Animal Reports

Again, my kiddos have uuuuumazed me!

I asked each student to choose one animal book

from the library.  They then followed the same 

sequence of events used in our penguin study. 

Step 1:  Read the book and harvest facts.

Step 2:  Write a topic sentence and 5 sentences about your animal.

Step 3:  Revise your writing with your teacher's help.

Step 4:  Rewrite (this time type) your report.

Step 5:  Draw an illustration.

I wasn't sure if they could handle the typing part of this

project, but they accomplished it with flying colors!

Tops and Bottoms retold by:  Janet Stevens

Love, love, love this story!  One of the first I bought for

my classroom during college.  There are so many great ideas

and lessons that work so well with this story.  We focused

most of the week on cause and effect.  Our final lesson

consisted of a quick SmartBoard mini lesson, quick partner

match up of cause/effect, and then wrapped up with a 

vegetable activity.  I ran out of time and ended up doing it 

whole group, but each veggie has a cause listed on it.  Students

helped me identify an effect to go with each.  

They did awesome!

Friday Morning Fun!

We love Friday mornings in our room.

That's the time we break out Alan Katz's crazy

and hysterically funny songs.  He's written several

books in which he takes familiar tunes and rewrites

the words that make you laugh!

My personal favorite is Stinky, Stinky Diaper Change.

(sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)

It goes a little like this:

Stinky, stinky diaper change.

Boy my brother smells so strange.

He made something in his pants.

I sure hope it won't attract ants.

Stinky, stinky diaper change

Boy my brother smells so strange!

SILLY, DILLY SONG.....

But guess what everyone this is a great teaching

tool.  I've used these songs to cover new vocabulary,

contractions, rhyming, rhythm, beat, stanzas, 

compound words, and many other language skills.

IT'S been a great reading fluency tool and the kids

don't even realize it.....that's even better.

Now, for anyone who knows me, knows I don't sing

well and can't carry a tune in a bucket.  However, Alora

and Alan (hubs) know that I love to sing loud in the car.

Thank goodness my kiddos don't care if I can sing or not.

We have a blast trying to make these silly songs turn out

right.  It's a HOOT!

Check out this book and more for some laughs!

  

Penguins....

Our journey with penguins began with a great non-fiction

story in our Reading Street Basal for 3rd grade, Penguin Chick.

Like any good 3rd grader, we first made a KWL chart of

our schema about penguins together.  Wow, we actually

knew quite a bit about this flightless bird, but still had plenty

of questions!

After reading our story and learning so much we embarked

upon our first, but not last "research" project this year.  

Mrs. Scholes took us to the computer lab where we were

assigned a particular breed of penguin.  After a quick lesson

on using google and how to search for "good information" we

were on our own.  We needed to find 8 facts about our penguin.

This was certainly not a one day project.  It was completed over

a 2 week period with lots of work.  Once we collected all of our

facts about penguins, it was time to get busy writing.  OHMYWORD

Mrs. Scholes made us write about these birds, and you won't believe

it, but they had to be in complete sentences with correct 

capitalization and punctuation!

The pictures below demonstrate our 4 step process:

Step 1:  Research about penguins and write them down.

Step 2:  Write a short paragraph with a topic sentence and

5 supporting details. (correct capitalization and punctuation)

Step 3:  Bring to Mrs. Scholes and she will correct any mistakes.

Step 4:  Rewrite the paragraph with changes and create an 

illustration of your particular penguin.

WHEW!  That was a lot of work Mrs. Scholes.

A note from Mrs. Scholes:

I was so very proud of the students' focus and attention

to this "BIG" project.  I hope you learned about patience

and how a project is one step at a time.  I was truly amazed

at your writing abilities and can't wait to do more with you

in the future!  GOOD JOB!