Learning is fun!
Posted in 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!
Posted in bilingual, displays and deco, fifth grade, fourth grade, poetry, third grade, and writing
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!
Posted in fourth grade, picture book lesson, and reading skills
Last week in the Jackson Library, fourth graders created character maps for the two main characters in the book, Me First! First, we looked at Pinkerton the pig’s actions and drew conclusions about his personality. Then we looked at the Sand Witch’s behavior and summarized her personality with a few words. The kids love this story!
Posted in fourth grade, how to, origami, and picture book lesson
Fourth graders had fun in the Jackson Library this week after enjoying the read aloud, Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. We used a glossary, looked at context clues, made predictions, and folded a fortune teller.
Fortune Teller – in the Event Kit
Posted in fifth grade, fourth grade, third grade, and writing
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!
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MrsBlewettELA’s TPT Dear Basketball Poem and Questions
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Student Writing
This idea came from Mr. Bonner! Check out his site: Bonnerville!
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Harlem Globetrotters
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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
Posted in fourth grade, games, and robots
Last week in the Jackson Library, fourth graders sequenced the events in Jan Brett’s The Mitten with the BluBot robot. We used Della Larsen’s TPT materials. The kids had fun and learned a lot too!
Posted in fourth grade, picture book lesson, reading skills, technology, and writing
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!
Posted in fourth grade, holiday, technology, and writing
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.
ANSWER KEY
Posted in fourth grade, picture book lesson, and writing
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.
Mentor texts used:
My Camp Story Sample Sneak in the Setting
Posted in fourth grade, picture book lesson, poetry, and writing
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.
Green Example: Read Write Think
