Mack

Today in The One and Only Ivan we got to see our first picture of the man in charge of the Exit 8 Big Top Mall.  The class looked confused at the man they saw on the page.  I was excited that the class was confused because it meant they had all been visualizing.  We had been picturing Mack in our head as we were reading the book and the picture we saw did not match what we had imagined.

We are going to continue to talk about visualizations this week as we read.  In fact the students started to search for descriptive parts today as they read Charlotte's Web.  When the students find these descriptive parts they are going to copy them down and then draw me a picture of what they are picturing in their head.

I love this thinking strategy.  Visualizing is what finally made reading fun for me.  I loved the idea of turning the book I was reading into a movie in my head.  I became a mini-director.  I am hoping as we continue to talk about visualizing the rest of the week the students will see how it can make reading more enjoyable.

We also talked today about how we use schema to visualize.  To prove the point I had the class describe to me what we would see and hear during gym class if they were playing Caveman Dodgeball.  The class was able to tell me I would hear, "the squeak of gym shoes" or see "colorful dodge balls skipping across the shining gym floor."  Then I asked the class describe to me what my father looked like.  The class struggled.  They lacked schema to describe my father but had plenty for gym class.

Schema is such an important part of reading.  The background knowledge of readers allows them to be more familiar with ideas in texts but it also allows for deeper understanding as students use schema to make inferences and to visualize.  

I hope you are all off to a great start this week.  If you are checking this late on Monday night, do not forget that tomorrow is Pink Day.  It is also the Reds vs. Pirates:)

Contrasts and Contradictions

One of the signposts that we have been discussing besides "The Aha Moment" is called "Contrasts and Contradictions."  I know a bit of a crazy name for fourth graders but I actually think this signpost is one of the most common and easiest to find in books.  The Contrasts and Contradiction signpost is found when a character does or says something that is completely opposite (contradicts) what the character has been saying or doing all along.

Today in The One and Only Ivan, Ivan contradicted his previous behavior.  In the book he has told us before that he never gets angry, but today he got angry.  When you find a Contrast and Contradiction signpost the reader is supposed to stop and ask themselves: Why is the character doing that?

This is exactly what we did we took time to think about why Ivan got mad.  The class was able to dig deeper into this important moment of the book.  They realized that Ivan was frustrated that all his work was for nothing, but more importantly they realized he was angry because he was not going to keep his promise to Stella.  If you want you could talk to our students about the moment that Ivan got angry.  Hopefully they can tell you all about this moment.

These signposts are going to be something that we discuss all year long.  Hopefully after being introduced to these signposts and seeing me model how I use the signposts when I read aloud the students will feel more comfortable using them in their reading.

We also spent part of today looking at some art.  As we looked at the art we reviewed the metacognition thinking strategy and talked about inferences.  Here is the painting that we looked at today.

Students told me what they saw in the painting, what they noticed, and what they inferred as they looked at the painting.  One of my favorite inferences was that there was only one person in the apartment.  When I asked this student to explain his evidence he said, "there is only one car parked outside."  Brilliant!  I was thinking he just saw the one light in the building, but his evidence is so much more advanced.  

Next week we are going to start talking about our next thinking stem visualizing.  I love some of the lessons that go with the idea of picturing what you read.  

I cannot believe tomorrow is Friday.  I also cannot believe that we are sending midterms home tomorrow.  Hope you are all having a great week.

Finding Connections

As we keep reading The One and Only Ivan and Charlotte's Web more and more connections between the two books keep appearing.  Today we saw how in both books animal characters were trying to use human words to save another character.  I really have found a deeper appreciation for the two books as I have seen some of the similarities.

Students are working on comparing and contrasting the two books this week in their reader's notebook. It has been fun to see the comparisons that the students have found that I have not even thought of I have been reading.  I cannot wait to see how the two books work together as we keep reading.  I think we are still on pace to finish Charlotte's Web by next Friday.  I think this might be right around the time when we finish The One and Only Ivan.

We also kept working on inferences today.  We used to poems from Georgia Heard's book Creatures of the Earth, Sea, and Sky.  Both the poems were about animals.  I had cut out the names of the animals which forced us to infer the animals in the poems.  I was impressed again with the evidence that the students were using to support their inferences.  Tomorrow we are going to finish up talking about inferences (although we will constantly be reminding students to use these thinking strategies throughout the year) by looking at some art work and inferring what see in the paintings.

The class has also been working on creating their first writing projects.  Some students are writing poems, others are writing comic books, others are writing ABC Books, and some are writing personal narratives.  I love seeing how the students work through the writing process.

I will be collecting the students first draft tomorrow and giving the students comments on their project.  I love to comment on the writing during the writing process.  When I was a student teachers always gave me comments at the end of my work and too often at that point it was too late.  By collecting the writing and making comments students will be able to figure out exactly what I want them to work on for their final draft.  After I collect the first drafts we will take a week break from the writing project.  During that week we are going to be looking at some of my favorite books to figure out what the author's are doing in their books that we could borrow.

Hope you are enjoying your Wednesday.

How It's Made

Today we looked at our second How it's Made video.  When we watch these videos we are thinking about the land, the labor and the capital that are being used to make the products.  The video we watched today was on how baseballs are made.  I have to admit it was rather interesting.

The class had already watched a video on how bicycle seats are made.  When we watch the videos the class throws their hands in the air and shakes them when they see an example of land, labor or capital.  We are going to keep talking about economics the rest of the week and discuss how and why budgets are made (a lesson I wish I had learned in fourth grade).

