Great Professional Reading Book

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for coming onto our blog!  We really appreciate it.

I have less than one week until I attend the Get Your Teach On conference in San Antonio.  I'm super excited!  In the meantime, I started reading the book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison.  I'm only on chapter two, but I'm already loving the authors' message about thinking and learning.  My favorite two sentences are, "When there is something important and worthwhile to think about and a reason to think deeply, our students experience the kind of learning that has a lasting impact and powerful influence not only in the short term but also in the long haul.  They not only learn; they learn how to learn."  These sentences are so powerful to me.  I want my students to learn how to learn so they become more independent learners who have the ability of managing their own thinking actions.  This is what Anne and I want for our students--to become life long learners.

I love this book!!!!

From what I have read so far, it is important to these authors that students are actively engaged in their learning and not just passive recipients of knowledge.  This seems to go right along with what I will be learning in San Antonio.  How perfect!

In upcoming chapters the authors share many activities and strategies we can use with our students to help them think about how they are thinking, choose the most effective way of thinking for the task at hand, and make their thinking visible.

Ok, I'm signing off so I can get back to reading!  I will share more soon.

Kim

Get Your Teach On!

Friday, June 16, 2017

Hi Everyone,
I'm getting so excited.  In about a week I'm heading to San Antonio, Texas to the teaching conference called Get Your Teach On!  I cannot wait to meet to fabulous teachers I have been following on Instagram, Facebook, and TeachersPayTeachers.  These girls and guys are going to present many ways to engage students in their learning.  I decided to attend the 2nd/3rd grade session, but in the fall when they are in Chicago I am going to attend the intermediate sessions.

As soon as I get back I will share all the fantastic, challenging activities I have learned.  I know after this conference I will be chomping at the bit to get back to school so I can engage my new students. Hopefully some of these activities will excite you, too.

Until then...

Kim

Friday, March 31, 2017

Good Morning!  We are in the final days of our Spring Break, and we just wanted to take a moment to share a few of the final activities we did with our Amelia Bedelia unit.  The students had such fun reading about Amelia Bedelia and her antics, as well as engaging in the writing activities we planned for them.  Keep in mind, each of the activities met at least one Common Core State Standard.  Anne and I are all about having fun with the standards!

After reading many, many Amelia Bedelia books, the students chose two books to compare and contrast.  We supplied them with a Venn Diagram to complete with a partner.  Then, they used their diagrams to write a compare and contrast paragraph about the books.  Writing this type of essay is still a challenge for even our most advanced students, so we provided them with a frame.  This made the task a bit easier, but they still needed much support from us.  We always tell the students, if you need support and you are challenged then you are learning.  So, this struggle felt great!

There are two pages to this essay.  I've only shown one page.

 On a whim, we decided to throw in a little technology!  To help the students learn about character perspective, as well as get a deeper understanding of homonyms, we had the students create Amelia Bedelia comic strips.  Each pair of students pulled out a homonym from a hat.  They had to think of a situation involving Amelia Bedelia getting confused with their chosen word.  The students were so engaged they did not want to stop for a break.  They worked until the comic strips were finished and printed.  Our students loved this activity so much they chose to write more during Daily Five.

Idioms prove to  difficult for our students to understand and use properly when writing and speaking. Reading Amelia Bedelia books gave them several opportunities to identify this type of figurative language and use context clues to try and determine their meanings.  Anne and I also read aloud several books about idioms to help our students become more familiar with them.  As a fun activity, we had our students write idioms in a sentence and illustrate the literal meanings of them.  They turned out really cute.  Now, whenever we come across some type of figurative language, the kids are always asking if it is an idiom!!!  They are so cute.

This weekend we will be hanging all of these lovely projects in our hallway and on our classroom doors so the parents can see the exciting, but challenging activities we do.  We are so proud of the kids' accomplishments.

Anne and I have uploaded free Amelia Bedelia lesson plans which include the Venn diagram and compare and contrast page in our TeachersPayTeachers store.  We hope you will check it out.  It says it is a cause and effect frame (I just noticed that); it's not it is compare and contrast.  I will fix that soon.

Next time on our blog we plan to share with you the activities we created for  Brave Irene by William Steig and Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.

Until then, happy teaching!

Kim and Anne

More Amelia Bedelia

February 26, 2017

Last week we told you about the character traits slideshow that our more advanced students created. Our more guided group also focused on Amelia Bedelia's character traits, but in a different manner. Here is what they did.

The students read the books Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia, Thank You Amelia Bedelia, and Amelia Bedelia, in a shared reading format, where they recorded and discussed their thoughts while reading. Most of this time was spent with Anne modeling her own thoughts while reading because this is still a struggle for students.

For their project, they created a character trait web in their notebooks. Then, they selected three of Amelia Bedelia's traits and used a notecard to find the best evidence from one of the books to support that trait. We did the first trait together, and then they had to independently find the next two.

The kids also wrote their opinion to the question, 'Would you want to work with Amelia Bedelia?'
To begin we started with a Tug-of War activity from the book, Make Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison to debate our reasons for answering yes to this question or no to the question. Once the students decided on their opinion, they wrote a paragraph on it.  In their paragraph, they needed to begin with a lead, state their opinion and give support with two or more reasons and evidence from the text. After working hard, they had fun making their Amelia Bedelia craft.

