Project Central!

Project #1!

We have finished our study of the five regions of the USA, and...let me tell you...these kids are expects on both the regions as well as identify elements of economy, geography, government, history, and people. They can discuss not only features of our entire country, but explain what makes a region a region. Woohoo!!! Learning goals accomplished!!!

Our final project with this unit will be to choose either a region or topic (i.e.: economy) and write an essay explaining our learning.


Yesterday we each chose our topic and started recording key information and notes on notecards. This morning we worked through the process of reading each of our notes, sorting them into groups of information with a common topic or theme, giving each a category or title, and then arranging topics and subsequent details into one long row to create the structure for our writing. Tomorrow's task will be to begin building our essays using our knowledge of well-structured paragraphs, transitions, etc.

Here we are...working away!!!

Project #2!

Here is an example of how to set up our content for the filmstrip project. The graphic organizer shows one way to explain and sequence key events from the book Because of Winn-Dixie. Under the categories of Beginning, Middle,  and End I summarized the purpose or the main idea of each of these three "sections" of the book, and under these described three main details or events that supported this. You can see in the second sheet peeking out to the left of this is the beginning of my sketches of the filmstrip I would create to accompany the information I chose for my graphic organizer. Tomorrow I will begin distributing the actual film to those students who have completed these steps. 

Steps that you can support:

1. Finish reading the book (if your kiddo hasn't)
2. Analyze the book to determine roles of characters, significant events, theme or overarching issue...
3. Choosing the right type of graphic organizer to help organize information from your book and focus on either a key character, the full storyline, or a significant event or turning point
4. Plan what your filmstrip will look like and what you will want to say to accompany the slides as it's presented

We'll begin presenting these next Friday! Can't wait!!!!!!!

Page Turners Project, March 20

For our Page Turners project this month we are going old school!!! I have a roll of film that I purchased way back in college (I won't say what year that was), and when the librarian at my first school discarded this ancient projector I nabbed it right up. How many of you remember watching filmstrips in elementary school growing up? Bring back a few memories??? :)

Book choice = a good quality chapter book (already selected or read since our last meeting)

Project = create a filmstrip to show in-depth understanding of your story's plot line, main character, or a significant scene / chapter

In class we had a long discussion about how to choose the best option for the book you're reading. For example, Because of Winn-Dixie centered around the character of Opal and how alone she felt due to a recent move, spending years with just her father, feeling abandoned by and missing her mom, and how gaining a dog leads her to create meaningful relationships with people in her new community and opens the door to a more honest relationship with her father. For this book we agreed we should focus on character development...struggles the character faced, events and challenges that affected them, and their personal growth and change throughout the story. Were we to use Inkheart (our current read aloud), focusing on a single character would never work. For this book we agreed immediately that we would need to focus on choosing key / significant events to show the plot line and the development of the story. A third and final option would be to focus on just a single, highly important chapter. Several students are reading LONG, intense books that match best with showing plot vs characters, but do to their length and complexity would be a monstrous undertaking. In these cases, students can choose just one event or chapter that holds significance to the story. It might be a chapter that shows a turning point in the story, a chapter that explains a character's struggle or problem, or the event that they felt was most important. For students choosing the chapter option, their filmstrip should probably begin with a slide or two to introduce their character and give enough background on the problem or storyline that the chapter makes sense to the rest of us. 

The picture below has 3 photos showing graphic organizers that the students will choose from today to help them choose and plan their presentation. The top left picture shows copies of blank filmstrip so that they can preplan their film (so we know how much length each student will need). Students will need to use fine point Sharpies (or another permanent marker) to create their film. I do have a small bin that they can use, but if you have fine point Sharpies at home that your kiddos could bring as we work on creating these that would be great!!! (no need to go purchase, despite what they might try to convince you of) :) 

We will present these next Friday, March 20th!

Book Study #2 - Showing Off!!!

Just had to share these...GREAT work by a few of our reading artists!

Book Study - Realistic Fiction

Wow, are we digging into reading! I have been so impressed with how much your kiddos just absolutely love to read. I've had regular requests for TWO Read to Self times on many different days. While this is very hard to fit in with our packed schedule, it just warms my heart that my students continue to ask for this. On to the purpose of this post...how to complete our second Book Study project on realistic fiction.

Task #1: Reading Log
Log your reading minutes or the pages you read by day for the next two weeks.

