Well right now we are trying to blog while 35 students are in our rooms for recess because once again, the weather is freezing cold and rainy. Please forgive us if there are typos, it is kind of a mad house in here. This weather makes it difficult to believe that summer is coming and the school year is almost over.
Last week on the blog we mentioned that we would share our biography reading and our I'm Ok writing. We'll start with the biography reading. We started working on the biography reading because it went along with one of the stories in our reading series called, A Weed Is a Flower. The kids were fascinated reading about George Washington Carver's life. Once again we split into two groups, one more guided and one more independent. Both groups started with a timeline, where they had to predict the sequence of events that happened in Carver's life. One group had five events to sequence, while the other had several more. That group had to sequence their events in small, cooperative groups rather than as whole group. After reading, discussing, and taking notes from the story, both groups revisited their timelines and adjusted them as needed.
We used two other sources to add information to our notes about George Washington Carver to help us write our own thumbnail sketch biography. Since this was our first time writing a biography, we used a frame to help us. One group had a simple frame, while the other group's frame required more details of his life. Next week, we plan on continuing this genre with biographies about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We especially wanted to read about Lincoln because of the connections the students can make between Lincoln and Carver, and we wanted to read about Washington because this reading goes along with our social studies unit.
This was our first time using the OK book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld as a mentor text for our writing. After reading the book, each student a descriptive paragraph about something that they are OK at. It not only reinforced descriptive writing, but also first person point of view writing. We combined each student's writing into a class big book, and together we wrote the lead and ending.
Have a great weekend. Here's hoping it warms up soon!
Kim and Anne
No comments:
Post a Comment