Favorite Read Aloud

My favorite read aloud of the year is the book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.   I look forward to reading it every year and I still cry at the sad parts.  I am currently reading it with the fourth graders but this year has been different.  After completing our unit on Greek myths,  my students have been comparing Edward to Narcissus…go Common Core!!!  We have been collecting evidence to show that he is narcissistic or vain.  (I still break out into Carly Simon every time I hear that word.)  I am reading this book with new eyes and so are my students.

Tacky Tourist Day 2013

Community Reader Day

The children were so excited to have Mrs. Mazmanian as our Community guest reader.  The kids loved the book about Willie Mays.

We're Off...2013 School Year Begins!!!!

We have officially started the school year.  We spent the first two days getting to know each other, establishing the rules, setting expectations and having a little fun!!!!  I am very excited about my new class.  We are off to a great start.  Here are some pictures of the children working on rules and doing a three way "Getting to Know You" activity.  Please check back weekly for classroom updates.

Detective Slideshow

PIE

We are working on Author's Purpose: PIE

Persuade

Inform

Entertain

The kids have fun looking for books in old book order forms that fit each  category.  They quickly figured out that they persuade you with toys to buy their books.

Author's Purpose Sheet

Blog Post

Getting to the Root!

One of the Fourth Grade Common Core standards that I need to teach is learning to use Greek and Latin roots to help understand and build new vocabulary.

Last week we created root flip books using a printable from Laura Candler.  Her website offers many great resources for teachers.  I had the children find five words using their "root" and add an illustration on the front.  They wrote out definitions on the inside.  We used dictionaries and the interenet to find words: http://wordinfo.info.  

I purchased a set of word wall cards and printed them small.  I gave each student their own root to research.  We then added them to our Root Word Wall.

Roots of Success

Postcards from Ellis Island

Our  new Grade 4 Common Core ELA unit is about the stories of "Immigration."  The kids love it!!!  I am sure they have been talking about it at the dinner table.  We have been reading many fictional and non-fictional books.  We even took a virtual tour of Ellis Island with Scholastic.

One of the activities that they loved were the Postcards.  We read the book "At Ellis Island: A History in Many Voices."  The book has so much going on...it takes 2-3 readings to do it justice.  We read it the first time for Sera's story (a fictional character).  The second reading we read and discussed the immigrants quotes and the captions.  There are many great photos and illustrations on every page.

The next thing I did was copy a page from "I Was Dreaming to Come to America" for every student, along with the short biographical page in the back.  I had them read the pages and write a postcard from the point of view of their immigrant.  We discussed that their postcard would be based on facts but will include some realistic-fiction details.

Here are some of their postcards: