The Hobbit Posters and Riddles

As we read through the hobbit we are doing some creating. Below are two posters my students made that represented their favorite scene from the first 15% of The Hobbit book. 

After Bilbo bests Gollum in a riddle contest (completely through luck and a bit of cheating) we decided to make our own riddles. Here is mine, see if you can guess the correct answer.

It's long, it's short, it's gone. When you are young you want it where it isn't. When you are old you have it where you don't want it. 

Julissa's riddle:

You never know when it will grow or shrink.  

Nicole's riddle:

What grows old and loses it's color but comes back new in the next summer?

Homer Compares and Contrasts Pecos Bill

What Happened Today? 8/23/12

This morning we were visited by our librarian, Mrs. Owens. She spoke about the MASL award books that students can check out from the library. If students read enough books they get to vote for their favorite. If they read all of the books this year, their name will be placed on a special plaque in the library!

We conducted an experiment to see if the water temperature in the aquarium changed throughout the day. As you can see by the data table, it stayed at a rock solid 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Can you tell me what temperature that is in Celsius?

In the science lab we classified tennis shoes and buttons.  What a great way to introduce plant and animal classification. I can't wait to see what we do next week in Mr. Howerton's class.

We worked on division today. We identified the divisor, dividend and quotient. Then we used the division algorithm to work some practice problems. I love watching them work together using white board markers on their desks. 

Creating a Visual Sequence of Events

We are going to work on creating a visual sequence of events from a book we will read in class. Your responsibility is to identify one event in each chapter of the book we are reading to capture in some visual format. Here are some ideas that you may want to use:

1. Use Paint to draw your visuals.
2. Draw you pictures on paper. Use bold colors so when we digitize the picture we can see the work.
3. Use cut paper. As you know, I am a huge fan of cut construction paper art.
4. Use charcoal or pastels.
5. Create 3D models using objects or clay.

Mrs. Smith has agreed to let us use her art supplies for those of you that need them. Make sure to thank her when you get them.

As I read the story to you, take notes about a specific scene you would like to capture from each chapter. There are fifteen chapters so you will have to create fifteen visuals.

After you have created visuals from all fifteen chapters we will create a Voicethread where you will explain what is happening in each picture. On the first frame of the Voicethread you will need to reflect on what you have created. Include what you did well and what needed improvement.

The book I have chosen to read to you is The River Between Us by Richard Peck. I chose this book because of the excellent writing and the subject matter. The story takes place not to far from here and tells a story about an important battle in the American Civil War that you probably never heard of.

The purpose of this assignment is for you to create a visual sequence of events. I will use these as models for next years 4-8 grade classes. Let's make these excellent models for next year's students!

Directions:

1. Listen and take notes as story is read.

2. Create visual representations for each chapter.

3. Take picture of the representations if necessary.

4. Create Voicethread and describe each image.

5. Reflect on what you have learned on the first image of the Voicethread.

Character Trading Cards

ReadWriteThink.org has an interactive trading card lesson where the student creates a trading card from a story he/she has read. Students identify character traits, story setting, and other reading skills and when finished they can print out their own trading card.

Dr. Suess's Birthday: Read Across America Day

Photo from Wikpedia

Tomorrow is Dr. Suess, Theodore Guisel's birthday. The National Education Society has named the day Read Across America day in his honor. Here is a link to the Seussville page about Read Across America. What will you do to celebrate reading tomorrow?

Pick Your Book of the Year: Mrs. W's Blog

We are going to post our favorite book we read this year on Mrs. W's Blog. Here is the link to the post. Make sure your comment is a paragraph that identifies your book and give three reasons why it is your favorite. Also make sure grammar, punctuation, and spelling are right.

The Mystery of Saint Matthews Island

I've alluded to this story this year during our watching of the Digging for the Truth episode on Easter Island. This story is also about sustainability and how we need to learn from others examples.

We are going to use this story to launch The Biome Project 2009. This will be our extension for reading this week, but I expect it will take longer to complete than the usual extensions. Therefor, I am going to shorten this weeks assignment list so we have more time to finish. I expect we should be finished by next Tuesday including recording. We won't start doing anything on it until Thursday so we can focus on our story.

Here is the link to our Google doc instructions for this weeks reading.

Here is the link to the instructions for The Biome Project 2009.

Third Grade Presentations of National Monuments to Mrs. Blakemore's Fifth Grade

Third grade students from Mrs. Greer's class visited Mrs. Blakemore's fifth grade class today to do oral presentations on National Monuments. This was an extension from story they had in reading.

I think that creating reading extensions make the stories much more interesting and allows the students to internalize the information better. Don't miss the video below. Please forgive the loudness, the students were nervous.

Ghost Towns Reading Unit

Image by mlhradio

After last years great Ghost Town moments, see post 1 and post 2, we have a high standard to meet. Since the skill this week is graphic sources you will have the opportunity to create your own. You will also look at Flickr pictures of real ghost towns to get and idea what they really look like. Then you are going to use Kerpoof to create your very own ghost town.

Here is the link to the checklist for you to use.

