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Tag: fourth grade

Spooky Story Writing

Last week when I was substituting in fourth grade, one of the assignments was to write a spooky story! This is right up my alley! I read the bilingual class the opening and closing lines from several spooky stories in the library and they took off with their imagination! They wrote an opening line and ending for a scary story. We had fun!

4 g spooky writing

fourth grade writes

Spring Poetry Writing

Posted in bilingual, and displays and deco

April is National Poetry Month! Third through fifth grades had fun in the Jackson Library writing Spring poems! Some wrote diamante poems about the atmosphere layers, some wrote acrostics in English, and some wrote Spanish acrostics. We used kite templates (see TPT links below) so we could post them on the library windows. The kids had fun writing the poems! 

stu acrostic poems

#nationalpoetrymonth

poetry kites

acrostic poem on kite

 

link to Spa acrostic template
link to Spa template

 

Spring bulletin board kit- acrostic kites
English acrostic kite template and SPRING banner

 

Dear Basketball

February of this year, we read Kobe Bryant’s Dear Basketball poem (we used MrsBlewettELA’s TPT Questions) and watched the Oscar-winning short animated movie. Then, third through fifth grades wrote a “love letter” to SOMETHING they love. Check out their awesome work! Then, watch our video and check out the three-pointers!

Kobe Bryant's Dear Basketball
poem

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MrsBlewettELA’s TPT Dear Basketball Poem and Questions

MrsBlewett ELA TPT

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Dear Basketball short
Oscar-winning short

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Student Writing

 

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Student Three-Pointers

This idea came from Mr. Bonner! Check out his site: Bonnerville

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Dear BB collage

Harlem Globetrotters

Harlem GT

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Bonnerville

kobe quote

2020 Quotable Quotes, Assoc. Press

“We are all Lakers today.” — Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers, in a remark to reporters after the death of Kobe Bryant, Orlando, Fla., Jan. 26

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

Turkey Letter Proofreading

Posted in holiday, and technology

Last week in the Jackson Library, fourth graders proofread a letter from a turkey. They worked in pairs on a Seesaw template I created to find the errors. I threw in a few extra ‘mistakes’ to make sure they were thinking! It was a fun activity and helped me gauge which skills need more reinforcing in the future.

turkey letter

Turkey Writing pdf

Seesaw turkey proofing activity

turkey proofing activity

ANSWER KEY

answer key turkey

 

Show, Don’t Tell with Mentor Texts

Posted in picture book lesson

Fourth graders used a Seesaw template I created to match dull “telling” sentences with their “showing”, descriptive counterparts. I found the descriptive counterparts in various library books. The kids worked in pairs to match the quality description from the books to their simple counterpart. To prepare them for the lesson, we read Moonlight and admired the vivid imagery the author created. Then we read a story I wrote about camp and discussed the ‘show, don’t tell’ strategy.  For independent practice, they worked in pairs on the matching Seesaw activity.

show dont tell

writing

mentor texts writing

Mentor texts used:

mentor texts

My Camp Story Sample  Sneak in the Setting

4th Grade Color Poems

Posted in picture book lesson

Fourth graders were inspired by a read aloud from the Eric Carle book, What’s Your Favorite Color? I found this gem at the last year’s Scholastic book fair. After reading the story, the kids thought about their favorite color and used my template to brainstorm how their color might sound, taste, and feel. I love the imagery they used! As they wrote, we played the video of Hailstones and Halibut Bones for more ideas, since it has a similar theme. 

 

 

4th color poems
color poem

Student Template: Color Poem

Wadin: Hailstones inspired

Green Example: Read Write Think

Hailstones and Halibut Bones

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