Pumpkin Drop

It is a fun night to write a post. A game seven. Nothing beats the excitement of a game seven. The only problem with this game seven is we will have a long time until baseball comes back. Still though the excitement of tonight is worth having to wait a long time.

Today both our classes got to protect our pumpkins for the Pumpkin Drop. If you are not familiar with the Pumpkin Drop, it is a lot of fun. Each homeroom in the school will protect a pumpkin. On Friday we will take that pumpkin out to the area just behind Donovan. There our amazing gym teacher will use a cherry picker to carry our contraptions high into the sky. From there the pumpkins are dropped (hence the name Pumpkin Drop). We keep track of whose pumpkin survives and whose pumpkin gets turned to pie. Winners are drawn. All and all it is an amazing day. If you want join for the excitement. We will start the dropping this Friday around 9:15. You can find our class (after checking into the office) and join the fun. I promise to post some pictures because the classes did an amazing job of protecting our pumpkin.

Today we also read aloud, worked on our drought articles, looked at some Smack Down claims, looked at an amazing timeline, and sorted some facts about the prehistoric tribes. Even with all that I know what the kids were most excited about so I had to fill you in on our pumpkin. Tomorrow I can explain our Smack Down Claims.

Hope you are having a great week.

A Fun Day

I thought today was fun.

We started by looking at a pair of texts. We first looked at an article about Malala Yousafzai and her Nobel Peace Prize. The second text we looked at was a commercial that has been a big part of this year's World Series.

The students had conversations about what the two texts had in common and what was different about the texts. Then they started to write down some ideas. All this week they will be working on a "one-pager" that will share their thinking about the two texts. The "one-pager" will allow the students to expand their thinking before they share it with me this Friday.

In read aloud we checked in on Albie in Absolutely Almost. 

Albie has been struggling to find friends at his new school. Today it looked like he might have found a new friend but we are all worried that this new friend might have ulterior motives. We still have a long way to go in this book but I am still enjoying finding out about Albie each day.

We also read another article about the drought. This article talked about a new plan from the mayor of Los Angeles. When the students were reading the articles, they worked on the P/C/Q reading strategy. This strategy has the students search for positives, challenges, and questions they have as they read. The students did a great job of finding these ideas in the text. Then we broke apart into five groups. The five groups worked on an A to Z brainstorming list. The idea of this A to Z sheet is to have students share what they know. The groups took all the articles that we had read about the drought. Then they tried to come up with important words that would fit with each letter. The groups did an amazing job and got a lot more letters than I had anticipated.

In writing we are going to take a week away from our Cynthia Rylant projects. During this week we are going to debate an issue. The issue we are going to debate this week is whether or not all children should get a trophy. The article we read today just laid out the debate. Tomorrow we will read two articles that take one side of the debate. Later this week students will share what they think. I love these debates weeks. It is so fun to see what the students think and how they can support their thinking.

Finally in Social Studies the groups divided into groups of five. Each group was assigned one of the prehistoric tribes we have been studying. The groups were told they would write a narrative from the perspective of an imaginary tribe member. The groups started to think about the setting they might need to share and facts that they could hide in the writing. 

In the end the day was busy but I was excited by the energy that filled the room.

Hope you had a great start to the week!

Scavenger Hunt

Today in class we decided to have a little scavenger hunt. We had done this last week when we were thinking about genres. Ms. Cavallaro had asked the class to look through a bunch of scholastic book orders and cut out books that fit into certain genres. It was a fun lesson.

We wanted to get that same energy in the room today so instead of cutting up book orders we cut apart Time For Kids. When the students were cutting apart the magazine, they were looking for text features. The text features that the students included titles, subtitles, charts, maps, fact boxes, and a bunch of others. We made a poster in the front of the room to talk about why these features were important to the reader. I forgot to take a picture of our poster but here are some others I found on the internet tonight.

We really want the students to understand how important these text features can be when they read but we also want the students to understand that they can use these features when they write. Soon we will be dividing into five groups and writing articles about the drought. We have been researching and researching the drought this week. We are hoping now that we are talking about text features students will start to think about how they could use a map or a picture with a caption to make that piece of writing even stronger. 

If you are reading a magazine at home and you see some of these text features, ask to see if the students can recognize the features. Talk about why the author may have included that feature or how that feature would help you to better understand the text. These conversations will just reinforce the importance of these features when students read nonfiction.

Hope you are having a great week!

A Big Thank You

Today I had a special delivery...a ton of books. The PTO allowed us to make a wish list of books we would love to add to our classroom library. Today that wish list became a reality. I love new books. I was so excited but it was also great to see students eyes popping out as they saw the stack of new reads. Here are just a few of the new titles that I cannot wait to share with the students:

I could post picture after picture of all the amazing books that we know get to share and read in my class but I think you get the idea.

Thank you PTO. Thank you to all the parents who buy the cookies and the magazines and the pies during our PTO sales. All that help hopefully just paid off in helping a student find a book that they love!

