Beginning our week with Saint Paddy's Day Green! Followed by great participation during CRAZY HAIR DAY! And in honor of reading month, we celebrated by dressing as our favorite book characters! It was a blast seeing people's favorite characters and their crazy costumes!
0 Comments
I use a hands-on noodle metaphor to help the kids remember the entire process of determining importance while reading... since we have already learned about figurative language, this worked out well for discussion of what the noodles, water, combination, and strainer represent while we read. Another way to help determine the main idea is to look at the evidence that the author is giving us. We have been working a lot on how readers need to justify their responses and the details they deem as important. I shared that it isn't some sort of guessing game between the author and reader. It is more of a treasure hunt to pick up the clues/support that the author "drops" for us as to what the Main Idea is. We recognized that the most important details always support the main idea and that when these match, we are able to clearly understand the text. I shared with the kids Dolly Parton's beautiful bio-song "Coat of Many Colors". We talked about how we can often find out the topic/main idea from the Title. We inferred that the topic was probably going to be A Coat. We also inferred that the Main Idea would have something to do with a coat, but would go much deeper. Then, I gave them the mission of hunting for the evidence that our author, Dolly, left for us throughout the song that helps us find the Main Idea. We listened to the song through once just reading the lyrics so we were familiar with the song. The second time, I challenged them to underline/circle the lines, stanzas, or phrases that they felt were IMPORTANT (noodles) to understanding the Main Idea. They did SUCH an amazing job of being able to pick out what the main idea was based off of their text evidence. We agreed that, while to topic was A coat that her mother made her, the main idea was that Money does not buy happiness and that you don't have to have money to rich in life (especially those things that money just can't buy - love, family, comfort, security, etc.) <<<<<<<<< I also shared different evidence sentence stems to help guide them in their response to the text. We talked about how it is very difficult to express your opinion and point of view about ANYTHING really without providing valid evidence to back it up. I think it is important to always remind students of those things that apply to things outside of the subject (this applies to math, science, social studies, etc) AND out side of the classroom (including conversations with others, proving a point, standing up for yourself or someone else, sharing an opinion, offering a suggestion, etc.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In writing, we are revising and editing our narrative stories. Using all of the information we have created including better hooks, good conclusions, dialogue paragraphs, figurative language description, setting paragraphs, etc. from our packets, we are performing "STORY SURGERY" and rearranging, drawing arrows, ear muffing our own or our peers, placing starts, circling, editing with pens, cutting and pasting to make our stories AWESOME! Some of us have moved on to peer editing while some have even begun the process of publishing their narrative in a unique way. Moving along with our Reading Comprehension work, we have been focused on the strategy of Determining Importance within non-fiction text. We have had a great time using non-reading activities to help us develop an understanding of this strategy before, and along with, applying it in our actual reading. To introduce the subject, I have the kids look through my purse and determine the items that would be important if I were to go to the gym this afternoon. TOPIC - My purse MAIN IDEA - Working Out at the Gym We talked about how readers have to first look at the topic (My Purse) then determine the main idea (working out) to be able to decide what details/facts/information is important for them to note. Once this is determined, then we begin the process of breaking the information down into the VERY IMPORTANT and INTERESTING, but NOT IMPORTANT details to aid understanding. edit. Then, it was THEIR turn to determine importance with their back packs! First, we unloaded everything onto our desks. TOPIC - Back pack MAIN IDEA - A successful day here AT SCHOOL (not on the way to or from) There were a few back packs that definitely got a good "clean out" today! They did an excellent job determining which items were absolutely necessary to a successful day here and those things which are nice, but not as important. Finally, during independent work time, they had to determine, out of six items, the most important/interesting but not important for a camping trip. After sorting them, they had to JUSTIFY why they placed their item where they did in writing. After they had proven their argument for their thinking, they had to share with their partners and see if they agreed or disagreed and what their thinking together was. There was A LOT going on in our room, sorting/justifying/writing, independent reading (for those done early), partner whisper shares, small group work at the back table, AR testing, and library time! The kids did GREAT staying on task and focused through it all - Whoo hoo!
This past week we have been focusing on THINKING about our reading. A big part of this is listening to your Inner Reader Voice. The kids are really getting good this and we have slowly begun the transition from thinking about our reading mentally to jotting our thinking down so that we can share. Students read and jotted down their thinking independently then shared together with the class. This is called READ. THINK. SHARE. This week, we reviewed our thinking jots and why readers take time to write notes down to themselves. Then, we discussed what Purposeful Talk was. We have already done a few mini-lessons that break down a lot of these things like, SLANT (sit up, lean forward, act interested, nod for understanding, track the speaker), listening with intent, saying something meaningful/keeping the lines of thinking alive, so today was more a combination of all these things. I first gave a small description for each article they could choose to read. Then, students read the articles independently, jotting down their reactions, connections, and questions for the THINKing part. We got together in groups of 4 to do the TALK part and share about our thinking and to discuss the text. I was really impressed with the kids discussions - especially since this is the first time we have really done this. Once we were finished I had the kids reflect on one thing they learned (Content Response) and how talking with their group helped their understanding of the text (Process Response). This helps me see how much they understood about the lesson and how they felt about the activity. Apparently, they got a lot out of it and like it! *happy dance* In other news, check out Scott's killer t-shirt! I'd say he's trying to up his Brownie Points ;0) In Writing news, we are wrapping up our narrative stories. This past week we looked at how to HOOK our readers into our stories and how to create a conclusion that leaves them happy and with something learned. Every good writer has a MESSAGE/THEME to their story. However, Kids struggle with story hooks. Too many of them begin with these painful leads that we, as teachers, shrink from know so well: Once upon a time ... One day ... Hi, my name is ... I am going to tell you a story about ... (this one actually makes a teacher cringe inside!) So, we do a pretty intense mini-unit on hooks - with the theme being Captain Hook from the classic Peter Pan. First, we identified different kinds of appropriate and engaging narrative hooks. Then, we identified interesting vs. not so interesting hooks that I had written to start a story about camping. The kids worked in pairs to choose whether they thought the hook deserved a 1,2,3. We also helped poor Pirate Pete, who cannot write interesting hooks, by using some of these hooks out. Students did this first as homework, and then later together as a class. We also reflected on how we improved the second time around and gave an example. Then, we went back to our own writings and created 3 hooks to introduce our story. For each hook the students created, and got checked by me, they earned a pirate coin. Once they earned three coins, they were able to participate in our pirate treasure hunt! Today, the last day of our Hook mini-unit, we went on a "hook" treasure hunt around the school. Each pair was given a list of the hooks we have learned. Then they traveled together through the hallways reading and identifying what clues hook was and where the hook was leading them too. Eventually, the clues led them back to the classroom carpet area where the "prize" was a bag of swedish fish, tying in nicely with the "hook" theme :) The kids really enjoyed this activity and have seemed to pick up the idea of "hooking" their reader a lot better! CONCLUSIONS: We knew that our characters needed to learn some sort of lesson, either humorous or serious, that our reader could take away (the MESSAGE) see THIS lesson for how we studied the author's message/theme. We looked at real examples and created three of our own using sentence stem starters. Students could combine, use word for word, or create their own. Once they had tried three, they chose the BEST one (after sharing and discussing with partners) and added this to their rough draft. This sums up our work with narratives - the rest of this week will be editing and publishing! |
HOPPIN's FABULOUS FIFTH GRADE CLASS!
Welcome to our fifth grade classroom blog! Here we share what we discover, learn, ask, and explore about the world around us! Categories
All
|