We are also took our first MAP assessment today.  You should have received a letter explaining these assessments in the Friday Folder.  This is a new type of assessment that our district is using to measure student growth.  The assessment was given on a computer in our computer lab.  The class took the reading assessment today and will take the math and language assessment over the next two weeks. 

I thought the class did an amazing job of working hard on the assessment.  We will be sharing these results with these assessments as soon as they are made available to us.  If you have any questions about the assessment, please feel free to call and ask.

Assessments not the most interesting blog post of our year.  Hope you are having a great week.

Flotsam

Today we read one of my favorite picture books Flotsam.

This amazing book is written by David Wiesner and you can see its lovely Caldecott Medal on the cover.  The book is a wordless picture book that tells the story of an amazing underwater camera.  We used this book to show how students use details from the text and their schema to help them make inferences.  

I keep telling the students that to me the most important part of an inference is the evidence that the students use to make the inference.  I even think the evidence is more important than the inference itself.  Today I really started to see some very sophisticated evidence being used to make inferences.  We were looking at facial reactions to make inferences.  We used our experiences at beaches to make inferences. I hope the students keep focusing on using evidence from the text along with their schema to make great inferences.

David Wiesner is an amazing author.  The next time you are at the library I suggest you grab some of his books.  My favorites include Tuesday, Sector 7 and Hurricane.  All these books are the wordless picture books that can really allow our students to make inferences.

As we keep reading the book Charlotte's Web, we keep seeing more and more ways that it connects to The One and Only Ivan.  The students have even started a compare and contrast page in their reader's notebook where they can find similarities and differences between the two books.  Today we all found one major similarity a promise.  You can ask about the two promises from the books.

Besides comparing and contrasting we are also focussing on looking for signposts as we read both books.  The idea for these signposts comes from the book Notice and Note.

One of the signposts that we have been talking about is the Aha Moment.  To me the Aha Moment is when a character finally figures something out or realizes something or decides something important.  In the book The One and Only Ivan, Ivan had a major Aha Moment when he realized that he was living inside a cage.  The whole book Ivan thought he lived in a domain but then one day he suddenly realized that it was a cage.  

The whole idea of these signposts it that you notice the signpost and then you stop and ask yourself a question.  The question we will be asking when we find an Aha Moment is...How might this change things?  In The One and Only Ivan we decided that Ivan would start to get mad and try to escape.  

I love these signposts.  I have started to search for them in my reading.  In almost every book I read I find at least one example of all the signposts.  When I stop and notice these signposts as I read, I find that I understand the book on such a deeper level.  I hope if you are reading a book you could search for the Aha Moment.  Also you can talk about Aha Moments that our students are finding in the books they are reading. 

It is extra innings and I am extra tired.  I hope you had a quick Monday.  

Thank You Pinterest

Today we continued to work on the thinking strategy of making inferences.  The lesson I taught today was stolen/borrowed from Pinterest.  We watched two Pixar shorts movies.  The first one was called Geri's Game.

As we watched we made an inference that the short was set in the fall.  You can see in this picture how the students might have made this inference.  The evidence was the leaves on the tree.  We mixed this evidence with our schema of what happens to trees in the fall and were able to make the inference that it was fall.  Then we watched another Pixar short called For the Birds.

I love these Pixar shorts and I think they are excellent for helping students understand the idea of making an inference. 

We also continued to read Charlotte's Web.  In class we have started to discuss the idea of signposts.  This idea of looking for signposts as we read comes from the book Notice and Note.

As we read Charlotte's Web I am going to be introducing the first three signposts to our students.  The authors of Notice and Note through their research have found six signposts that show up repeatedly in literature.  These signposts should make students stop and notice and note as they read.  This process should allow for a more in-depth reading of the text.  

We have already introduced two of the signposts.  The students have a bookmark to remind them of the signposts and we are creating posters around the room that remind students of the signposts and how to use them as they read.  Tomorrow I will take more time to explain the two signposts that we have already introduced. 

Hope you are all enjoying your week.

Shoe Detectives

Today we did an activity to introduce the class to the idea of making inferences.  Inferences are another of the thinking strategies that we will use throughout the year.  An inference to me is when you figure something out that is not clear by using evidence.  To show this idea I told the students that I had picked up a pair of shoes from a garage sale.  We made a T-Chart and the class told me things that they thought they knew about the person just from looking at the shoes.  On the right side of the T-Chart the class told me what evidence they used to make their inferences.

The class was able to figure out that the person who wore the shoes did not tie and untie his shoes when he took them off and put them on.  The evidence they used to make this inference was the shoes were permanently folded over in the back.  Another inference was that the person who wore the shoes mowed the grass wearing the shoes.  This time the evidence was the grass stains on the toe of the shoe. The class went on and on figuring things out about the shoes and supplying evidence for their inferences.

Then when it was time for read aloud and Charlotte's Web the class practiced making their own inferences.  When we were reading The One and Only Ivan the class was able to make an inference that gave us all a good laugh.  Inferences are a challenge but they also unlock parts of the book that are so important.  They can unlock funny jokes or important parts of the book that may go unnoticed if the reader is not inferring.  We will continue to work on inferences this week and into next week and then use them throughout the year.

Speaking of The One and Only Ivan I found this wonderful non-review of the book and thought I would share the link http://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/the-one-and-only-ivan-by-katherine-applegate-absolutely-not-reviewed-by-donalyn-miller/  The non-review comes from the Nerdy Book Club blog.  This is a great place to find books.  If you are looking for another place to find amazing books, you should check out the blog Heavy Medal.  This is my favorite blog over the next few months they will be reviewing and sharing and talking about books that they think will win the Newbery Medal.  http://blogs.slj.com/heavymedal/

Hope you are all having a quick week.  I cannot believe that it is already Wednesday.