Room 10 Collective Nouns

After learning about collective nouns, fourth graders created original ones for themselves. Here are some from Room 10:

 

Common Core standard addressed: L.4.5. – Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

In Other Words ...

Fifth graders are practicing their paraphrasing skills. Their assignment was to put the following sentences into their own words:

During my earlier years, I experienced much strife with my male and female siblings who were born before me. Now that we are more mature, we have overcome some of our differences and have the ability to interact pleasantly.

Here are some of the new sentences the students came up with:

Years ago, I was always angry with my older siblings. Now that we've grown up, we are more respectful. -. A.Y.

When I was a kid, I argued with my brother and sister. Now that I'm older, my siblings and I get along. - R.S.

When I was younger, I got into trouble with my brothers and sisters. Now that we are older, we don't get into trouble. - A.M.

Impromptu Readaloud

Blurry boys in back came sprinting across room when they saw I had the camera out.

DLP Color Train

Source: chroniclebooks.com

DLP students know their colors! We did a "color train" lesson in Trains Go by Steve Light. The kids helped me read such lines as “CHUGGA chugga chugga CHUGGA chugga chugga CHOO CHOOOOOOO!” and “zooosh zooosh ZOOOOOOOOSH ding ding ding!”

Next, we read Freight Train by Donald Crews. The second time through, each student got a board book about colors. I reread slowly to give them time to find each color in their book.

Then we watched these two videos:

Finally, the kids put together a train with construction paper cars and colored in the wheels.Thank you to student volunteer Sharon and parent volunteer Kristina for drawing the locomotives!

 

 

Good Luck for Hard Luck

wimpykid.com

Hey, kids! I finally got a copy of the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck. I know everyone will be clamoring to check it out. So here's the deal:

If you're reading this page, then you qualify to be one of the first readers. Leave a comment below with your room number and initials (NO FULL NAMES), and I'll put you on the hold list. Just choose "Anonymous" from the "Comment As" drop-down list. Remember, initials only.

A Collective of Nouns

Fourth-graders learned about collective nouns, which describe a group of people, places, or things. Some are general - a class of students or a team of players. But others can be quirky and actually work like adjectives - a splash of mermaids or a crash of rhinos. They might describe a noun's appearance, characteristics, habitat, actions, or sound.

Students used the dictionary and their brains to figure out how some terms go together, then typed a few of their discoveries below:

scurry of squirrels	Squirrels scurry along.
bask of crocodiles	Crocodiles like to bask in sun.
tangle of Gorgons	Gorgons have snakes for hair, and the snakes look like tangles.
pandemonium of parrots	A parrot has a loud screech.
leer of jack o'lanterns	A jack o'lantern has nasty glance.
aurora of polar bears	They both come from polar regions.

Next up, the kids will come up with collective nouns for themselves. In the meantime, here are a couple of games that will test your knowledge of collective nouns.

Online matching game

Printable "board" game

Barnes & Noble Book Fair - You Can Help the Library!

Books make a wonderful gift ... and if you're planning to give some as Christmas presents, why not get them at Barnes & Noble this week? A portion of your sale will go towards the Garden City library, so we can buy new books ... it's like giving two gifts in one!

Dr. Napolitano sent home vouchers that you can bring to the store in Warwick to buy books in person on Thursday, Dec. 12.

OR you can order books online between Dec. 12 and 16. As you go through the checkout page, scroll down to the bottom of the Payment section and look for the checkbox that says "Check this box if this is a Bookfair Order." Check the box and enter our ID number: 11196607.

Thank you!

Mock Caldecott: Round 2 Results

We have two more books approved as finalists in our Mock Caldecott:

source: goodreads.com

Exclamation Mark
Author: Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Illustrator: Tom Lichtenheld

As a grammar and punctuation nerd, I am excited to have the kids see that such things can be FUN. And Room 2 had some incredible observations about the artwork. Some was negative, including S.C.'s skepticism about "a bunch of smiley faces" being eligible for an illustration award. However, J.P. countered that Exclamation Mark had a sad face until he discovered his talents midway through. What do you think? As C.Y. can attest, this book is available at the Cranston Public Library to take home and discuss.

What's My Mark? game - easiest
Rags to Riches game - easier
Rags to Riches game - harder

source: peachtreepub.
blogspot.com

Tiger in My Soup 
Author: Kashmira Sheth
Illustrator: Jeffrey Ebbeler

Super bold artwork shows how a boy's imagination works overtime as he begs his older sister to read him a story. Cool perspectives and visual treats (like the T I G E R cascading into his bowl of alphabet treats as she serves him lunch) make for a striking book. Opinions were divided between those who liked the imagination in play and those who thought it made the book confusing.

pbkids.org has an alphabet soup riddle game you can play. I wonder if you'll get "R O A R"?

Boney Research - Grade 2

Second graders took notes for the first time in library, listening to Dem Bones by Bob Barner and learning such information as:

• Where is your patella? 
• How many vertebrae are in your spine? 
• Where is your clavicle? 
• How many bones are in your foot? 
• Which bone is the longest? 

Then we created a list of questions they had about bones and practiced using a table of contents to find the answers. Here are some of the facts they learned:

• A muscle that moves a bone can only work one way. 
• An unset broken bone may cut muscle. 
• A broken thigh bone might need a steel plate and screw to hold it together. 
• Your bones come together at joints. 
• Joints have different names. One kind is a ball and socket.

