We read the poem The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven  By: Jack Prelutsky

Then we enjoyed some delicious Turkey!

Hope you all have a Fabulous Thanksgiving Holiday!

Throughout our wonderful journey of Research Workshop…the children have been very serious about doing some sort of play that would tell the world how much the Rain Forest meant to them!  They wanted to get their VOICE HEARD…so this is what we came up with! 

Save the RAINFORESTS!!!

Happy Watching!

PS. This is a great book to read with your class…it is great for teaching INFERRING!

 

 

Our fun bulletin board!!!

Sneak peek of our Research Posters!  Come to conferences to watch your child present the information that they learned!!!

 

http://annebowenbooks.com/

We were very lucky to have had the famous author Anne Bowen at our school today!  She talked about “What Good Writers Do!”

THE COOL THING she is a UTAH Gal!!! At the age of 22, Anne traded hills for mountains, and moved to Utah to begin her teaching career.  She married her husband, Art, and has lived in Ogden for the past thirty years.  Anne has two grown sons, six grandchildren, one grand-puppy, and two senior golden retrievers. The amazing thing is all the advice she was giving us, we have been doing in class…The kids were so excited!  They loved that they had a connection with her and that they do what she does!   I loved that she reinforced what Mrs. Peterson and I have been preaching to the kids too! 

GOOD WRITERS

*Ask questions *THINK THINK THINK *WonDer *Record their thoughts *Use your 5 Senses *Use WOW words…describing words *Write about your experiences *Be creative, take ordinary and change it to AMAZING ****TOOLs to AlWaYS have on hand!  Favorite pen, a journal, post its… just in case you have a FabUlouS idea pop into your mind – you write it down so you never forget it! It was such a fabulous presentation today and she will be at the Treehouse tonight signing Autographs!  We are so lucky to have had this opportunity!  Our school is so cool!!!

Reading and Writing Rocks!!!

Here are a couple of her many books!  Check out her website for more info!

Guess what? 

Taylor loves to READ!  

She was interviewed by Nick Cannon yesterday at  Scholastic’s 90^th Anniversary literacy event, READ NOW! She talked all about her favorite books, the power of reading and students asked her questions about her favorite Genres and all that fun stuff! 

Next week, we will be watching her Web Cast in class!  It is great!  She is so sweet and a great role model to all of us! 

Here is a little bit about her if you do not know who she is…

Good Readers always make Mental Images in their head while reading or listening to someone read! We have been illustrating our vivid visualizations in Room 305! Here is another fun song to help us to remember to create a mental image while reading!

 

You probably read the note I sent home about the kids now using the Questioning Strategy! Here is a fun song that we sing to help us to remember to ASK questions BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER reading! Make sure your children STOP and THINK while they read and are discussing the strategies that we are using in class at home too! We have really enjoyed reading out of their Reader’s Notebooks!

 Happy Reading!!!

You can see the kids with their clip boards and post its!  (which I have to tell you – they absolutely LOVE) They LOVE to record their THINKING and I LOVE that they are doing it!!!  They wanted to go to the lab and read more about African Animals, Culture, Weather, Food, HOmes ect.  It was so much fun!  Reading is sooooooo COOOOOOOL!

We have been learning all about Non Fiction texts and their Features!  We are currently creating our own “Non Fiction Feature Book.”  As we have been enjoying reading and adding new facts to our SCHEMA  with all of the fun NON Fiction we have been working with- we came up with an IDEA!  Since our Class Theme is Jungle related: we should study the continent of Africa~

So, I went to the library and checked out all the Africa topic books, videos ect. 

We started by RECORDING everything that We Already KNEW about Africa… then we charted what “Questions” we had about Africa! 

Next, we will continue to read books, and online information…and record all the NEW FACTS that we have added to our SCHEMA!

I love watching the Can Do Kids “read and think” it is so FABULOUS!  Way to go kidos!  I am so proud of you!

Please click on the links below to LEARN more about AFRICA!

http://pbskids.org/africa/

http://www.africa.mrdonn.org/

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/places/find/south-africa/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/photogalleries/100917-darwins-bark-spider-new-species-spider-webs-madagascar-science-pictures-strongest/?now=2010-09-17-00:01

http://africa.mrdonn.org/animals.html

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/school/Africa/

http://www.oaklandzoo.org/animals/

http://www.geographia.com/indx06.htm

 

Yeah!  Have fun learning!