Some Art

Friday was a great day. It seemed like we got to look at art all day long. It started in reading where we have been talking about Paul Revere's life. We decided to look at how two artists had portrayed Revere in their work.

The first painting is from Grant Wood and the second painting is from John Singleton Copley. As we looked at the art, the class took notes on what they saw, what they noticed, and what they wondered. I am always amazed at what the students can find when we look at art. Each year a student finds something new that I had not seen or thought of before.

After the students finished seeing, noticing, and wondering, they got in groups and filled out a Venn Diagram comparing the two paintings. The differences were easy but the class was able to come up with many interesting things the paintings had in common. 

Today in class we added another piece of artwork on Paul Revere when we looked at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." We talked about how Longfellow released the poem in 1861 years after the famous ride. The students looked through the poem looking for things that we knew from the historical tellings we had looked at of the midnight ride. Tomorrow we will go more in depth and look at what the poem and the history have in common and what is different.

In poetry we continued to read Ralph Fletcher's amazing book Poetry Matters. 

The class has been working hard to craft their poems in their writer's notebooks. The last bit of advice that Fletcher gave about crafting dealt with Line Breaks and Stanzas. I told the class that this is a struggle for me in my writing but Fletcher gave some great advice to help us all. My favorite piece of advice was to read the poem aloud. When our voices stopped, we should start a new line. To work on this crucial skill we looked at some Beatles lyrics. I showed the class how I might take the lyrics from "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and add line breaks and stanza breaks. I read the poem aloud and even played the song for the class. We added single slash marks for a line break and a double slash mark for a new stanza. Then the class got into groups and worked on the same idea with the song "Blackbird". Finally they went into their writer's notebooks and took some time to look and think about line breaks in their poems. 

This work will hopefully help this week as the students are picking their three favorite poems to turn into projects. I already saw some students today continuing to use the slash strategy before they wrote their first draft.  

I hope your week is off to a great start.

Rain Reign

If you have not heard, Rain Reign did not win the Newbery. The book did walk away with many awards just not the Newbery. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed but that does not dampen my enthusiasm for this amazing story. 

The reason that I love this book so much is Rose. She is an amazing character. Each day I find myself rooting for her. In the last few days she has become one of my all-time favorites. 

Today I asked the students to stop and think back about everything we had read so far in Rain Reign. The class broke down into groups and worked on a 3-in-3. I love this little strategy. It forces the students to think about something quickly and often the results show what they have learned. As usual the 3 word phrases the students created were perfect. After sharing some of our favorites, the students went off on their own and wrote about their most important 3 word phrase. I handed out gigantic notecards. They wrote the phrase on the blank side and then on the side with lines they explained their phrase. The thinking was evident from the few that I have had a chance to read. 

Just in case you wondering the books that won the Newbery Honor were:

I adore these two books. In fact Brown Girl Dreaming was the book that I thought for sure would win the medal. El Deafo has become a popular book in our room. I think one thing that has helped with its popularity is the fact that it is a graphic novel. Brown Girl Dreaming is a book that I am thinking about reading aloud this year. It is simply beautiful. The book is written in prose form. 

And the winner was:

I have ordered the book and plan to read it as soon as I can but after reading a few reviews I decided it is not the right book for read aloud. Many reviews put the book in the 6th-10th grade range. Hopefully when the students are older they can find this book and decided if it deserved the medal over some of the books we read this year.

I hope you are all having a great week.

Languid Wrenches

I know I talked about poetry but I wanted to talk about the next chapter we are reading in Poetry Matters.

The new chapter starts with this amazing quote from XJ Kennedy, "The World is full of poets with languid wrenches who don't bother to take the last six turns on their bolts." I love this idea. Right now our writer's notebooks are filled with some amazing poems. Now it is time to get to work on those poems. We have to work to make what is all ready good and make it the best it can be. This is hard work. Just like those last six turns on a bolt can be difficult. Although the work is difficult those last six turn are essential. 

The reason that I love this chapter about "crafting our poems" so much is because Fletcher gives such amazing advice. He makes the hard seem so simple. Today his advice was to "think fragments." He talked about how teachers can drill the idea of complete sentences into students heads, but sometimes a poem needs a fragment or a group of fragments. To prove the point we read the poem Subways are People by Lee Bennett Hopkins. 

SUBWAYS ARE PEOPLE
By Lee Bennett Hopkins

Subways are people-

People standing
People sitting
People swaying to and fro
Some in suits
Some in tatters
People I will never know.

Subways are people-

Some with glasses
Some without
Boy with smile
Girl with Frown

People dashing
Steel flashing
Up and down and round the town.

Subways are people-

People old
People new
People always on the go
Racing, running, rushing people
People I will never know.

After the class had read the poem, we sent them back to write. I put a picture up of New York City at night. 

The class wrote and filled their poems with fragments. Then we stopped and we went to work on one of our favorite poems. The class tried to find spots that they might use fragments to make this good poem even better. 

When we read this chapter, I always see the students work improve. They take these "simple" ideas from Fletcher and put them to work in their poetry.

I hope you are having a great week.

Poetry Check-In

I got a bit off track last week on the blog. Hopefully this week I can get back to a full week of posts.

Today I wanted to let you know what we have been talking about in poetry. We are still making our way through Ralph Fletcher's book Poetry Matters.

