Monday, March 30/09

Snow sport helmets… CSA approved?

This morning we did a think aloud on an editorial dealing with ski/snowboard helmets. We read about how they are presently not CSA approved and also how many people don’t wear them. The recent death of actress Natasha Richardson has sparked a lot of interest in this topic. Hopefully you will all make the wise choice and wear a good helmet on the slopes.

We returned to work on our book on the Southwest. Today we finished reading the last two chapters and we did the comprehension test. I asked you to think about a place to write a visual description about. We’ll get to that tomorrow.

Have a good relaxing afternoon!

Thursday, March 26/09

Bull riding …

Today we got back to our visualization strategy. Together we looked at a short piece on the rodeo. We noticed the descriptive words and action words that helped us see things like bull riding and a tasty Texas meal of chicken fried steak! After that you went back to work on the article on the Southwest – finding more good examples of words that help you visualize. You finished off with the comprehension check activity.

Some of you had time to start the writing activity. I asked you to choose a place you know really well ( ie. your bedroom, the place you work.) Next I asked you to write a descriptive paragraph about it … so that a reader who has never seen this place can visualize it.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Wednesday, March 25/09

The last blast of winter ???

St. Patrick was a week late with his annual snowstorm but he didn’t forget!  Hopefully this is our last shot of winter weather. Today we spent most of class working on a vocabulary lesson. We did all of lesson 2. These lessons help us see all words are made of parts and we can break them down into pieces. This helps us decode bigger words we don’t know. It will also help us with spelling. Good work. We read for 15 minutes and most of you were able to do a journal as well. good work. Thanks!

Monday, March 23/09

Miners in a “cage” elevator …

Welcome back! Hopefully you all had a great break and are ready to work. To get our brains motivated this morning we did a Think Aloud together using the poem Callum by Island poet Milton Acorn. I think we did pretty well – sorting out the meaning. I have posted a picture of some miners in a cage elevator – just like we read about.

We reviewed the strategy of VISUALIZATION that we started just before March Break. We read how we should be aware of describing words, action words and comparisons when we read. These things will all help us “see” what we are reading. Of course we always use our background knowledge and try to make connections as we read too. You started recording some words/phrases that helped you visualize as you read the article The Southwest. We’ll get back to this tomorrow.

Friday, March 13/09

3 Feet Under (Paul Kropp)

Friday again and that is “play day”  – theatre plays that is. Today we did a short readers theatre script from the book 3 Feet Under. Lots of great sound effects . Well done as usual. Thanks for being great “actors.”

We then went to the library and did our independent reading and you all did a journal for me.

Have a wonderful March Break. Do something fun.

Thursday, March 12/09

A farm auction …

We started our class today with a picture book called “The Auction.” This was a good way to introduce a new reading strategy – VISUALIZATION. We talked about how as kids we read lots of picture books that helped us “see” what we are reading about; as we got older, there were fewer and often no pictures. We had to learn to VISUALIZE (see) in our minds. Reading should produce images for us. We will be working on the Visualizing Strategy for the next while. We used another David Weale story – Picking Potatoes – to pick out good descriptions that helped us “see” the story.

We finished our day with independent reading. We’ll do reader’s theatre tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 10/09

A volcanologist at work …

Thanks for working hard today. We finished up our vocabulary lesson booklet and wrote a spelling test with some of the words from that unit. You then finished up the assignment on Hot Spots so I expect you are all vocanologists by now with some new expertise!

I was able to do some more reading assessments today. Remember I am out for a meeting tomorrow so please be kind to my sub. See you all on Thursday.

Monday, March 9/09

Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington … after the 1980 eruption

It is hard to believe we are days away from the March Break. That means we need to work hard this week. Today we read an article about teens and responsibility. You could all make many connections to the article – computers, video games, chores, meals etc. It is certainly easier  to connect to something when we know a lot about it. That is called having Background Knowledge. 

We worked a bit more on our vocabulary exercise – talking about word parts and in particular – prefixes which are word parts at the beginning of words. We looked at ad, ab, dis and mis. These are common prefixes. Knowing them helps us figure out words.

You all worked on the article about Volcanoes and we will finish up with it tomorrow. As well, I will continue to do more assessments with those who were not done today.

Friday, March 6/09

One Crazy Night  by Paul Kropp

Thanks for your cooperation with the substitute teacher yesterday. Today we did a Think Aloud from the Guardian – an article about energy drinks. We had a good discussion around this topic/article. We had quite a bit of background knowledge about the topic. Next we did a lesson on vowel sounds & word parts. We looked at how breaking difficult words into parts helps us figure out how to pronounce them. Finally,  we did another Readers’ Theatre. It was taken from Paul Kropp’s book One Crazy Night. Great job!! Once again, we can see that the more we practice the better we get at reading the script. Thanks for your great participation.                           

 Have a great weekend.

Tuesday, March 3/09

Lizzie Borden … guilty or not?

Wow …  time has passed since our last post thanks to storm days and my meeting days. Thanks for being so cooperative with my substitutes. We are moving along and today I talked about DURING READING STRATEGIES - things good readers do while they  to help them with understanding. We also talked about eavesdropping on your thinking as you read. Good readers do this all the time. I modelled a THINK ALOUD for you to show you the conversation going on in my head while I read. We will be doing lots of think alouds this semester. The article I read was Lizzie Borden. You did some research on her at the end of class. Guilty or not?  What do you think?