Evans Elementary Wants Comments

Evans Elementary from Seminole County, Florida did some amazing work with reading discussion blogs. They have asked us to look through them and leave them some comments. It is a real honor to be asked to do this, so make sure you your comments are positive and relevant. They deserve your best effort.

Visitors, we invite you to follow the links and make a comment or two as well. Comments motivate students and teachers.

The first blog we will look at is the Swindle discussion blog. Here are the links to the 3 pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3

The second blog is The Lightning Thief Discussion Blog. Here are the links to the 4 pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4

Using ToonDoo With Journey to the Center of the Earth

Toondoo is an online cartoon maker. Your assignment is to create and post a cartoon related to your Journey to the Center of the Earth stories. You will need to create an account using your email address and password. After creating your account explore the site and see what you can do. I want your cartoons posted by the end of Reading tomorrow.

Here is an example:

Journey to the Center of the Earth: Redux 2009

My students just finished reading an excerpt from Jules Verne's classic story Journey to the Center of the Earth. Last year my students wrote stories describing what happened when they went to the center of the Earth. This year, I created a short story starter for my students to use for inspiration. Zac, Rosa, and Saul lend their voices to begin our stories.



The stories will be posted on the A Novel Approach to Reading blog when they are finished.

Here is a link where I explain how you can get the novel on audio for free.

A Titanic Undertaking: Creating and Recording Radio Broadcasts

If you have been following the blog this week, you have been reading about our experimental reading assignments. Here is a visual representation of what we did this week.
Here is Rosa and Natalia reading the story from the reading text on Tuesday. We had already read the story once in class, but the students had to read the story and take notes over the information. Rosa is listening to the story on the ipod.
Here you can see Parker watching a video downloaded from Discovery Streaming. The video shows Robert Ballard's discovery of the wreck of the Titanic.Here is Rosa again recording the audio of her radio story. Notice the microphone placed next to the aquarium.
I placed the microphone next to the aquarium so that it would record the sound of water running. I hoped this would lend some authenticity to the recordings.

Here is Rosa's broadcast live from the Titanic:

Here is Nathan's story live with Bob Ballard:

The rest of the recordings will be posted on the Novel Approach to Reading Blog next week when we have finished them.

An Interview with Meriwether Lewis

Mr. Howerton, our fourth grade history teacher, has graciously accepted the challenge of portraying Meriwether Lewis for our next reading assessment. We will be researching and preparing questions for an interview. The story we are reading is called "Talk With an Astronaut".

Along with the interview questions the students will be using note taking skills and working on vocabulary skills. The assignments are addressed on the checklist. There are also links for the students to do research.

Click here for this story's checklist.

Student Reflections on This Weeks Reading Assignments.

Here are three interviews I did with students. The topic is reflecting on the skills we used for studying vocabulary.

Slendy talks about this weeks work.

Amanda talks about what she learned from doing the skills.

Meagan talks about how she learns vocabulary.

A Titanic Assessement: Using Skills to Create Content

My reading class is trying to do something a little different this week. We are still using our Scott Foresman reading series and still doing the usual assignments. The difference is I have added an extra assessment and extra work to make that assessment successful.

The story we are reading this week is about Robert Ballard and his discovery of the Titanic. The extra assessment is for my students to write a radio report that they will present on Friday. They are going to pretend to be a reporter and give a live radio broadcast as if they are on the Titanic when it sinks, or with Robert Ballard when he discovers the Titanic. For research they have watched a video, read some articles, and, of course, read the story in the reading book.

Click here to see the checklist I created for my students to follow. As you can see, the students had to use several skills to complete this assignment. Today they are reflecting on which skill will help them most with their reading assessment tomorrow. Tomorrow they will analyze their reflection.

Here is Tristin's take on this week's assignments:

Here is Zac's take on this week's assignments:

Here is Parker's view on this week's assignments:

The Three Century Woman: A Classroom Discussion

Here is the class discussion we had about the story The Three Century Woman. This does not include specific skill and comprehension questions. Instead the goal was to help the students make connections between the story and what they already know.

The Art of Holes: Creating Sculptures Based on the Novel by Louis Sachar

Here are sculptures my students made as an assessment in Art class. We were in the process of recording the stories they had written about the first Stanley Yelnat's encounter with Kissin' Kate Barlow. When we went into the art room the art teacher informed the class they would be assessed on a sculpture they were to create. I suggested they use something from the story Holes. Here is what they came up with.

Using Vocaroo to Give Students a Voice

We are reading the novel Holes in class. In the story the main character Stanley's great-grandfather was robbed by the outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow. Although Stanley tells us his great-grandfather was robbed, we don't know how it happened. Since this was a "hole" in the story, we decided to fill it.

We used the incredibly useful website Vocaroo.com to record the stories we wrote to fill in what really happened when Kissin' Kate robbed the first Stanley Yelnats. Vocaroo allows us to easily record and post audio, something that I have real trouble doing with Blogger. We used a Blue Snowball microphone to record the audio. Here is the link to the stories my students wrote and recorded.