Fables -- Ireland

We moved to Irish folktales. In our nonfiction study of Ireland, one of the folktales that we learned about at National Geographic for Kids was Finn McCoul. So we started with him. Our big standard in CCSS was to recount stories, including fables and folktales, and determine their central message or moral, so our objective in most of the lessons with just that, finding the moral of the story. After that we read Jamie O'Rourke and the Giant Potatoe. While we were reading both the students would rate themselves on the objective and then take notes about the book. I told them I wanted them to think about the objective, but also any thing that made a lightbulb in their reading brain. (At the beginning of the year we discussed how we had a reading brain that would talk to us. It was like a light bulb...lightbulbs don't make any noise but you know they are there)

 
Finally, we ended up with Jaime O'Rouke and the Pooka. We followed the same pattern that we have for the previous books. The kids were taking notes while I was reading. At the end of the reading they got several minutes to finish writing down whatever they were working on, then they were able to share with a partner what they were thinking. Finally we shared out whole group.

We were about at the end of study of Ireland and it was almost St.Patrick's day, so we learned about the real St. Patrick. We started with an anticipation guide and then took notes while we read Gail Gibbon's St. Patrick's Day and watch Brain Pop. At the end they shared. One little boy was making connections between St. Patrick and Harriet Tubman. He was taking about how Patrick and Harriet Tubman were both slaves and came back to their home to try and free people.

Nonfiction with Unit 5

When we set out planning our unit, we decided to do the first part of the week as nonfiction learning about the country and then the second part as the fables from the country. So we began with China nd then moved to Ireland. We began with a review of nonfiction text features and discussed how internet sites have nonfiction text features as well.


I had the kids make a quick list of nonfiction text features in their reading notebooks. Then they shared this information with a partner. We made our class list of nonfiction text features. Then looked at the ones we had and discussed how they were similar and different from the ones we see on websites.

We pulled a lot of our information from national geographic for kids. They had several of the nonfiction text fetures such as headings, bold words, etc. that we were able to discuss and use to located information. Then the kids began making a web in their notes by taking notes while we went through the different web pages.

Stone Soup

We recently started our 5th unit in the new CCSS. It is all about fables and folktales from all different parts of the world. We started with all the different varieties of Stone Soup.

We read the orginal Stone Soup and began our study. The CCSS says 2nd graders should.."Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story by different authors or from different cultures." So we created a table and used that information to compare the different versions of the story. Some of the information that we put on the table also corresponds to CCSS " Describe the overall structure of a story,"  We put our lessons in a smartboard file. We also talked about all the different countries that the different versions of stone soup has come from. At the end as a piece of assessment we created and used a venn diagram where they picked two of versions and discussed the similarities and differences.

We have been doing a lot with notebooks this year and had been taking notes on all the different versions, so the kids used the table I had discussed earlier to create their venn.  Another CCSS that we have been addressing in their unit is..." Write opinion pieces where they introduce a book, state an opinion, supply reasons to support that opinion, and provide a concluding statement or section." So after they had created their venn, they used that information again to write about their favorite one using an plan we created.



Read Across America

Well last week was a bit of a challenge! We had our district testing...just makes me think about ITBS coming all too soon. So on Friday we had a day I look forward to all year...Read Across America. A celebration of reading and all things Dr. Seuss.

We got to have guest readers in our room and read with stuffed animals all day long!  

First off...our principal, Mrs. Kinkade. She read Horton Hatches An Egg. The kids were enthralled! We have been talking about being fluent readers and after she left several of the kids said, "Mrs. Davis she was a very fluent reader!"

Then we had our literacy coach, Ms. Simpson come in. I was enthralled in the story, I forgot to take a picture. All I can say is, "Dave!" Then later in the afternoon came Mrs. Toney, our assistant principal.

She read Pigsty. (Quite appropriate for some of the kids in my room.) Hopefully they learned the "moral" of the story and will work to be responsible and take care of their stuff. 

Finally at the very end of the day we had our PE teacher come and read to us. I know it is very memorable to kids. In fact, while Mr. Brown and I were discussing the time and place in the hallway, a 5th grader who I had in 2nd grade came up and wanted Mr. Brown to come and read the same story (that she had heard in 2nd grade)  to her class.  

At the end of the day...it was a reminder of the joy of being a teacher. To see kids just laying around...reading to their animals...listening to some special people in their lives reading to them. Sometimes I think I get caught up in pushing them to meet this standard, meeting with all seven (yikes!) small groups, or wrapping my brain around these new CCSS that I forget the joy in playing a small part in the lives of some pretty neat 7 and 8 year olds and seeing them fall in love with reading.

CGI

I know most of my posts have been about literacy, but....I am also a math teacher! I know,  big surprise! I have started taking a 3 year course called CGI or Cognitively Guided Instruction. It has really changed the way I teach math. It involves a lot of problem solving and a different way of thinking about numbers. When we talk about putting kids in a sense of disequilibrium when we are teaching them that is exactly how CGI makes me feel. But the thinking coming out of my kids..amazing!

Well we were continuing that journey this week. At CGI this week we were focusing on 2 digit addition and fact fluency.  To give you a little background any time I have ever gone to CGI it has been complete brain overload! I seriously have a enormous headache after each day....tears....frustration. It totally puts you in the perspective of your "kids." I totally feel their pain! Well I was really ok until they started talking about negative numbers in 1st and 2nd grade...then the pain began again! I just don't think I am ready for that....


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The 2nd day we worked on fact fluency. It was really great! It totally helped to tie some loose ends together. I saw a teacher do a number talk and see all the amazing ways different children solve problems and how to push them to the next level without actually telling them how to solve the problem. We learned how to give a math fact inventory to see exactly how they solved the problems. It was something I went back and tried in my classroom the next day! It is definitely a journey, but I think that it will be worth the work.  

Ruby Bridges...

We are wrapping up our unit on "The Long Road to Freedom" this week.  I really wish we had more time to focus on some different important people...Ruby Bridges. I really think the kids would be able to relate to her so much better if we had some additional time. I know I learned about her as a child, but now I look back at it as a teacher of 7 and 8 years old...a mom of a 6 year old...a grown up...It is just beyond me how such a little girl was able to survive such persucution. We started our study with this video .  Wow! The first time I watched it I had tears in my eyes. After we watched that we did a quick write on "How we would feel if we were Ruby Bridges." It was interesting to see how different students reacted to the question. After we shared our thougts we watched the "real" Ruby Bridges talk about her experiences.

Several different opinions on what they would do if they were Ruby Bridges.

Similar and Different

We have been reading all about the Civil Rights Movement as a ending to our 4th unit in the common core units. This week we worked on the beginning of the "sit in" movement with the Freedom on the Menu and Sit ins.

We read each of the books and made connections between this protest movement and slavery. Using Freedom on the Menu, we worked on our 3 important questions "What does it say?", "What does it mean?" and "What does it matter?" We used our "What does it say?" to practice summarizing and "What does it mean?" to practice inferencing using characters feelings.  The final part "What does it mean?" was a chance for them to practice author's big idea or what the author is trying to teach us. The funny part is that most of the kids struggled with "What does it mean?"

 The next step we worked on was comparing the two stories and what was similar and different between the two of them.  We recently went to a conference and learned that our kids need a chance to struggle with "frustration" level text. This was a difficult concept for me to get.  As a teacher who has been trained in "instructional" and  "independent" level texts it was a struggle, but looking at how some kids have not had their reading levels increase at the level I wanted I was willing to try anything. So we have worked on giving them a chance to struggle through and then using that text as evidence for writing about their thinking. So they got a sample of text from each book and then write about how it was different.