday morning, the Crawfords woke up and hit the ground running!  Whoa!  Mr. Crawford headed out to work.  He told me he had some catching up to do before Monday morning.  So it was just me and the girls!  Slow-Down-Brooklyn and I talked for a long time.  She pulled up her stool and just observed me, the way Ms. Mac would, and she drank her milk and asked Mrs. Crawford many more questions about me.  Don’t-eat-that-Camryn drank her bottle, then laughed, giggled, and pointed at me...from afar.   The girls had breakfast and I had dinner, then off to sleep I went.    

The house was still busy while I was catching some Zzzzzz’s.  Mrs. Crawford reminds me a lot of Aldo, so busy cleaning.  I’m not sure why she bothers.  I once heard that “cleaning your house while your children are growing is like shoveling during a blizzard.”  I can now attest to the truth of that.  The Crawfords were in and out throughout the day while I just slept, buried in the back of my cage. 

Sunday was a lot like Saturday.  Don’t-eat-that Camryn was up first and soon after, the whole family was up and moving.  BUSY-BUSY-BUSY!  I talked with Slow-Down-Brooklyn for awhile again until I was too tired and fell fast asleep in the back of my cage.  She kept asking questions, but all I could reply was “squeak, squeak, squeak.”  I so badly wanted to tell her how much I enjoy my temporary home at West Hill School.  In the afternoon, I overheard the excitement of the UConn game, but I was too tired to even lift my head.  Turns out, UConn won and is headed to the final four!  Wow!  What a great way to end my weekend visit!

I was once told that “you can learn a lot about life by observing another species” so I thought I would share what I learned over my weekend.  I learned that 3 year olds are really good at dancing, singing, and negotiating.  I learned that the smile and giggles of a one 1 year old can light up a whole room.  And finally, I was reminded that laughter truly is the best medicine. 

"It's Monday…What Are You Reading?"

Today we started our next genre study, "Reading for Social Change."  This unit will involve reading a variety of literary non-fiction and non-fiction stories about people who have worked to change the world.  We discussed how these stories will have common themes (lessons).  We also connected this genre study to our last unit of study on Biographies, in which both genres include books written with the intention to share a story about a person who made a difference.  We started today by revisiting Here's My Dollar, the story that kicked off our Read to Feed campaign!  Keep reading and raising money for the hungry!  Upcoming stories will include City Green, A Castle on Viola Street (a literary non-fiction story about a family involved with Habitat for Humanity), and Beatrice's Goat (a literary non-fiction story about Heifer International.) 

"It's Monday...What Are You...Listening To???"

A special edition of "It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"  We had a very busy morning learning about our 16th President, Mr. Abraham Lincoln.  PTO sponsored a wonderful assembly that included an actor who retold President Lincoln's life story from his point of view.  Ask your child all about it!  We all certainly learned a lot and it was a unique way to listen to a biography! 

Today is also a good time to remind you of the awesome virtual math manipulatives website that is listed in my "Some of my favorite websites for kids" section of this blog.   Today, we used the pattern block manipulatives to work on fractions and think about 'What is 1?"  Check it out!  Exploration is learning!

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

  In honor of "It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"  I thought I would share some awesome additional resources to support you all with The World According to Humphrey.  The author, Betty Birney, has a great website that dedicates an entire section to Humphrey, known as Humphreyville!  There is also a great website that introduces the idea of "One Book, One Community."  It shows what schools across the USA are doing with this project and lists West Hill School as one of the most recent members to join!  Finally, be sure to visit our very own "One Book One Community" Rocky Hill blog!  Here, you can send in your family's pictures from participating in this project!       

"It's Monday...What Are You Reading?"

The first day of CMT's went great!  The students seemed to be working hard and eagerly to be successful on Math I!  I sure was proud of them!  In Reading, we are continuing our work on Biographies.  We will be looking at more texts about Helen Keller, including books, articles, and digital resources (videos & photographs) and completing a text comparison.  Our comparison will focus on comparing and contrasting the focus of each text, the author's craft and use of text features, and the author's point of view.  Today, we will also read Here's My Dollar as a kick-off to our Read to Feed program.  This is a true story of a girl who raises money for a zoo in her town.  Also, stayed tuned for the unveiling of the chosen text for our "One Book One Community" kick-off today in honor of America Reads Day!  Lots of great books to read and share today!