Organizing Our Text

We worked on sequencing this week. We brainstormed how we could use it in informational text. Structures like life cycles, how to books, and biographies fit perfectly with a sequencing organizer! Then the kids got to work.  I had fun walking around seeing the variety of topics that were out there! 

Life cycles of frogs, butterflies. How to ride dirt bikes, make paper airplanes, dress like Hermione, draw the superman symbol... the list goes on! Can't wait to read the final products!

Reading and Writing Informational Text

When my announcement that we were going to be focusing on Nonfiction/Informational Text in our reading and writing these next several weeks, was met with some loud groans, I have to admit I might have smiled to myself and been secretly thrilled with the challenge of turning my third graders into lovers of all things nonfiction. 

*Disclaimer: I will most undoubtably interchange the words informational text and nonfiction ALL. THE. TIME. but I think you all know what I mean! ;)

I had only lugged 40+ books to school on Tuesday to help introduce my kiddos to the wonderful world of nonfiction. I had spent 3+ hours planning out my reading and writing units over break so that I know exactly where we are headed these next 6-7 weeks and I am very excited. As I sat planning I was very thankful for the freedom I have in planning these units and for the depth I can go into with third graders. I have always loved teaching writing, but its always been a struggle. I have to say that teaching the 6 traits has been one of the best things to help me grow as a writing teacher. I wish I had moved through them with my 1st graders before. There is so much freedom within the 6 traits, but it has been the structure I have needed to help my kids move ahead as writers! 

We started out on a text feature scavenger hunt. This served as a great pre-assessment for me to see what the kids knew about nonfiction. They each had their own book and I called out 6 text features we were going to be covering in our iBooks that day, one at a time, and we searched for them in the book we had. After we found them we talked about the purpose of each text feature. The more the kids browsed the books the more interested they became in the books they held in their hands. Before break I had asked them to write down some topics they wanted to learn more about. So all the books I chose out of the library were ones I knew they would be interested in! ;)

When we settled down later that morning for independent reading, I introduced my kiddos to their bag of books. I had missed using bags of books (read more about them here) and with the direction we were moving in with this unit, I knew it we needed to start using them again. For the first time they chose 3 books and I added in some post it notes for later one when we start recording more of our thinking. Most kids had one or two nonfiction books in their bags. 

I love Independent Reading. These kids just get it.

What I loved the most about Tuesday was noticing that the kids automatically sat next to other kids that were reading on the same topic. The book talk I heard was fabulous! They would whisper new things they learned to each other. Throughout several conferences I noticed that a couple of the kids were doing a first read of the captions and other text features. We discussed that later on too that we don't have to read all of the text, which can be the nice thing about nonfiction! 

I am so excited for where we will go in the next couple weeks. Be sure to check back weekly for more updates! 

Five For Friday: Busy Week!

Here is what we have been up to this week!

{one}

Over the weekend I shared about some of the things that Alex and I like to do at home to build number sense. All you need is a couple of basic materials and then have lots of fun! You can check out some of our activities and can't live without materials here.

{two}

I also worked on a beginning letter sound sort for him. Its perfect for Pre K through Kindergarten to help them hear beginning sounds! I wanted to make sure it was useful all year long, so I also added long and short vowel sorts, and word cards so that the ones who are ready can start using their decoding skills to match the words and the pictures! You can find more information here!

{three}

In writing this week we talked about adding sensory details to our writing. So I split the kids into groups and they had to feel an object in a bag and first describe it without looking at it. Then I let them look at it and add more descriptions. We then came back together as a group, looked at the different descriptions and i gave each group a different bag and they had to match the object to the list of discriptions! It was fun. I did notice that a lot of kids went back and added more detailed descriptions while we were revising so I thought that was a plus! :)

{four}

This week we studied Michelangelo in history so that 3rd-5th graders got to experience what it was like to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel! They found unique ways to make it work, but all commented on how tiring it was! I have been able to see the Sistine Chapel in person and I am so amazed by its beauty! The set up and clean up were quite involved, but the kids had a blast!

