Characters WANTED!

This week, 5th graders worked on character development through "Wanted" posters.

They could choose a book they had read or a picture book to quickly read and use. Then they had to fill out information about the character, description, and why they were "wanted"! Here are some of them....

Fact and Opinion

2nd grade is working a lot on facts and opinions through literature. Last week, we read I Wanna Iguana to talk about the boy's opinion on getting a pet. (book covers from bn.com)

Then we played Fact & Opinion bingo. This week, we read a book by Mark Teague that focused on one opinion. Then we sorted fact and opinion cards with our tables.

It's Big Idea Week!

This week, many grade levels are working on the BIG IDEA of the story. Sometimes we call it the big idea/message, sometimes we call it the lesson, and sometimes we call it the moral of the story (based on age/grade). Here are my K friends working on the Big Idea of this book!

Some thought it was looking for information in the library (love this idea!!), some thought it was planting seeds to grow new plants (another great idea) and others thought it taught us about guinea pigs and what they eat. They were all on the right track!!

Venn Diagrams with a Dog's Day & A Cat's Day

These books are my FAVORITE for compare/contrast and point of view!'

One one side of the book the pet tells their side of the story, and in the other the human tells their side. The students are always shocked when I flip the book over and the story is different. This week, second graders worked as partners to Venn the two stories.

A Carousel of Social Media

My 6th graders are wrapping up a unit on Internet Safety. Our final lesson was about social media, and the best way to show what we know is through a carousel activity. Each table is assigned one topic to write about in a specific marker color. They talk and write for about 1-2 minutes and then will move to the next table/topic. They will read what has been written and add to it with their specific color until they have had a chance to talk about each topic. At the end, the original group will read their sheet and give a one sentence summary of their idea. The social media topics were: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Email. Having conversations about these tools is helpful in knowing who is using what!

Project READ- Jane Yolen's Dinosaurs

I LOVE Jane Yolen's Dinosaur books, so I used them as my theme for this month's Project READ! We made dinosaurs out of watercolored plates, colored dinosaur pictures, and played a game where we rolled a dice and added clothespins to a dinosaur's back. Then our treat was a dinosaur egg hunt with eggs filled with plastic dinosaurs, candy eggs, and goldfish crackers!

It's That Time Again... Book Fair!!

We are halfway through a busy week of Parent Lunch Week and Book Fair! Since we have no school on Friday, our days have been even busier. Students are also loving their free books from PTO. Thank you!!