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Monday, November 25, 2013
Biography Study: fun ways to conclude our unit!
Labels:
Biography,
Foldable,
Literary Nonfiction,
Reading
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Stealin' Paint Chips from Wal-Mart - Writing Freebie!
Labels:
Adventure,
Biography,
Freebie,
Literary Nonfiction,
Writing
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Literary Nonfiction: what's important in a biography?
In the upper grades (2-5), we planned a unit in which the teacher reads several literary nonfiction texts and looks for specific things in each one, and then adds them to a matrix to help students make connections across texts.
This is the way our matrix looks in third grade:
In case you can't read the questions, they're
- Who is the subject/main person?
- What are their traits?
- What are their motivations or goals?
- What challenges does he or she face?
- How do they overcome the challenge?
- What lesson can we learn from their life?
We chose to read...

and Snowflake Bentley - one of my favorites!
It's especially difficult for kids to understand and decide on a lesson, moral, or theme for the text. Our teachers worked on the theme as the learning that the character does or the reader can do as a result of how the problem is solved (or challenge is overcome).
Question for you: Which biographies do you love to read with kids? Which have the best messages for us to learn?
Labels:
Anchor Chart,
Biography,
Literary Nonfiction,
Reading
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Time to Talk Turkey! Thanksgiving Themed Materials
Looking for some fun word work! Check out Gobbling Up Words and help your kids work with syllables, plurals, compound words, and sight words!
Math is more fun when turkeys are on the menu! Turkey Time includes problem solving, arrays, multiplication facts, fact families, and more.
And for some engaging writing activities to get your kids' creative brains churning, check out Let's Talk Turkey for interesting materials to teach writing in four different genres of writing!
Monday, November 11, 2013
Reading is our SuperPower! Bulletin Board Idea
This is the finished product! I will share with you how my masterpiece came to be.
First, I looked at this pin on pinterest:
Unfortunately, it's just linked to a google images search.
The bulletin board in the main hallway was already covered in red fabric. I took the black and I unrolled a large sheet. I crawled around the floor and sketched the shape of the buildings and then I cut them out in one large piece.
I cut out the letters and a sunset as well. And then I got to staplin'.
This didn't really take a long time. I stapled it here and there and added the sunset in the background. And then I got a little excited about some details.
I added the sign (so important, I know) because details are important to me. I'm not really sure that any child has even read this sign, but I do every time I pass by and it makes me laugh.
So at this point, I realized I needed to add yellow windows. I went back to my classroom and cut up a bunch of yellow paper into rectangles and squares. I grabbed several glue sticks and a rolling chair and went back to the board. I started on the right side (you can probably figure that out, actually, when you see how many "lights are on" on the right side versus the left! I glued the yellow squares to the buildings and scooted some more and glued some more. I had been glueing and scooting for about eight minutes when I began to ask myself whose stupid idea this was. I mean, who hand-glues on ALL the windows in a WHOLE CITY?! I kept glueing, and people kept walking by saying things like, "Almost!" and "That's a lot, Miss!"
Yes. It was.
After about fifteen or so minutes of glueing and scooting, the town of Readopolis was pretty well lit (good enough for who it's for, my mother always said).
Then I petitioned the teachers to send me pictures of them reading! I've been adding them as they come in, and I also am beginning to add pictures of kids reading around the school, too. We are super readers!
We are continuing this theme throughout our reading program this year! Check back soon to read about our superfun Family Literacy Night!
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