{five}

To celebrate the ending of our first set of novels we had a fair with with our kids at a family's farm. We had elements from our three books, Because of Winn Dixie, Charlotte's Web, and Maniac Magee, present. The petting farm gave them a taste of Charlotte's Web's fair, Lots of food goodies from Winn Dixie's party at the end of the book, and a cobbler's know, pizza, and games from Maniac Magee... What we didn't anticipate is that true to the ending of Winn Dixie, our plans for a day of fun would be thrown for a loop by rain!! It slowed down at the start of our hay ride, but by the end the rain picked up and we were DRENCHED! Of course a lot of our plans changed, but the kids had a great time and made lots of memories! Since we did it on a non school day for us, parents and other siblings came along, so Alex and Liam got to come along too! They loved every minute and were troopers through the rain too!

Even though it rained I have to say I love the cooler fall weather that is rolling in! Can't wait for lots of fall activities to start!

Hope you all had a great week too!

Be sure to check out Kacey's Five for Friday Linky!

Starting Writing Workshop

This week we jumped into writer's workshop and it. was. beautiful! :)

Yesterday we started talking about ideas. Where do ideas come from? 

Roller Coaster was the perfect book to start us off. 

Most of them could relate to experiencing something for the first time and so after we read the book we did a quick write about something we had done for the first time. 

Then we spent some time brainstorming ideas on our heart map. The kids were pretty excited about that, and lots of their maps included their family, pets, toys and other things dear to their hearts! :) We discussed that our heart map carried some big ideas, but it was important to make them more clear and specific when we wrote about them. 

Today was the day we really jumped in. Instead of using a read aloud, I decided that we need to learn a little bit from other authors, so we watched a couple of author interviews to find out about other people's processes and where they get ideas.

We started with Jacqueline Woodson because we had read Each Kindness.

They noticed so many great points about her process. Writing different genres, ideas being everywhere, writing multiple things so we don't get bored....

Then we watched an interview with Oliver Jeffers (the kids were big fans of Stuck and the Great Paper Caper), a totally different approach to an interview, and they loved the humor, but again they picked up on lots of great points about what authors do.



He was very clear about his process for writing too and that lead beautifully into our talk about what writer's workshop would look like in our room. There were some gasps when I told them I didn't want them to erase, but cross out mistakes so we could talk about their thought process. Their eyes glimmered when I told them they could write about whatever they wanted, using whatever materials they wanted, including a variety of papers. Heads nodded when I said we could talk about what we were writing, but other conversations should be kept to a minimum.

Then I told them that we would take turns letting boys and girls spread out using clipboards!
(oh the glee!)

So first they had to all choose their varieties of paper. Some decided to write in their notebooks, others stapled notebook paper together (to make chapter books) and still others still used my blank books stapled together.

Then they settled in around the room and started writing.

I could not believe how quiet it was!

Were there pockets of whispering?
Yes.

Did kids keep coming over to talk to me.
Yes. (something to address next week)

But I got to hear kids read so many beautiful stories to me, each one as unique as they are! Everything from fantasy to true stories (with maybe a just a few elaborations).

I'm more than a little excited for where writer's workshop is going to go this year. It has always been a struggle for me, but it's amazing what you can do when you have an hour designated to it! This is a group that loves to write and I think we will learn lots this year!

Planning for 3rd grade!

This past week has been a busy one! Thanks to the teacher meetings and spending more time with my coworkers, I am starting to feel more ready for everything. Having people answer your 100 million questions is always great! ;)

I've kept busy with planning too! I'm finally making some headway in what I will do with Literature and Writing. :)

Literature

I finally figured out the units of study I want to accomplish with each novel we read. Each unit is a question and I broke down some of the elements I want to cover in each unit. 

 

It is not all inclusive because I only have 2 mornings a week with them, nor I am finished with my list, but I feel much better knowing where I am going. I'm also going to split up some of those units over two books... AND, I've started working on my Interactive Notebook pages! We use interactive notebooks to help scaffold their learning as they apply it at home as well.

I'm excited for how the first pages have come out!

 We will use our novel for the examples in our interactive notebooks (or iBooks as we call them! :) ) but use these pages for our notes. I left the pages pretty basic, because we are going to build off our class discussions and ideas a lot. 

