Fort Ancient and My List Continued

Today we took some time to talk about Fort Ancient.  Fort Ancient is amazing and just a few minutes away from our school.  It is incredible to think about this important part of history just being down the road from our school.  I hoped by showing some videos that I could get the students to understand that this incredible piece of history is right in their backyard.  If you follow this link, you will be able to find some of the videos that we watched today in class.

We also wrapped up the second chapter in Poetry Matters that deals with creating image poems.

I loved the ideas that Ralph Fletcher shared with the class about creating these images.  Tomorrow we will make a poster that summarizes his ideas:

1. Write and notice the world using your five senses
2. Use similes and metaphors
3. Use personification
4. Use Symbols

Today in class we talked about symbols in poetry.  Fletcher mentions Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken.  I made sure that was the poem that I shared with the class.  When we were done we watched Kid President's Pep Talk.  If you have not seen this video, it is sure to make you smile.  The best part of the video to me is the lines about Frost's poem.

Well back to my top five moment of 2013 in room 215.

3.  Charlotte's Web  This seems like ages ago now.  When it was time to read Charlotte's Web, my room became a buzz of activity.  Some students would gather around the iTouch to listen to the chapters of the day.  Other students would meet with their partners to read the chapters.  The room was just a buzz of noise and the students were reading and talking about this incredible piece of literature.  I am big on trying to read the newest book or listen to the newest music, and I think this is why I loved our Charlotte's Web time.  Taking a moment and going back to revisit a special text was one of my favorite memories of the year.

2.  GoldieBloxs Claim  We have been building and building all year long on this idea of making and supporting a claim.  During the first week of school we watched a commercial from Volkswagon about the Fun Theory.  The class talked and discussed what Volkswagon was claiming in the commercial.  But later in the year I found my favorite commercial of the year.  

This commercial has changed since we first used it in class.  The commercial had taken lyrics from a famous song and made them work perfectly with their claim.  Unfortunately the lyrics have been removed in this version because of copyright issues.  

I was amazed to see how quickly the class understood what this commercial was trying to claim.  Then I had the students write about whether or not they agreed with the claim of the commercial.  The writing the class gave me was so much fun to read.  I cannot wait to work more on making and writing claims in 2014.

Tomorrow my favorite memory of the year.  

Hope you are all having an amazing week.

Lists Lists and More Lists

One of my favorite parts about this time of the year is end of the year lists.  I will spend most of my free time over winter break pouring over list after list.  My favorite lists are end of the year music lists.  I know some people hate these lists, but to me there is nothing better than a nice list.  I actually found this article on why we like end of the year.  My favorite part of the article is that it is a list.

I also found this list of the best picture books of 2013.

Just to add another list to your reading, here is a list of the top 100 books of 2013 from the New York Public Library.

I thought it would be fun to think about some of my favorite moments from this year.  So here is my list of our top five moments of 2013 in room 215:

5.  The silent conversation the day that we read about Stella dying in The One and Only Ivan.  I was so amazed by what the students thought that day.  Just walking around the room and reading the conversations that were occurring was astounding.  The lesson took a long time but the thinking that came out of that moment was worth every second.

4.  Share time the day we worked on I am From poems.  I love this day each and every year.  The writing that comes out of the students that day is so fun to hear.  I think my favorite part of this day is seeing how much the students seem to surprise themselves with how amazing they can write.  It is a great springboard into the rest of our writing year.  Our classroom is filled with such amazing authors and this day was just the first of many days where they showed off there writing.

I think to make this even more exciting I will announce memory number three and two tomorrow and save the number one for Thursday.

Just because I have been sharing so many lists...here is my reading list for winter break:

3.  Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo.  This might be our next read aloud.

2.  All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.  It will be so nice to read an adult book again.  I love reading this book.  Mrs. Tarr hates when I read this book, though, she says I start to dream about moving out west and becoming a rancher.

1.  Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.  Another adult book that I have been saving to read for a long time.

If you have any other suggestions, send me the title.  I am always looking for great reads.  Hope that you are all having a great week.  

The Moon

In the book we are reading aloud Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin the moon has been missing.  

Rendi the main character has seemed to be the only character who notices that the moon is missing.  At night Rendi struggles to sleep constantly hearing moans and groans.  Later in the book the character Madame Chang tells a story about how Wang-Yi visits the moon once every twenty-nine days to visit his wife.  

The story that Madame Chang was a pourquoi story that fit perfectly with the other pourquoi stories that we had been reading and that the students were writing themselves.  I knew as soon as we read Madame Chang's story last week that I wanted to spend this week talking about the moon.  

Today we started this study of looking at the moon by looking at a moon cycle.  

The students also got to look at a moon calendar.  The calendar shows how the moon will look throughout the month of December.  Hopefully students will step outside tonight and be able to find the moon in the sky and compare it to the moon calendar in their Earth and Sky notebook.