Task #2: Mind Map
Illustrate an in-depth understanding of your character by reflecting their feelings, opinions, fears, etc. through showing thoughts they may have or comments they might make. Think about this character's relationships with other characters in the story and how they respond to or interact with them. Think about frustrations, joys, challenges, or successes. Today we used Hoot to create a class model. We chose Roy since he was the main character, and also discussed the possibility of choosing Mullet Fingers or Beatrice since we know those two fairly well also. We decided that Dana Matherson would  not be a good choice since his character is fairly shallow...he's just a bully and has a very narrow focus.

After our discussion I completed the Task, and here's what our "mind map" for Roy looks like...I considered his relationship with or opinion of Dana Matherson, Beatrice, Mullet Fingers, Officer David Delinko, and his parents. I knew I needed to incorporate each of these people to show all the different angles of Roy's character and how everyone was involved with the owl situation (the main problem). I also modeled how to complete a quick sketch of our character that is still a quality illustration, and chose to illustrate each example of a thought or a comment in a different color (colored pencils, Flair felt tip pens, or fine point Sharpies work well) to make the project easier to read (not necessary or required, but definitely a good option for publishing).

Task #3: Storyline / Plotline

Now that we've really shown who our main character is we can map out the problem they faced, how they chose to deal with it, and how it was resolved. We've had a few discussions about the plotline in Hoot over the last week or so, and initially started with about 4-5 lines that all ended up tying together into one. Initially, our thought was that Roy and Dana (the bully) were one story line, Officer Delinko and his quest solve the pancake house mystery and further his career another, Beatrice and Roy's rocky and confrontational encounters a third, Roy's obsession with learning about Mullet Fingers the fourth, and Curly's issues with the vandal and Chuck E. Muckle the last. As I contemplated how best to illustrate these five "mini plot lines," I realized that each of these was just the author's way of developing everyone in the story who was or would become involved with Mother Paula's Pancake House and the fight to save the owls. The problem at the heart of the story was that the owls would be buried if the site was bulldozed, and the kids had to figure out a way to prevent this from happening. Once I came to this realization, I was able to see how all these other story lines just helped us to understand Roy and the situation that much better. 

Here's a snapshot of our plotline for Hoot. Each student will have some form of "mountain" effect, although some may have a few smaller "peaks" on the way up (Harry Potter books are a great example of this, as there are usually several pretty intense moments along the way). Because my events ended up extending over the right side of my arc and covered the area where I would have described the resolution, I opted to include the problem and resolution above and below the arc.

Happy reading!

Our Modern Biographies!

This project has been FABULOUS!!! I am SO impressed with the way everyone dove into their reading and then enthusiastically began creating beautiful writing and projects. WOW, they have grown this year!!!

Theme Book Report

Here is our example of what a 4 might look like. You'll notice that each of the 9 pieces of evidence is very specific and explains how that part of the story supports the theme. 

If you're not sure what theme is...read the anchor chart in this picture! :)

These cards list additional themes and describe the kinds of characters traits to look for in each. We LOVE to reference these cards and pull them out often! (click on the photo to enlarge the image...then you can read the text under each of the large titles)

Parent challenge: can you identify the theme of the last novel you read? 

Summarizing (book report) Models

Wow! I have missed my regular blogging so much this year, as I shared with several parents at conferences. Thank you so much for your patience with that as I'm sinking the vast majority of my time into developing Common Core based curriculum activities and transitioning to 4th grade. As promised, here are the photographs of the summary models that we created together last week. You'll notice that these are scored with a "2" and a "4," which is the same grading system I introduced on the report card during conferences. During class we have had several conversations on what does a "4" really look like, and what level of work do I need to strive toward to increase my level of understanding to match. I believe students need to understand what a "4" really is in order to achieve that level of understanding. 

So...how does that translate to our book report? Here is the form...you'll notice that the top portion (graphic organizer) is identical on both, because the information in the story doesn't change and this is where we organize our basic details. The difference in the "2" and "4" is in how in depth you go with that information. Keep in mind, the goal is to write only the most important information about the characters and story while being in-depth, but not rambling. We decided that if we wrote around 3 sentences for each section of the organizer, that a 15 sentence summary would be just about right to allow us deep thinking and quality writing. 

Hope these examples help! This book report is due next Tuesday, December 3rd!