Hope you are having a great week.

Reading Like a Writer

Today we continued to work more on our Cynthia Rylant-ish writing project. We worked on reading like a writer. We have actually done this before but I wanted the students to work on naming some other techniques in Rylant's writing. Below are some of the sentences that we looked at the first time we worked on reading like a writer.

• The earth has rained and snowed and blossomed and wilted and yellowed and greened and vined itself all around him.

• Then the skies break open into blue and white and yellow and pink, and it like one great long breath of freedom and air.

• His hat is borrowed, his suit is borrowed, his hands are borrowed, even his head is borrowed. 

• He has been with the owls in the evening and the rabbits at dawn. He has watched a spider work for hours making a web like lace. He has seen the sun tremble and the moon lie still.

I still find it amazing what the students are able to notice and figure out when they look at great writing. They can easily figure out what Rylant is doing, why she is doing it, what they might name it, if they have done it themselves, and finally if they have seen other authors use the technique. You can find the two Reading Like a Writer worksheets in the writing folder to see all of this great work.

Students are finally getting the chance to pick the one idea from their writer's notebook they are going to turn into their next writing project. They are working on adding those final little pieces of Rylant-ish writing that are going to make their projects shine. This might be a great time to look through the writer's notebook at home. You could ask to see what Rylant techniques they have decided to try in their writing and how they are planning to create their next piece of writing.

I hope you had a great start to your week.

A Gallery Walk

Today we went on a gallery walk. The students walked around the room in pairs looking at pictures on the wall. At each picture the students would whisper and write down some of their thinking. We had 14 pictures in all but here are just a few.

It was amazing to hear the students thinking. Students quickly were able to figure out that the pictures came from the California drought. I heard students talking about what this might do to trees, animals and even tourism. When the gallery walk was over, the students went back to their seat and talked about what they saw. Many students talked about how the pictures really helped them to understand the drought more than the article we read yesterday.

To end the lesson we had the students think about the text structures that we had introduced yesterday. Many of the pictures that we looked at fit nicely into a text structure. For example if you look at the first two pictures you can see cause and effect. The students did a great job of finding a category for all the pictures.

Hope you are having a great week. 

We're Back

It was great to get back to work today. We picked up right where we left off with Absolutely Almost.

I am enjoying how this books hops around. You hear about Albie at school. Then you are on to hear about Albie at home. Then a quick check in with Albie and his babysitter. You never know exactly what is going to happen next. Even with all this hopping around I think we are starting to see the big picture. As you read, Lisa Graff makes it hard not to root for Albie.

In writing we introduced one of our last books by Cynthia Rylant. 

Let's Go Home is one of my favorite Rylant books. It is a bit longer than the other titles that we have read but the extra text gives you a chance to really enjoy the beauty of Rylant's words. In this book Rylant walks you through a house. From the porch to the kitchen to the family room and even to the bathroom, Rylant describes the house. 

It was great to see the students figure out how they could use this technique. Some students described their house the way that Rylant describes the house in this book. Other students took the idea of going from space to space but moved the setting away from a house. A few of my favorites were a student describing a grocery store going from aisle to aisle the same way Rylant went room to room. Another student described football going position to position. We are getting close to giving the students the chance to decide what idea they will turn into their Rylant-ish project. I cannot wait to see what they pick.

In Social Studies we looked at some of the mounds of Ohio.

We asked the students to infer why/how the early Ohio tribes built these mounds. After the groups had made some inferences we had them read an article about the Mound Builders. Students highlighted some of the theories that archaeologists have about these mounds.

In reading we started to look at nonfiction text structures. 

As we look at these text structures we are going to read articles, look at maps, watch videos, and look at anything else we can find about the drought in California. As we research the drought, we will find articles that have these text structures that we are exploring. When we feel the class has a good grasp of the text structures and they have become experts about the drought, we will ask them to write an article using one of the structures. 

It was a great first day on a Wednesday.

Naming

I am sorry about last night but I could not find time to post about our day.

Today we worked on naming things. Giving something a name is important. Once it is named you can recognize it. Naming the device also allows you and others to know what you are talking about when you use the name. You also feel like you have some ownership over what you have named. Today I wanted to take some time to name some of the things we have been noticing in Cynthia Rylant's writing.

One of my favorite things that we have noticed is that Cynthia Rylant loves to use "ands." In many of her sentences she will have a list of three or more items. We know that usually a sentence like this would have commas and end with one and before the last item. Rylant does not always follow this rule. She loves to create lists of colors or descriptive details that go on and on and on without a comma.

Today we looked at a few of these "and" sentences from Rylant. I asked the class what she was doing. They were able to tell me she was using lots of ands instead of using commas in a list. Then I asked why she might be using this technique. The class told me they thought she was doing it to exaggerate. By using all the ands the list seems longer. It just keeps going and going and going and going. You start to realize this is a long list. Finally I asked the class what they might name this strategy.