Great book!!!

To wrap up our unit on Amelia Bedelia, we will be comparing and contrasting two different books using a Venn Diagram, and then we will write a compare and contrast expository paragraph.

We will share these with you next week.
Kim and Anne

Amelia Bedelia

Friday, February 17, 2017

Once again the heart-warming character, Amelia Bedelia, was a huge hit with our third-grade students this year.  Amelia Bedelia and her stories were the perfect resource in helping our students to analyze a character, determine the meanings of idioms and homonyms, compare and contrast plot events, and write an opinion essay.

In this blog, we will share two of our highly engaging activities with you.

After reading and discussing Amelia Bedelia, Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping, and Come Back, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish, we introduced our students to how to analyze a character's traits.  We emphasized the difference between a character's traits and a character's feelings.  Here is a link to a PowToon video that effectively explains this concept.

Our students then read a variety of Amelia Bedelia books during reading workshop.  As they read, the students completed a Character Analysis/Character Trait web created by Irene Fountas and  Gay Su Pinnel.  They were asked to determine one character trait of Amelia Bedelia, as well as write evidence from the story that supports it, for each book read.

Once the students began to know Amelia Bedelia on a deeper level, we asked them to use Comic Life 2 to create a situation where Amelia Bedelia is confusing multiple meaning words.  They had to take the perspective of Amelia Bedelia and the other character(s) involved.  This activity also required the students to understand two or three meanings of a homonym.  The students had a ball!  We could not believe how creative they could be their first time on Comic Life!

The second activity involved students in making a character trait slide show.  They used Google Slides and their character analysis web to demonstrate their understanding of how to identify character traits.  They were so motivated and engaged in this activity that they did not want to stop. They worked for over an hour!

This is just one slide out of 5!

This is one of the first of several slides.

This is an introduction page that includes the students' opinion of Amelia Bedelia.

Next week we will wrap up the Amelia Bedelia unit by writing our opinions to the question, Would you like to work with Amelia Bedelia? We will also complete a Venn diagram and write a compare/contrast paragraph about two of the Amelia Bedelia books we read.

We hope you are experiencing the same unusual spring-like weather we are having here in Lombard, Illinois.  It really is invigorating.

Until next time,
Kim and Anne

The Writing Party

January 21, 2017

What's a great way to get students excited about writing? Have a writing party, of course! After a trimester and more of direct writing instruction on the three main genres of opinion, expository, and narrative, with a little poetry thrown in for good luck, we felt it was time for the students to branch out on their own and begin to apply what they have learned on topics of their choice. Waiting this long to begin writer's workshop was new for us, and we kind of came upon it accidentally, however, we feel it is very serendipitous because the students are armed with skills and are not aimlessly writing and rambling on with no purpose. Hence, the kick-off to our writing party.

The kids were ecstatic when we gave them special writing notebooks and a goodie bag filled with writing supplies. Our first lesson was beginning to establish guidelines for Writer's Workshop. We charted our purpose for why we do Writer's Workshop and then listed what it should look like and sound like when we are writing.

We also read Rocket Writes a Story by Tad Hills. We noticed how it was difficult for Rocket to come up with an idea to write about, and we discussed ways that authors get their ideas. We then took time to brainstorm our Top Ten Most Memorable Moments to begin our own ideas list. The kids were given fifteen minutes to write about one of their memorable moments. They loved it and didn't want to stop. We may have created a monster, because all that the kids want to do now is Writing Workshop.

But, we had another special surprise for them. On the internet we found a cute pencil snack made of string cheese, Bugels, bubblegum, and frosting. You can find the directions for making this here.

On Monday, the kids are going to decorate their special notebook. Below is the letter we sent home asking parents to send supplies for this.

Everyone is anxiously awaiting Monday for this event! Have a great weekend!
Kim and Anne

The Wish Tree

January 1, 2017

Happy New Year!  We are excited to discover the new inspirations, knowledge, and opportunities 2017 will bring us.  So, we want to begin the new year in our classrooms becoming mindful and focused on our goals and desires.  Last month we found the book titled The Wish Tree by Kyo Maclear.  It is about a boy named Charles who sets out, with his sled named Boggan, to find a wish tree.  He encounters many animals working in the forest and he decides to help them.  Soon Charles is too tired to go on, and he falls asleep in the snow.  When he wakes up he sees his wish tree, and he writes his wish on a card and hangs it on the tree.  As the story ends, the reader recognizes that Charles' wish did come true, but they must infer what it was.  How clever of the author.

To follow this book up with our own wishes for the new year, we are going to make a wish tree and hang our wishes on it.  This wish tree is very simple and easy to make.  Here is a second link to a tree that looks more like the tree in the book, but it does not seem as simple to make.

We are looking forward to reading this meaningful story to our students and helping them to reflect on the author's message.  Focusing on their goals and wishes for the new year will hopefully bring them many successes in 2017.

Kim and Anne