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Category: reading skills

The Monsterator Retellings

Posted in apps, holiday, picture book lesson, reading skills, and technology

Last week in the Jackson Library, third graders used Google’s Toontastic app to retell the story, The Monsterator by Keith Graves.  This app is great because it is free, it allows them to draw their own setting and characters, it offers them options to customize their music and record their voice, and it even adds scrolling movie credits.  Check out their creations!

Toontastic
Click for more
Monsterator
Review

The-Monsterator-Vocabulary-Quiz1

LINK
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LINK
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Keith Graves’ Art Site
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Exploring The Garden of Abdul Gasazi

Posted in picture book lesson, and reading skills

This week in the Jackson Library, fifth graders explored the fascinating picture book, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.  First, we discussed topiaries and looked at pictures.  Then we discussed foreshadowing and prepared ourselves to find how Van Allsburg uses the literary technique in his book.  During the story, we completed the puzzle and discussed the vocabulary words.  During check out, the kids rotated on the computers to play a Quizdini game about the book. After the story, the kids had to decide if the magician tricked Alan or if he really knew magic. It looks like FOX/Disney might be adapting the book into a movie version soon!

Garden Abdul cover
Review
Gasazi puzzle
puzzle

Gasazi puzzle key

5th Gasazi lesson

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Garden of Abdul Gasazi Safeshare video 
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Houghton Mifflin Teacher’s Guide
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Quizdini
game

 

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CVA
Frequently Asked Questions

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news article
click to find out more

 

Story from Space! Kahoot Remote Learning!

Posted in games, picture book lesson, and reading skills

Did you know? You can assign a Kahoot game to be played when students have time during remote learning? Did you know? Astronauts provide read alouds in space! Here’s the info: 

Story Time from Space

Here’s an astronaut reading the book: If I Were an Astronaut.

Story Time from Space: If I Were an Astronaut read aloud

Here’s how to play the asynchronous Kahoot game:

kahoot

  1. Log in to your Kahoot account.
  2. Create the Kahoot
  3. Synchronous:  Choose for virtual classrooms 
  4. Asychronous: Choose for self-paced learningKahoot synchronous or asynchronous
  5. Choose the start end date time frame. Choose other settings. Make sure it says ‘Challenge’ instead of ‘Game’. Challenge means on their own time and Game is to play live. 

Assign challenge time frame due dates

6. Copy the URL to give to the kids. 

 

copy the URL to send to the kids

 

Here’s the game I made for the kids to play to go with If I Were an Astronaut:

Asynchronous Kahoot game for If I Were an Astronaut
If I Were an Astronaut quiz

astronaut read aloud

4th Grade Fenway and Hattie Book Club

Posted in book clubs, games, and reading skills

The fourth grade Fenway and Hattie book club met today during lunch and played fun games about the book! First, we played a Quizizz game to review the middle chapters. Then the kids solved a crossword puzzle and played a fun computer mystery game created by the author, Victoria Coe! I’m  setting up a fun Breakout EDU game for next week!

bk c

Quizizz for part 2

Try to figure out the password for the secret page

Fenway and Hattie game

bk c

 

 

Character Traits with Seesaw

Posted in picture book lesson, reading skills, and technology

Last week in the Jackson Library, fourth grade analyzed the actions, dialogue, and personalities of the characters in Helen Lester’s Me First! to pinpoint descriptive character traits of the main characters. They used a Seesaw bubble map I created and chose between Pinkerton the pig or the Sand Witch templates.

Me First character maps

Me First!

Me First review
Publisher’s Weekly Review

ME-FIRST-long questions

Me-First-Character-Mapping

 

MeFirst Reader’s Theater

Helen Lester Unit

This is a Moose…Or Is It?

Posted in apps, picture book lesson, reading skills, and technology

Last week in the Jackson Library, fifth graders studied characters by their appearance, actions, and dialogue in the book, This is a Moose. After the story, they used a Seesaw activity I created to complete a bubble map describing the character(s) of their choice. They were allowed to use two physical attributes and the rest were to be personality traits. Check out their awesome work!

moose

Character Trait Bubble Map Seesaw Activity

director bubble map
 

grandma bubble map

moose bubble map

moose's friends bubble map

 

Lucia la Luchadora

Posted in bilingual, picture book lesson, reading skills, and social-emotional learning

One book we are reading to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in the Jackson Library is Lucia la Luchadora by Cynthia Leonor Garza. Last week, the second graders identified causes and effects in the story. Since the boys teased Lucia, she asked her abuela for help. When she wore the luchadora costume and mask, she had the courage to rescue Coco from the top of the slide. We discussed stereotypes and assumptions people make about appearances and how to overcome those with inner confidence and strength. After the story, the kids wrote a sentence about what some people perceive as a limitation, and then wrote what they CAN do despite that perception. This great idea is from Ms. Rodrigo’s Twitter feed! Finally, they colored their own Nino (from Yuyi Morales’ Nino Wrestles the World book) or Lucia la Luchadora (mask drawn by me) to take home to finish. 

review

Curriculum Guide

Hou Chronicle Author Interview

Lucia luchadora mask – drawing attempt by AK

Niño mask

Nino Activities

Lucia la Luchadora sentence strip I can activity

 

bil Lucia La Luchadora sentences

Lesson idea from Ms. Rodrigo’s Twitter Feed

sent strip 1

Check out Cynthia Leonor Garza’s new book about Lucia!

 

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