Reading and writing expository texts about scientists and space was fun for our students this week. We know with the Common Core more complex, informational text needs to be incorporated into our lessons, and we have tried to connect this reading to hands-on, engaging activities to hook our students.
We got to implement another one of our teachers pay teachers lessons, Exploring Space With an Astronaut by Patricia J. Murphy. Using the picture sort to generate main idea and details was a concrete way to introduce this skill. During our close read of the text, students were able to use the headings to find clues to the main idea of each section. We had students look for the main idea, usually found in the first sentence, and underline it in orange crayon. Then, they underlined supporting details in yellow. To challenge them, we also included one section where the main idea had to be inferred. We ended this lesson with an art project where students had to write one main idea and two details on their space scene.
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| Two different picture sets students worked with. |
We also read more about being a scientist. We wanted the students to gather information from multiple sources to answer the questions: What is a scientist? and What do scientists do? Students first read the book, What Do Scientists Do? by Daniel Jacobs. They had to take notes on what they felt was important. They also read a Keynote that Kim created to gather more information. When they finished the Keynote, they went to this great website from PBS where students could listen to real scientists talking about their jobs. We bought sticker scenes from Oriental Trading for the students to create a picture of scientists working in a lab, and finally, they wrote a list with a repeated line explaining what scientists do. Our repeated line was A scientist..., which was a great way to reinforce the concept of complete sentences needing subjects. We are also planning to use this writing as a springboard into list poems next week.
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| This is one page of the Keynote. |
Again, we wish you a happy, relaxing weekend. We'll talk to you next week!
Kim and Anne
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