March
25
March
23
The Wild Robot Reading #1
March
13
Celebrating Nonfiction Writing
Our Grade 3/4 class has completed creating their very own nonfiction books. They each chose a topic that was meaningful or interesting to them. Recently, they enjoyed sharing their beautiful nonfiction books…at last! We enjoyed leaving each other compliments and learning about different topics such as:
- deadliest animals
- lions
- dogs
- cats
- Saskatchewan Rush
- Poland
- Paris
- and so many more!
Students worked hard to ensure their book included a title page, table of contents, information about their topic, a glossary, and an About the Author page.
We read our books to Miss M’s Grade 2 class who enjoyed hearing all about our topics.
I enjoyed reading every book and the students seemed very proud of their work. I think it will make a nice keepsake for years to come. Well done!
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- leaving compliments
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- reading each other’s stories
March
11
Biography Bonanza
Today in Reading Workshop, we launched into talks about what a biography is. We explored many different biographies ranging from athletes to scientists to artists.
A biography is telling about someone’s life written by someone else.
After the March Break, we will begin our ‘Biography in a Bag’ unit where each student will have selected a specific person to gather research on and later present about this person. There are so many amazing people to choose from such as Houdini, Malala, Alexander Graham Bell, Drake, J.K. Rowling, Harriet Tubman, Rick Hansen, Anne Frank, and so many more!
Take a look at some of the books we’ve been looking at:
Who is someone you’d like to know more about?
February
6
Mystery Reader…revealed!
Today, we were delighted to welcome another mystery reader to our classroom … Mrs. H! She chose to read a wonderful story called The Gift of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell.
It is a story where the main characters are Mooch the cat and Earl the dog. Mooch wants to buy his friend a gift, but Earl already has everything! Money can buy many things, but as we discussed, there’s one thing money can’t buy, and that is love, friendship, and happiness. Can you guess what Mooch ended up wrapping up in a box for his friend, Earl?
A big thank-you to Mrs. H for her fantastic reading and spending time with us today. We are grateful!
January
22
Mystery Reader…Revealed!
Today we had the pleasure of welcoming our very first Mystery Reader into our classroom. It was Mrs. L! We enjoyed listening to the story called “After the Fall” by Dan Santat. It’s the tale of what happens to Humpty Dumpty after he falls off the wall. Now, he’s afraid of heights but will he be able to overcome his fear?
You’ll have to read the book to find out!
A big thank-you to Mrs. L for her time and
for her fabulous reading skills.
January
18
Our New Reading Buddies
We wrote a letter to our principal, trying to persuade him to allow us to have pets in our class. Suddenly, and out of the blue, we had a delivery of some other special pets that needed a new home. We were introduced to our very own pets that we would learn we would be adopting!
Amazingly, there just happened to be 23 pets needing adopting and each had a tag on it with a message and the pet’s name.
Every student selected their new reading buddy. Adoption certificates to go home next week 🙂 Students may choose to take them home, bring to school, but the only requirement is to read to them–20 minutes a day which will make our pets happy.
Happy Reading!
January
15
Nonfiction Reading
We have launched into our nonfiction reading unit where we are learning the difference between fiction and nonfiction text. We brainstormed what we know about nonfiction and how it differs from the chapter books we often read in class.
We know a lot about nonfiction already! Here is what we brainstormed:
We are learning to ‘stop and jot‘ some of our thinking as we read. Afterwards, we often share it within a small group so others benefit from our reading, too! When sharing some neat things about what we read, we are learning to show the book ‘like a teacher’ and ensure our teammates can see the page we are talking about.
What is something you’re interested in learning more about?
December
20
Reading into the Holidays
On Thursday, students had fun with our Book Swap game, taking turns carefully selecting a book from the pile and hoping no one else “steals” their book. You may have played a game like this before. In our class, we are only allowed to steal twice and then you MUST pick from the pile.
We began by picking a number out of a hat and if you were lucky enough to pick the highest number, you got to pick last! This meant you got to pick any book you wanted out of all of them. Yahoo!
All in all, it was a fun time filled with excitement and lots of energy. We all opened our books once the game had ended and made a good mess of all the wrapping paper. Ha!
Books don’t just go with you, they take you where you’ve never been.
– Anonymous
Do you have any books on your Christmas wish list this year?
What will you be reading over the Christmas break?
October
23
Global Connections
Something special happens when you can connect with another classroom about the same book. As you know, we are reading Stella Diaz Has Something to Say, the Global Read Aloud selection this year.
We are enjoying our book and love to Skype with our friends in California! There is a 3 hour time difference between us so when it’s 1pm for us, it’s 10am for them!
We love learning about their school, their weather, what life is like in California, and so on. We have so many questions for them such as how many recesses do you get? How many teachers do you have? Do you have a class pet?
We discuss our favourite parts of the book, making personal connections to parts of the book, sharing our understandings of the book, and more.
We can’t wait until next week when we connect with our friends again.