Our first unit is What Makes a Story a Story? We will cover the story elements in this first unit... I'm still in the process of finishing that up! 

I'm also loving Reading in the Wild! It has been helpful in thinking through reading in the upper grades!

Writing

I have more of a framework to follow for writing, but was struggling to figure out how to bring all my ideas together (6-traits, genre writing, setting up workshop etc). I was looking through some resource ideas that a friend shared with me, and discovered this helpful book:  

I love how it walks you through all the ideas of what you want/need to teach and then to think about how to bring it all together.

I had fun on pinterest and at the library choosing some books I wanted to use as mentor texts to teach about ideas!

Another book i want to read again is Mentor Texts. I read some of it several years ago, but I think this will be a helpful resource too!

I will share all of our back to school plans after I finish them on Wednesday! I am repeating some ideas from last year so if you check out the collaboration label at the side you will get a preview. ;) 

Oh, and don't forget that TPT is having an SPECIAL back to school sale on Wednesday! Just in time to pick up all the things you need to have a great start to the school year! :)

Hope you all have a great first day of school! 

Who we are as Readers and Writers

Planning for this year back to school is definitely a little different than years past. First off it's 3rd grade and Secondly I only see the kiddos two mornings a week. We have to jump into our learning pretty quickly so as I was thinking about the first week of school and getting to know my kids, I decided to also use the lens of who they were as readers and writers. I have done interest inventories with kids and their parents in the past, but decided to make it a little more fun this year!

I love doing these too! It's a great way to reflect as a teacher reader and writer too! 

I will often give one or two of my answers as an example, but save a lot to share after the kids are done... Just to make sure I don't influence their answers. ;)

You can find it {here} at teachers pay teachers!

Start filling up your cart but wait to buy it until Monday when the back to school sale starts! My store will be 20% off and then enter the promo code BTS15 for even more savings! :) Be sure to check out some of my back to school freebies as well!

Wordless Books

A great way to build inquiry into your writing is through wordless books! After reading the wordless book together, your kids can write the text to match the pictures. This guided inquiry give them the freedom to use their creativity and think outside the box. Some books are a little more straightforward then others, but each child has the opportunity to write their own dialogue, think about the character's feelings, and develop their tone for the story.

Here are some of my favorite wordless books! 

(Click on the picture to view on Amazon)

{one}

I discovered this one last year and it quickly became a favorite. There is so much room for wonder in this story and it would encourage the kids to think make sure that their word choices convey the emotions of the characters.

(two)

This books is a new discovery! The illustrations are stunning and the character's facial expressions help the kids understand his emotions and feelings. Another great idea for writing is to extend the story. Many wordless books have open endings that leave room for the imagination of what happens next!

{three}

This is a sweet story. I always love how the illustrators use color to draw your attention to the main idea of the story. That is a great way to get kids thinking about main idea and important details they need to write about.

{four}

This is the story that I first used in my writing class to add text to a wordless book! I love this one because the storyline can go so many different ways. Not a single one of us had the same story! I love how it shows such diversity of thought! Be sure to write with your students. They need to see their teacher being an inquirer as well! :)

{five}

The use of red in this book to draw your attention to the character is wonderful. The story continues in Quest. The detail in these books is wonderful. Her adventures could almost take up whole chapters! Might be a good extension for some of your high flyers! :)

{six}

I LOVE this book! Not only is it such a sweet story about siblings, hard work etc (so many learner profiles and attitudes are present) but it gives kids an opportunity to think about the importance of the endings of their stories.

As kids inquire their way through these stories and think deeply about their word choice, voice, and organization, they are growing as writers and thinkers! Wouldn't wordless books be a great way to introduce or practice the 6 traits?
Or think about the lively discussions you might have if kids defend their story choices based on the details in the pictures? There might be lots of persuasion going on there!
As you plan for the first weeks of school don't forget to include some wordless book fun in there! Such a great way to set the tone for your writing workshop by helping your kids to see that writers are inquirers too!

Of course there are LOTS more wonderful wordless books and the possibilities of ways to use them are endless. What are some of your favorite books? How do you use them in your room?