Wrapping up our Reading Units

Our final reading unit is a focus on historical fiction. Linking previous units (weather and poetry) I have been reading aloud a book called Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. The historical time period is the Dust Bowl of the 1930s in Oklahoma. Students are feeling the raw emotion and tragedy the main character, Billie Jo Kelby experiences as she shares diary style poems.

Students are currently reading a variety of historical fiction in book clubs. They are setting their own reading assignments and reading then discussing the books together. Our target: to actively listen and share during historical book club meetings. I have been so impressed, while spectating their discussions as they are noticing, agreeing and politely disagreeing with each others thoughts and ideas, and even helping each other figure out what the author real means when having a character do or say something.

As a culminating activity, I hope to help each group create a "book trailer" about the book's characters, the time period their historical fiction novel took place, and the theme.

One student, as an independent reading project, was willing to create a model book trailer to use as a sample. I couldn't wait to share it! Just click on the link below :)

https://youtu.be/z7sqjhxWNdI

Mystery Skype

Have you heard your child talking about our Mystery Skype sessions? If not, be sure to ask them. This week each class skyped with another class somewhere in the United States. Students used google maps, atlases, and paper maps to help them locate where the mystery class was located. Students took turns asking questions to narrow down where the other class lived. Some examples: Do you border an ocean? Do you get snow? Are you near the Mississippi River? Do you live in the Southern part of our country?

We were able to figure out each state in every class and narrow it down to the closest city. My homeroom skyped with San Diego, California. Mrs. Randall's class got Austin, Texas and Mrs. Felice's class had Dunedin, Florida.

The kids had a blast! Someone from each homeroom told me they wished we could do this EVERY day in social studies😊

On March 1st we got together with Kindergartners at McGraw School and read our published informational pieces to them. They were a super audience! In return, they also shared their informational writing with us. The fourth graders enjoyed visiting their former school and teachers:-)

Author Skype Sessions

Mrs. Oberholtzer organized author Skype sessions for each of our classes. We were able to spend about 25 minutes interacting with three different authors. Some shared their published books, talked about their process for writing, inspiration and some great personal stories.

Jane Wood talked about her series and how she gets her ideas from her love of places and history.
http://www.janewoodbooks.com/

Tara Lazar read her book Little Red Gliding Hood. She talked about when writing this fractured fairy tale, it started with just one word "gliding". This led to changing the setting to winter and plot to including a need for new ice skates to visit Grandma. Ms. Lazar had a great sense of humor and we loved the voices she gave her characters in her story. She even showed us she was working in her pajamas!
https://taralazar.com/taras-books/

Suzanne Dewitt Hall read us her book called Rumplepimple. The character is based on her own dog who we got to say hello to during our Skype session. (I forgot to take a picture during this session, rats!)

https://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-DeWitt-Hall/e/B001KIX8RS

4th Graders Lead the Weatherbee Food Drive

The 4th graders are leading the Weatherbee Food Drive in order to bring real life problems and data to math class!  We kicked it off last Thursday at our All-School Share by announcing and cheering for each class.  Every student has an assigned class and will be collecting and analyzing the data.  The food drive will last until February 15th with all food donated to the Food Cupboard, here in Hampden.  Please stay tuned for more.

Writing Celebration
by Zoe C. and Emily K.

For our previous unit in writing we were working on opinion writing pieces. To celebrate our writing we had a writing celebration so our families could come in and see what we've been working on. Our families walked around reading our writing and adding comments. When the celebration was done we had positive feedback from our families and friends. It was a success!

The Great Affix Race

Starting January 12th reading classes will be participating in the Great Affix Race.  On every A day, along with spelling, two affixes will be introduced along with their meanings. Students will be given two "think marks". These think marks will be labeled with each of the affixes taught that week. Students will go on a word hunt while reading looking for them. Each week we will see which affix is found the most! We will start with prefixes; "pre" meaning before and "re" which means to do again. I will have word jars set up to collect the words and post them on our team bulletin board. The winner will be displayed and honored each week. May the best affix win!

Ready for round 3 this week. We have had one very close round and a clear winner round. We have had great conversations about how the prefix affects the meaning of a root. Some roots are very clear, others are tricky roots that are derived from other languages, and some words do not include the prefix, but are spelled with the same beginning as the prefix.