Read Across America Day!

Wow, what an exciting afternoon we had!  To celebrate "Read Across America Day," we attended a school-wide assembly.  During the assembly, Mr. Nozik read aloud If I Ran the Zoo  by Dr. Seuss after we sang Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!  Then, we learned about why animals should not be held in captivity and what we can do to protect their habitats.  We got to see and learn about a snake, bearded dragon, macaw, kangaroo, chinchilla, and tortoise.  This was the kick-off to the 2014 "One Book One Community" event.  Tonight, your child will bring home The One and Only Ivan.  Please encourage them to participate by reading the daily assigned pages included in their packet.  We also kicked off the 3rd Grade "Read to Feed" campaign.  During the month of March, we challenge students to collect pledges for each book they read.  These pledges are donated to the Rocky Hill Food Bank.  In the past, we collected nearly $2,000 to donate!  While students are not required to collect money, students must read and log their books as part of their homework assignment.  Happy reading, enjoy Ivan!  

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

It's been awhile since we've had school on a Monday!  Our Biography unit is up and running!  Last week, students were introduced to the Biography genre with an overview on the key elements of a Biography.  We used Milton Hershey as our mentor text.  Students learned that Biographies are books written about people who made special achievements in their lives.  These people are brave or determined.  Good readers of Biographies notice: text features, what society was like during that time period, specific events in the person's life, including struggles or challenges, specific character traits, and more!  Over the next few weeks, students will participate in lessons on Helen Keller and Louis Braille.  These two people are true heroes who persevered to achieve great accomplishments in their lives, which continue to impact people today!  Students will also begin Book Clubs!

 

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

Happy Monday!  Today we continued our sea turtle study with our final reading and note taking assignment.  Students worked in book clubs to read and notice author's structure or craft, tell about their new learning, and draw and describe a text feature on their final text.  Tomorrow we will review the texts, particularly One Tiny Turtle, which integrates beautiful craft throughout the story of a turtle.  Students will compare and contrast how the author of this book wrote differently from the others, which are more traditional informational texts.  Then, finally, we move on to our Mystery unit at the end of the week!  

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  As we start the new year, we are diving right in to working hard with our reading!  This week, we are reviewing our non-fiction reading skills and strategies from before break with a study of sea turtles.  Students will read four different texts and will integrate their learning across texts on the same topic.  Students will apply their learning of text features, text structure, and author's craft to these different texts.  Today, we started with Gail Gibbons book Sea Turtles.  Students will read and take notes on the unique features of these non-fiction texts.  Another favorite book of mine that we will read is One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies.  Next week, we return to fiction reading with a Mystery genre study!

"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!