Last week we talked a lot about wants vs. needs with the story Those Shoes. In that story a boy wants a pair of expensive sneakers even though his family doesn't have much money. He finds a pair secondhand that are too small for him. He notices a boy in his class who has been nice to him and not made fun of him also could use a pair of new shoes. The boy in the story ends up anonymously giving his shoes to his classmate. It's a sweet story and it fit in with the season of being better to give than to receive and the good feeling that gives. Students created their own booklet in the shape of "Those Shoes" and wrote about ways they can be generous at school, home, and in the community. A great message for this time of the year.
This week we are reading a story about a family that goes each year to a specific tree in the forest to decorate it with food items for the woodland creatures that live there. We will talk again about doing kind things for others and why the family does what it does each year. We will be working on inferencing. We also will be reviewing main idea and details.
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Before Thanksgiving break we read a funny story about a turkey family. The youngest turkey was the smart one of the bunch and knew what the people coming to the turkey farm were really going to do with a turkey that they got from the turkey farm.
This week we are reading a story about a boy who lives with his grandma. They don't have much money and have to save their money for things they need. However the boy really wants a pair of expensive shoes that everyone has. He ends up finding a pair second hand, but they're too small for him. He still buys them and wears them even though they hurt his feet. Meanwhile he sees that another boy in his class is in need of new shoes and his feet look smaller... Last week we read a Native American version of Cinderella called The Rough-Faced Girl. In this version the girl's skin and hair has become burned from tending to the fire for her two older sisters. Instead of a prince there is an Invisible Being who can only be seen by the one who will marry him. The two older sisters try to say they've seen him (as he's said to be handsome, rich, and powerful). The Invisible Being's sister asks them questions to see if they have seen him or not. When they fail, the rough-faced girl takes her turn. We also reviewed irregular verbs.
This week we have a fun story before Thanksgiving, Turk and Runt. This story is about a turkey farm that has two brother turkeys in a family. Turk is the older brother who their parents boast over, Runt is the smaller runt of the family, but understands that the people coming to the farm aren't choosing turkeys to star in productions but for Thanksgiving dinner so he goes about trying to save his big brother from being picked. We will also read a non-fiction book about turkeys to go along with, and continue talking about non-fiction text features. Last week we read a fiction story about a young bat named Stellaluna who gets separated from her mother and ends up living and being raised by birds until one day when she finds her bat family again. We also read some non-fiction texts about bats and learned many interesting facts about them. We discussed facts vs. opinions and did some research about bats as well.
This week we are reading a Native American version of Cinderella. We will be comparing and contrasting the two stories and reviewing irregular verbs. This week we have a fiction story, Stellaluna, about a bat who starts to live with a bird family and starts acting like a bird until it finds others of its kind. We will also read non-fiction books about bats as well so we can see what is fact and fiction. We will continue working on irregular plural nouns. We will also talk about irregular verbs.
Crankenstein by Samantha Berger is a funny story that is basically how when things don't go kids' ways then they turn into Crankensteins. He's a Crankenstein getting up in the morning, when the syrup is all gone for his pancakes, heading to school, sun melts his popsicle, too cold on Halloween... He's upset about a broken toy when he notices a girl Crankenstein for the same reason. They see each other and start to laugh which turns them back into themselves and then they go off to play. We made a lot of connections to ourselves with the character in the book. We also worked on sequencing with beginning, middle, end. We also talked about Shades of Meaning and how different words that mean almost the same thing (synonyms) can get amped up: sickened, disgusted, nauseated. We talked about using a Thesaurus to help amp up words in their writing. We also started learning about irregular plural nouns (mouse - mice, child - children, sheep - sheep)
We read a non-fiction story on spiders. We learned many facts about spiders: differences between them and insects, spiderlings (baby spiders), different webs, and different types of spiders. The main thing we learned is that most spiders are not harmful. In fact most spiders are helpful as they make it so that insects don't take over the world. They also eat insects that are bad for us and plants, and they are part of the food chain themselves. We also continued working on capitals, punctuation, and adjectives. We also were introduced to non-fiction text features and practiced finding them in non-fiction texts. We also continued practicing Summarizing using Somebody Wanted But So Then
I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll is a fun story about a boy whose monster that lives under his bed leaves to go on a fishing trip and the boy can't sleep without having them there, so he tries to find a substitute monster. Each monster that comes has something that makes him or her not scary to the little boy and he tells them why they won't work to be his monster. For this book we will again talk about making connections and the characters and setting of this story. We will also continue to work on the other skills we've learned that good readers use, such as asking/answering questions, inferencing, and using the illustrations in a story.
We will also review adjectives. A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker is a cute story about a bear who lives in a den and has never had any visitors so he comes to the conclusion that he doesn't like visitors and doesn't want any. One day a mouse comes to visit. Bear tells him "No Visitors Allowed" and shuts the door, but that mouse keeps popping up in various places throughout the story. Each time bear gets more and more upset as he tries to get rid of the mouse. Finally they come to a deal that if the bear shares his tea, snack, and fire, he will be on his way and not bother him again. While mouse visits, bear learns that it IS nice to have visitors and to make friends. For this story we made predictions and inferences as to what was going to happen in the story and what the message of the story is, what bear learned.
Students also learned how to use the clues in the illustrations to give us more information and how to use that to help us understand the story better and to infer what is going on in the story. For grammar, students learned about irregular plural nouns and we practiced turning different nouns into irregular plural nouns. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox is a sweet story about a little boy who lives next door to "an old people's home." He is friends with everyone there, but has a special friendship with Miss Nancy because she has four names just like him. He finds out that Miss Nancy has lost his memory so he asks the other residents what a memory is and then using their answers collects things to help Miss Nancy get her memory back. We continued talking about connections we can make to a story and students shared connections they had.
We also reviewed what plural nouns are and how for most nouns we just add s to make them plural, but there are times that we add es, change the y to i and add es, or change the f or fe to ves. We also learned how good readers ask and answer questions while they are reading to help them remember and understand the story to help build reading comprehension. |
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