In the book Fletcher talks about the three pillars of poetry: emotion, image, and music. Each pillar is given its own chapter. In the chapters Fletcher gives advice on how to make the students poetry shine. Here are the four pieces of advice that we have learned so far:

Emotion

1. Think of the poem as an emotional X-Ray
2. Don't say too much
3. Convey emotions through images
4. Try poem speak

Image

1. Use the five senses
2. Try similes and metaphors
3. Personification
4. Use symbols

Music

1. Play with words
2. Use alliteration
3. Fine tune the rhythm
4. Repetition for Emphasis

This weekend I got to read through the writer's notebooks. It is always so much fun to read all the different types of poetry that the students are producing. My favorite part is finding evidence of the students trying these tips they are learning from Ralph Fletcher. I cannot wait to see the poems that the students decide to pick to publish later this week.

I hope your week is off to a great start.

Book Talks and a Menu Board

This week and last week I passed out a book talk and a menu board.

I am so excited about the book talks. I think it is so important to give the students a chance to share the books they are reading and hopefully loving. These book talks are that chance. The best part about the book talks is the chance they have to hear about books that their peers enjoy. I like to think that the students listen to each and every book recommendation I give and then run to go grab that book. The reality is this is not happening. If the students hear about a book that a friend liked, they will run and get that book.

For this book talk students will have just one minute to share their book. The idea will be to hear a bit about a lot of books. We are even calling these Speed Dating Book Talks. The students will sit in a circle and the timer will buzz. They will listen to the book talk. The buzzer will sound and they will head off to hear about another book. The students will even travel with a sheet of paper to write down books they are interested in reading.

The book talks are going to take place in class on February 20th. I gave the students a small sheet that explains some of the things they should include in these book talks. The rest of the time will be filled up with anything else they want to share. Look for these Speed Dating Checklists in the reading folder.

At the same time we are going to be working on a Menu Board about the Revolutionary War. In this menu board each student will need to complete one side dish, one entree, and have the option to complete a dessert. The dessert projects would be extra credit if they were completed.

The side dishes that the students have to choose from our smaller projects. The students can create a portrait of a Revolutionary hero, create a political cartoon for the time period, or memorize a section of the Declaration of Independence to record in my iTouch. The entree projects are a bit more involved. The students can create a map of the colonies labeled with important events of the period, write a report, or create a PowerPoint about an individual from Revolution.

This menu board can be found in the Social Studies or Reading folder. If you have any questions about these upcoming projects, please feel free to get in touch with me.

I hope you are having a great week.

Award Season

I know the focus is on The Golden Globes, The SAG's and The Academy Awards but it is also officially book award season. Next Monday will bring the big announcements for the Newbery and Caldecott. Today the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) announced the winners of the Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children. Here are the winners:


2015 Winning Titles

Winner

Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin (Feiwel and Friends)

Honor Books

Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff (Philomel)
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
El Deafo by Cece Bell (Harry N. Abrams)
The Farmer and the Clown by Marla Frazee (Beach Lane Books)
Revolution by Deborah Wiles (Scholastic)

Recommended Titles

A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd (Scholastic)
Draw by Raul Colon (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books)
The Madman of Piney Woods by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic)
The Meaning of Maggie by Megan Jean Sovern (Chronicle Books)
The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)
Otis and the Scarecrow by Loren Long (Penguin Group)
The Secret Hum of a Daisy by Tracy Holczer (Putnam)
The Turtles of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow Books)

That is right the winner and one of the honor books are titles that we have read aloud!!

Not only that but the class has been passing around the books El Deafo, The Meaning of Maggie, and A Snicker of Magic. 

I still love The Meaning of Maggie cover it is soooo Wes Anderson. 

I cannot wait for the announcement next week of the Newbery. The last two years I have been reading the Newbery book when the announcement was made. This year we are going to try and follow along with the announcement at school. Hopefully our books that we love will get the attention that they deserve.

Hope you are all having a great start to your week and finding time to read and write.

Catching You Up

Well I have not talked about what we have been up to in the room very much this week. Tonight I just thought I could catch you up. In writing we have spent another week using Ralph Fletcher's amazing book Poetry Matters.

This week we added on to the two ideas that Fletcher had already given us about making image poems. On Tuesday we talked about personification. Many of the students had already been using personification in their writing but now they are able to name it and find it in other poems. On Wednesday Fletcher talked about how authors use symbols in poems. That day we read Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. It was amazing to see how the students were able to talk in their groups and figure out Frost's poem.

Today we made a quick poster and let the class wrote. I found a picture of lanterns being released into the sky. During our image writing I have found all kinds of different pictures. The students know they do not have to use the image it is just there for those who want to use it.

Today the majority of the class used the picture. I mean that picture is amazing it just makes you want to write. Since we had a very special visitor in the class (Ms. Cavallaro) we made sure to have an extra long share time. Student after student shared their work. I was blown away at the words that the students shared. 

In read aloud a hurricane hit Rose's town in New York. The Hurricane is called Hurricane Susan in the book but many of the students have decided that the storm is really Hurricane Sandy. The storm has passed but Rain (Rose's dog) is missing. 

This book is heartbreaking. It is spectacular but it is heartbreaking. Now we have a lost dog. I am hoping that since the storm has passed maybe the storm(s) in Rose's life can begin to lift. 

In reading/Social Studies we continued to talk about the build-up the Revolutionary War. Today I was blown away when students could name all the southern colonies or middle colonies or New England colonies from memory. After some quick review, we talked about the taxes the British were levying on the colonists. While we reading the texts students used VIP's. If you remember from earlier, VIP's are Very Important Post-its. Of course you put a VIP on a Very Important Part. The text lead us to the Boston Massacre. Many in the class argued that the event in Boston was the most important. Others thought it was the taxes that King George brought back after taking away the original taxes. The arguments were great. I love this moment in history and getting to share it with the class.

Hope you are all having a great week.