I cannot wait to learn more about the moon this week.  Hope you all had a great start to your week.

Images

The second chapter of Poetry Matters by Ralph Fletcher talks about how to create image filled poems.

I love this chapter because I always think the poetry that our class creates during the chapter is amazing.   The chapter starts with a quote from another poet about how poems are like snapshots.  I love this idea of poems as snapshots.  After we read the first section of the chapter, I shared a poem by Carl Sandburg called "Plowboy" with the class.

PLOWBOY

After the last red sunset glimmer,
Black on the line of a low hill rise,
Formed into moving shadows, I saw
A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,
Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.
The turf had a gleam of brown,
And smell of soil was in the air,
And, cool and moist, a haze of April.
I shall remember you long,
Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow.

I shall remember you and the picture
You made for me,
Turning the turf in the dusk
And haze of an April gloaming.

We have looked at this poem before but today I think the class was able to look at the poem as a snapshot.  The line, "I shall remember you and the picture you made for me," is exactly what I want the students to learn.  The world is filled with amazing images and if our authors can see these images and take mental snapshots they can write about them later.  When it was time to write, I showed the class an image of snow.  The class knew they could use the picture to help spark their writing or use their own mental image to create a poem.  

Here is just some of the writing the class shared with me today:

"every kid is playing in the bitter wind,

fingertips, ears, noses and toe tips all cold"

Love the choice of toe tips!

"As the last snow flake falls

trees are covered with snow.

They look like white monsters

running on the road"

Using a simile before we even talk about similes.  Do not worry we will talk about similes tomorrow.

"Dawn is here 

white as could possibly be

white blankets covering the dark shadow of the trees"

Love that start.  

"When the birds don't sing

when the squirrels are not in the yard

when the trees are covered in powder seats of white

                 we all know

Soft parts of clouds have fallen from the sky

and onto the world"

Again another start that just blew me away.

I cannot wait to see where we keep going with these images poems.

Hope you are all having a great week.

December 11th

Could that day be right?  This year seems to be going by so fast.  I cannot believe that in just seven more school days it will be winter break.  Not that I am counting.

We continued to talk about poetry today in class.  The class listened to a young man list things that he believed in on a recording.  The kindergartener had made a list of 100 things he believed for his 100th day of school.  I thought that the list that the boy sounded like poetry.  The class agreed that it was "poem-ish."

After that I just had to set them loose and they wrote their "I Believe" poems.  Here are just some of the "I Believe" lines that were shared today:

"I believe that every book I read is magical."

"I believe piano soothes away your worries.
  I believe the sound of a piano is magical.
  I believe that piano is a calming instrument."

"I believe the future will hold many new tales to tell
  I believe"

"I believe in trustworthy parents,
  I believe that parents are reliable,
  I believe that parents are the ones
  that will be there for us"

"I believe in writing with power and wisdom
  I believe writing is a skill not a test
  I believe writing can be anything"

It is an amazing thing to be in our room when we share our writing.  I am constantly awed by the smart, funny, beautiful, or profound things that our shared each day at our rocking chair.  I cannot wait to see where our poetry goes next.

Tomorrow we will dive into the second pillar of poetry...image.  In years past this is where I see our authors just produce amazing pieces of writing.  I cannot wait to see what I have in store tomorrow when we share at the rocking chair.

Poetry

In the book Poetry Matters Ralph Fletcher tells us that there are three pillars of poetry.  These three pillars of poetry include emotion, image and music.  In fact the first three chapters of his book deal with these three pillars.  This week we have been reading about the first pillar of poetry emotion.

According to Ralph Fletcher there are three ways to make your poems more emotional:

1. Think of the poem as an emotional X-Ray
2. Try poem speak
3. Don't say too much
4. Convey emotions through images

Today we created a poster for our writer's notebook that talked about these techniques to make our poems more emotional.  We have also been reading poems like "Lullaby" by Georgia Heard, "To You" by Karla Kuskin, and "Dreams" by Langston Hughes from the book This Place I Know.

Each of these poems, along with Langston Hughes's poem called "Poem," uses one of these techniques that Fletcher talks about in his book.  For example the poem "Poem" has less than 30 words.  I think the class understood that I picked this poem to show us an example of "Don't Say Too Much."  

I hope as we keep looking through Fletcher's book and finding more about these three pillars that the students will find ways that they can make their poems better.  I have already been amazed at the way the students have been taking these example poems and using them to create their own poetry.  

Hope that you all had a great start to your week.

What We Notice

All year long I have asked the students to tell me what they notice.  This week we have been looking at what we call FANBOYS sentences and asking the class what they notice.  Today we looked at our fourth FANBOYS sentence.  I am always amazed when you ask students to notice things what they will notice.  