Both classes came up with some great names. We had The Andanator 3000, 5 Miles of Ands, On and On and On, and so many other names. My homeroom finally settled on the name 5 Miles of Ands and Mrs. Sanford's homeroom settled on The Andanator 3000. Now in class we have a name for this technique. Students can run up to me and say Mr. Tarr I found The Andanator 3000 in the book I am reading or even better Mr. Tarr I just used a 5 Miles of Ands in my writing.

You can find the sheet we used to name this technique in our writing folder. We also named another Rylant technique that we have been noticing in her writing. You might want to know these names so when you are asked if you have ever written or found The Andanator 3000, you will know exactly what is going on.

Hope you are all having a great week.

Blank

I have been trying to figure out what to write about for the last few hours. It is not like we did nothing today. A lot happened. We started to talk about genres (our focus for the week). In our read aloud Albie was a hero. He stood up for a girl who was being picked on. He was rewarded with a little red gummy bear and a new friend. I really fell in love with the book today.

In writing we read the book Tulip Sees America by Cynthia Rylant. It was an amazing read. The class noticed the way that Rylant organized the text. A simple sentence at the beginning of a section that she was about to describe. Then of course her amazing writing. Then the section would end with a new version of that simple sentence that started the section. The class went out and wrote. The writing was so Rylant-ish. Students were trying this new trick we learned today or the "and" sentences we have noticed or the close echo. All these things that we have been noticing in Rylant's writing are starting to add up. I cannot wait to see the finished project that comes out of all this work.

In Social Studies we moved from talking about the Paleo tribe to the Archaic tribe. We are going to compare and contrast the two groups. Today the students worked on reading an article about the Archaic. They used two highlighters to code the text. One color was for all the things that were the same about the tribes and the other was for all things that were different.

I guess that is pretty good for a day and a blog post. I hope you are all having a great start to your week.

Synthesizing

This week we have continued to work on synthesizing. Synthesizing is the idea that our thinking needs to change based on what we see around us. In a book the text makes our thinking change. This week Ms. Cavallaro has taught some great lessons to help the students understand and practice synthesizing.

Today was my favorite lesson. Ms. Cavallaro showed the class a painting by Alexandre Hogue from his Erosion Series.

When we looked at the painting, we looked at four different quadrants before we looked at the picture as a whole. The first quadrant we saw was the top left. Most of the class including myself saw an ocean scene. Then we looked at the second quadrant and the third quadrant and then the fourth quadrant. The students wrote down how their thinking changed each time that we looked at a different part of the painting. Finally we showed the class the whole picture and they wrote again about how their thinking changed now that they could see the big picture.

I loved the lesson especially the connection that Ms. Cavallaro made at the end. She talked about a character from Half a Chance. In the beginning of the book this character did not seem like a good character. As we kept reading the book our thinking about this character changed as we noticed different ways the character interacted with the characters. Finally at the end of the book we were able to look back and look at this character's whole picture. We realized she was not a bad person she just had made some mistakes. The way we thought about this character was just like the way we looked at the painting today. 

If you are reading at home you can practice synthesizing using some of these thinking stems:

• Now I understand...
• I'm changing my mind about...
• I used to think ________, but now I think...
• My new thinking is...
• I'm beginning to think...

Hope you are all having a great week.

The Rocking Chair

The rocking chair is my favorite part of my room. The rocking chair I have is older than everyone in the room. It has seen better days. An arm is falling off. We try to fix it but it pops out every single time. The rocking chair was handed down to me from the teacher who retired before I took this job 14 years ago. Looking back it was the perfect gift.

The rocking chair is where I read aloud each day. The class sits down in front and writes down their thinking about the book we are sharing. I love the conversations that go on during read aloud. We give the students time to turn and talk with each other. They share their thinking and bounce ideas of each other. Then they share their ideas with me. I am always amazed at the thinking that students have during read aloud.

The rocking chair is also where we come to share our writing. Nothing is better than listening to the writing that the authors in our room create. Today was one of those days where the writing blows you away. We had looked at the book Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant.

This is one of my favorite books from Cynthia Rylant. It contains such amazing little bits of writing. One of my favorite little tricks that she uses in the texts is something the class called echo sentences. Here is an example of an echo sentence. It is not the best example from the book but it was all I could find tonight:

The wind is brushing his borrowed head and the sun is warming his borrowed hands and clouds are floating across his button-borrowed eyes.

While looking at this sentence plus some others, the class realized that Rylant echoed some words or groups of words on the page. On the example above you can see how she echoed the word borrowed throughout the text.

The class saw enough and new it was time to go out and give it a try. The results were exciting. I got stories about a pumpkin and a turtle and a toad and so many different ideas. Each piece of writing had an echo sentence or maybe two. 

I hope you get a chance to look at some of the writing in these writer's notebooks. It makes your day to see these amazing authors and how they play with words.

Hope you are having a great week.