Our Book Study Project

As a culminating activity to our book study the students created some fabulous dioramas. For their dioramas the students displayed and wrote about their favorite part of their chosen book. Each diorama was so unique and so creative. Mrs. Hunt has been kind enough to let us display these dioramas in the library for the next week or so, so if you get a chance come and take a look. They all turned out wonderful...check them out!

Delaney read "The Magic Tree House: High Tide in Hawaii" Her favorite part was Jack & Annie learned to surf!

Raegan read "Junie B. Jones: Something smells fishy". Her favorite part is when Junie B.'s grandma gave her a fish and she named it sparkle. 

Makenna also read Junie B. Jones. Her favorite part was when she tried to take a worm to school for pet day. She named the worm noodle. 

Olivia's favorite part was the same as Raegan's. As you can see they both visualized the same part in different ways! Why? Our mental images are unique to us because our schemas are different!

Addison read the book "Freckle Juice" by Judy Blume. Her favorite part was when Andrew drank the freckle juice potion and turned green! Yuck! 

Christopher also read "The Magic Tree House: High tide in Hawaii" He also liked when Jack & Annie learned to surf

Another wonderful diorama display of "The Magic Tree House" from Ashlee

Kylie also read "Freckle Juice" and chose the same favorite part as Addison. 

Angel very creatively displayed his favorite part of "High Tide in Hawaii " using magazine cut-outs. 

Sarah's favorite part of "Freckle Juice" was when Andrew dreamed of the freckle monster. 

Caleb also enjoyed when Jack and Annie learned to surf in "High Tide in Hawaii"

Christopher and Olivia both read "High Tide in Hawaii". They both loved the part where Jack and Annie were learning to surf.

Lee, Libby & Dana each read different books

Emberlynn and Beau both read "Freckle Juice" and they both shared the same favorite part--when Andrew drank the freckle juice potion. 

Sebastian's favorite part of "High Tide in Hawaii"was different from all the others. He enjoyed reading about the tsunami that Jack and Annie witness from a nearby cliff in Hawaii. So cool!

We made it to the 100th day of school!

Last week we celebrated our 100th day of school!  Hooray, our students are 100 days smarter!  In honor of the 100th day of school, our day was filled with the number 100.  We counted to 100, wrote about what we will look like when we are 100, read books about the 100th day of school, and played math games with 100.  It was a fun-filled day, (especially for Mrs. Odom's class because they earned a pajama party that day too!)

Below are some pictures of some students playing a dice game to 100 and working on their 100 chart name patterns.

This week is Celebrate Literacy Week.  We have been participating in "identify the book" contests in the morning, keeping track of how many books we have read and our favorite activity so far has been reading to Ms. Appling's Pre-k class.  The students were very excited to go and read to the younger students.  I was very impressed with their enthusiasm.  I hope we can go and read to our new friends again soon.

Cassidy has a very attentive audience.

Christopher reading to his new friend.

Mrs. Odom's class during "drop everything and read (DEAR) time.

Mrs. Cooper's class enjoyed reading to Mrs. Breeding's Pre-K Class. Here is Deanna reading to a new friend.

Trinity is sharing one of her favorite books. 

Robert loves reading and his new friend is listening to one of his "good-fit" books

Here is Makenna and her new Pre-K friend. He looks so interested in this story!

Gunnar is sharing one of his new non-fiction books. 

Olivia and her new friend practicing "read to someone" 

Jharez is sharing a Dr. Suess book. He loves Dr. Suess!

Rossia sharing his book and JJ waiting patiently to share his.

Angel reading to Ryan and their new friend.

Comprehension Strategies in the Classroom

As a pod, we have been working on many comprehension strategies. The comprehension strategies are so important. Not only do they engage the students in the text but they also force the students to stop and think about their own thinking (metacognition). Being aware of their own thinking or being metacognitive will help them in their future schooling and in everyday life.

Here are some strategies that we have been working on: 

Making connections: Text to self (when a book reminds us of our own lives), Text to text (when one book reminds us of another), and text to world (when a book reminds us of something happening in the world around us).

During this lesson we compared two books: "Now One Foot, Now the Other" by Tomie DePaola and "The Two of them" by Aliki. As you can see  in our venn diagram there were many similarities between these two books. We made many text to text connections. 

 Visualizing: Making mental images as we read or making a movie in our mind.

Jacob is also practicing being aware of the movies that play in our mind while we read or hear a story!

Evan trying to get a mental image in his  head while Mrs. Odom reads a poem.

For this activity the students listened to a poem ("Honey, I Love" by Eloise Greenfield). As they listened the students stopped at various points to draw their mental images during the beginning, the middle and the end.  

The wonderful thing about our comprehension strategies is that soon the students will be using them  when they read any text without even realizing it. They will begin to use several strategies while reading one text. As you can see on our poem, some of the students were not only visualizing but also making connections (the green post-it on the chart is one way that we mark our thinking, in this case it was a text to self connection). Awesome thinking! 

We are working hard on getting good mental images!

Our mental images, beginning, middle & end. Notice that our mental images change as we read and that all of our images are different. If you ask your child they will tell why! It's because our schemas (or our background knowledge) are different!

We will continue to learn more comprehension strategies throughout the year. I'm so excited! Stay tuned into our blog for more updates!

Our Field Trip to Lowry Park Zoo

Ready for an awesome day at the zoo!

What a day! We can't believe what a fantastic time we had discovering all the interesting animals at the zoo!   The children had a wonderful time getting some hands on experiences and discovering neat information about some very interesting animals.  We would like to send out a very special "Thank you!" to all of the chaperones/volunteers who made this trip possible.  We couldn't do it without you! 

Its 7:15am and we are ready to go!

Bradley and Luke enjoying some time with the fish.

There is our safari guide! Oh, no that's just Caleb!

  

Jharod, Madison, Joanna, Jacob, and Timothy enjoying a sweet treat!

Sarah and Aaliyah sticking together.

We saw so many amazing animals!

The Okapi
This animal looks like it is related to the zebra but did you know it is a relative of the giraffe family?

I think we all fell in love with the newborn rhinoceros!

Jharez, Robert, Dana & Deanna enjoying the animals.

The orangutan resting in the shade

Mrs. Cooper fell in love with the baby orangutan. I could have watched him play all day long. 

Olivia and Delaney on the bus ride home. What an exciting day!