We started simple.  The class noticed a comma.  By today we were noticing that on both sides of the comma there was a subject and a verb.  In just four days the class went from noticing a small comma to figuring out the sentences.  We still have not figured why we call the sentences FANBOYS and what those FANBOYS are really called, but that will come as we look at more sentences.  

I am going to keep it short tonight.  Do not forget midterms are coming home tomorrow.

Hope you are all having a great week.

Book Ideas

I thought some of you might be looking for a few books this time of year, so I wanted to give some suggestions of some great new books that are out there right now.

My first suggestion...Clementine and the Spring Trip by Sara Pennypacker.  How could you go wrong with an author with the last name Pennypacker?  This book is getting some early Newbery buzz and would be a great book to add to any collection.

Another book that I think a lot of our students would enjoy would be the book Eruption by Elizabeth Rusch.  This nonfiction book about volcano eruptions would be a great addition to any library.  Also with more and more focus being put on nonfiction reading, it might be nice to show young readers what great nonfiction can look like.

A book that I was finally able to get my hands on last week is the new book from Kate DiCamillo.  Her new book is called Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures.  I must admit I am a sucker for any Kate DiCamillo book (Because of Winn Dixie, The Magician's Elephant, and of course The Tale of Despereaux).  DiCamillo's new book did make the short list for the National Book Award.

One last title that I think our students might enjoy would be The Real Boy by Anne Ursu.  I loved Ursu's last book Breadcrumbs.  Here is a quick blurb from Amazon about The Real Boy:  

On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy named Oscar. Oscar is a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the village, and spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master’s shop grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar’s world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.

But now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the forest will keep his island safe. Now, even magic may not be enough to save it.

I hope these helped if you were looking for some books. 

Hope you are all having a great week.

Social Studies

In Social Studies we have been learning about the earliest people in Ohio.  So far we have studied the Paleo-Indians, the Archaic, and now the Adena and the Hopewell cultures.  I have really enjoyed learning about these groups with the students.  Right before Thanksgiving break we finished our word bracket about the Archaic people.  Here is an example of one of our brackets:

You can see this student picked the words time, forrest, stable and burial to be in his Archaic Word Bracket Final Four.  I love these four words.  They seem to be the perfect four words to describe what we learned about the Archaic. 

The word burial describes the Archaic because their culture started to bury their dead.  The word stable is picked because it describes the climate.  Once the climate stabilized forests could grow and smaller mammals were hunted.  Time was picked because the Archaic were much better hunters.  This success with hunting allowed the Archaic time to concentrate on other things besides looking for food.  With that time the Archaic started to create the arts.  They made pots and masks which were important parts of their culture.  Finally the word forrest described the new living environment of the Archaic.  

One thing that I have enjoyed about learning about these early cultures in Ohio is how it ties into what we are learning about in reading.  In reading we are continuing to discuss Native American beliefs about the earth and the sky.  This week we have been reading some Native American Pourquoi Tales.  

The word pourquoi is French and in French the word translates to why.  So far we have read Pourquoi Tales that explain why the crow has black feathers, why the porcupine has quills, and why the red bird is red.  The class has started to keep a list of characteristics that they notice about these stories.  Obviously they have noticed that the stories explain the reason for the way something is today, but the have also noticed so much more.  Today on the characteristics list we added the idea that in the stories a  character is usually being rewarded.  The rest of this week we are going to continue to read Pourquoi Tales and analyze how they are similar and different to the tales we have already read.

I hope that you are enjoying your week. 

December

I'm back.  I cannot believe that it is already December.  I know that I have already said it this year but time really seems to be flying.

Today we started to talk about poetry in writing.  I read aloud part of the book Poetry Matters by Ralph Fletcher.

I love this book.  I think it really helps students understand all the possibilities of poetry.  Today the book talked about the power of poetry.  How we read poetry at funerals, graduations, retirements, and inaugurations.  Poetry is this powerful bit of writing and hopefully I can show that to the class.

Each day for the next three weeks I will read aloud a bit from Poetry Matters and then I will share a poem.  The poem we read today was "Lullaby" by Georgia Heard.  I found the poem in the book This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort.

"Lullaby" is an interesting poem written in two stanzas and only containing questions.  We read the poem together chorally after the class listened to me read the poem.

After reading, the class went back to their seats and wrote.  I was amazed to see some of the work that was going on around the room.  Many of the students borrowed the idea of asking questions and used that in their pieces.  Others were writing poems to important people in their life.  Others were writing about winter and upcoming holidays.

I love this writing unit.  I am always amazed at the writing these students are able to produce.  If you get a chance, I hope you take time to look at the writing in the writer's notebook.  

I hope you all had a great start to the week.