Looking for Answers

Today we read an article called Big, Hairy Spiders on the Move.  Before we read the article, I had the students just look at the title (it is a great title).  As we looked at the title we made a list of questions that we thought we could answer while reading the text.  I love this idea of asking questions that you think you can answer while reading the text.  The class made an amazing list of questions: How big are the spiders?  Where are the spiders going?  Were the spiders poisonous?

Then we read the article and searched for the answers to our questions.

http://tweentribune.com/junior/big-hairy-spiders-are-move

Here is a link to the article if you want to read the text.  This idea of always finding our answers or evidence in text is going to be something that we try to teach all year long.  We are going to keep using this title-question-search strategy when we read articles.  If you want to reinforce this strategy, you could have our students practice it at home when they are reading.  

We also continued to look at Cynthia Rylant's writing.

Here is the book that we read today.  I love this book.  We talked about how Rylant structured the book  going from room to room.  She talked about the PORCH and then LIVING ROOM and then the KITCHEN and then she kept going through the house.  Tomorrow we are going to try and write using this room to room structure in our writer's notebooks.