And here they are at work:

Bark, George!

harpercollins.com

As a follow-up to the previous lesson about animal sounds, I read Bark, George to K and PreK. Students got a huge kick out of this story about a dog who doesn't bark ... instead, he meows, quacks, oinks, and moos!

To support their retelling skills, students colored and cut out the characters so they could bring them home and share story to their families. (You can click on the link to access and download more copies.)

The official video of the book - voiced by John Lithgow - sometimes pops up on Youtube, but then is promptly removed because of copyright violation. Instead, you can watch this puppet-show version of the story:

Grade 6 Research Topics

Students in 6th grade have chosen their Q2 research topics; the overall themes were music and/or their Individual Learning Plan (ILP) they are working on in Guidance. Here's are some of the ones they came up with:

• The evolution of football equipment
• Trajectory of Miley Cyrus' career
• The importance of home runs in baseball
• History of the violin
• How Beethoven overcame deafness to continue composing and conducting
• Ke$ha and Lady Gaga's costumes and how they contribute to the performance
• How Justin Bieber's image has changed
• Canadian v. U.S. hockey

Finished products will include a variety of presentation formats, some of which we'll be able to post here. In the meantime, we'll be learning about wikis, primary sources, website evaluation, and bibliographic citation, all as part of the inquiry process.

source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250160954272310825/

Mock Caldecott: Round 1 Results

Each January, the American Library Association awards the Caldecott Medal to the artist of "the most distinguished American picture book for children." Who will win in 2014? Well, first- and second-graders are going to make their pick in library, and we'll see how our choice lines up with the national award.

After round one, the following were cleared to move on with near unanimity:

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great
Bob Shea

Despite a few concerns over the use of the word "stupid" and the "girly"-ness of unicorns, most students were highly entertained by this account of Goat realizing that Unicorn isn't all that bad to hang out with ... in fact, Unicorn is actually jealous of Goat in a few areas! The kids greatly enjoyed the spread where the protagonists imagine being superheroes: "Taste my cloven justice! You've been unicorned!"

We discussed magic tricks (if someone needs you to close your eyes while they're doing a trick, it's not a good trick) and trying new foods (like tomatoes, broccoli, and bacon ... although if I were P.M.'s mom, I would have encouraged her to NOT try the bacon so I could eat it all myself!).


That Is Not a Good Idea
Mo Willems

Can Mo Willems do no wrong? From the silent movie design to the Greek chorus of baby geese to the twist ending, this is another instant classic. A lot of students recognized his name from the Pigeon and Elephant & Piggie books. And they loved this one just as much as they love those.

I am a huge Buster Keaton fan and plan to introduce him next week before checkout ... see 1:04 and 2:48 for dialogue cards and 2:18 for an amazing stunt.

Can You Moo?

The library often sounds a little like a zoo, but this past month, it also sounded like a farm! I read a selection of animal sounds books to the younger classes, including:

scholastic.com

goodreads.com

Because students' animal sounds sometimes got a little ... enthusiastic ... I taught them the conductor's cut-off signal. Which reminded me of The Sesame Street All-Animal Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa. The AM K students especially got a huge kick out of it and yelled for an encore.

And finally, what discussion of animal sounds can now be had without wondering ... What Does The Fox Say?

Most Popular Books - Q1

wimpykid.com

Our top-10 list for the first quarter:

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
• WWE Encyclopedia
• Goosebumps series
• Dork Diaries series
• The World Almanac for Kids 2006
• Amulet series
• Bone series
• Captain Underpants series
• Geronimo Stilton series
• Elephant & Piggie series

I'm hoping to get copies of the new Wimpy Kid book at the book fair, which takes place from Nov. 17-20. Donations welcome!

Grade 4 Dewey Matching Game*

As a follow-up to our last lesson, when fourth-graders figured out Dewey Decimal System categories, this week they assigned a stack of topics to those categories. Each table got a set of "playing cards" that they had to place in the correct area of their "game board." Some of the cards were kind of tricky ... you could make the case for a certain subject to be in more than one Dewey category. So long as the students could explain their thinking, they got full credit.

700s are fun activities (aka Arts and Recreation)

900s are social studies (aka history and geography). Folk songs would be under music in the 700s.
However, this team explained that they thought folk songs were about culture,
which is social studies, which is 900s. Full credit for using their brains!

Here are the teams at work. I am happy to report that everyone participated fully, as the photos illustrate:

Double-checking the category labels posted at the front of the room.

 

 

* Original lesson idea from Anne Oelke via LMNet.

Opposites! Opposites! - Grade 1

After we read Earth, Sky, Wet Dry: A Book of Nature Opposites by Durga Bernhard and Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli, Grade 1 students worked together to develop lists of opposites. They got some inspiration from this Sesame Street video, and had a stack of books to help with ideas as well.

Can your family fill in the table below with the missing words? Can you come up with more examples?

up
	cold
fast
	quiet
inside
	sad

Here are some of the kids hard at work:

Friday Morning Crosswords

I LOVE CROSSWORD PUZZLES. Through them, I've picked up a ton of vocabulary and trivia. They stretch your mind with puns, double meanings, and synonyms: a fantastic way to support the Common Core Anchor Standards for Language:

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

On checkout days, I offer word and logic puzzles as an activity; students have one week to return them to me complete and correct. If they do, then they get a free book from the prize box. I was thrilled by how many kids worked together yesterday, using the dictionary, encyclopedia, and almanac to look up answers such as "October birthstone" (which is opal).

Here they are in action:

This group all finished before the end of class!
I think I'll be giving them a two-star difficulty puzzle next time.

Choosing from the prize box.