Listening to beautiful language and talking about interesting stories

On busy days it may be difficult to keep to the routine of reading out loud, but we have managed. I may not have had time to read several pages from a chapter book, but it is possible to slip some poems into small pockets of time.

This book hosts a collection of poems about words, poems and books:

This book is filled with poems of apology:

This book has a wonderful combination of illustrations and poems with a twist:

In addition to the read aloud and some individual reading, we had two Literature Circle meetings. One of the groups is reading the Lightening Thief. This is a fast-paced adventure with many characters and where contemporary world is mixed with Ancient Greek mythology. I am in a group with 5th grade boys and read My Side of the Mountain. This on the other hand is a book about a boy who chose to live alone in a forest. He is learning how to survive and finds time to observe the nature and his inner thoughts. The biggest question my group is discussing is how realistic is the book and what choices would we make if we were in the boy's shoes. We will have two more weeks of Literature Circle meetings. During the third week of February we will have a book week and our schedule is mixed up. We will pause with the Literature Circles and resume after February break.

Practice makes perfect

Even though dance has filled most of our days, we made sure we were still working toward our goal to master multi-digit subtraction. Every day the students solved some problems, thinking through whether they needed or didn't need to regroup when subtracting. As soon as they had done their problems, they checked their answers and figured out why they had made a mistake. Was it because they still didn't exactly understand how to subtract or did they make a careless computation error. 

The students are at different levels.

Some still need the blocks to help them understand what they are doing.

Some can talk the problems through and mark the changes that happen after regrouping.

Some can figure answers out without marking the changes, but need more practice to avoid careless mistakes.

On Friday I gave a small quiz (similar to the one I gave on Monday) to see how the students learning had grown and whether they had achieved the goal.

Drawing

This week has been a Dance and Draw week. Like writers, the illustrators go through a process of planning, drafting and crafting. Our fictional narratives are almost done, and we work as picture book authors, combining pictures and words. This time consuming task will take us more than a week. Only one student so far has been playing with the layout. 

Dance, dance, dance, and some more dance

How much do we dance? 

Every day

Sometimes twice a day

Sometimes with music

Sometimes without

The picture above shows Ms. Karolina giving feedback to students after a practice on Monday.

The I-Pads on the table are open because each student had chosen a piece of music and Ms Karolina was marking the segments we need for the final piece.

On Tuesday we practiced just the steps and the sequence. We took a break and then danced some more. I secretly hope that the students practiced the steps at home on Wednesday when the school was closed. Today we had one practice without the music. During the last lesson Ms. Karolina brought the mixed togehter music and the students danced the whole thing through. Since we have been practicing quite a bit, the first time through was better than we anticipated. Tomorrow we plan to videotape the dance. 

The Friday usual and unusual

On every Friday we have a wordstudy test, a mental math test, and Five Minute Friday writing. This week's word was "Dog." This word was chosen by one student. In mental math students have 3 minute basic fact test and multi-digit untimed test on a computer.

This Friday was unusual because after the students were gone, our classroom hosted 23 Estonian teachers from Estonian Reading Association. Ms. Sirje and I talked about our school's reading and writing programme. I am very thankful to the students who had helped me to clean and organize the room. Working together and with a bit of music the job was done fast and joyfully. It may happen that Ms. Sirje and I will use grade 3 classroom for some reading workshops in spring.

Reading like a reader, reading like a writer

Adding to our conversational skills has been the focus of reading this week. We have worked with partnersto practice how to share our thinking, how to listen to a partner, how to invite the partner to elaborate and clarify, and how to add to the conversation.

We have used both picture books and poems to dig deeper with understanding and practice how to talk about ideas. I hope that what we do in class transfers to the Literature Circle discussions.

In addition to reading like a reader, we have looked at the texts as a writer. Some books are filled with marvellous language. The book below is about a boy who has never seen a sea and his mother describes it in the most wonderful words.

More dancing

Everyone in the class came up wit some steps for our class dance. Now we need to put all the pieces together and practice, practice, practice.

We will perform on the 5th of February during the PYP assembly.

Dancing with Doc. Shepherd

What other school has a Chemistry teacher who is also a Drama and Dance teacher? We are so lucky to have Doc. Shepherd in our school. On Wednesday afternoon, after finishing her lessons with IB students, she came to assembly area and taught us some tap and ballet. 

Honestly, it's not as easy as it looks. Even a bit of dancing to the right music got us tired. 

Fun

In the mornigns we take some minutes to share news, items, memories and plans. Over the five days everyone has a turn. This time allows students to show what matters to them, we learn about each other, and it gives ideas for possible play dates, especially when you know that there are some fun toys or games waiting. The topics vary: what someone did the night before, favorite toys, self made items, precious gifts, awards, skateboards, remote cars, journals, souvenirs, books and songs. Living, breathing pets have visited us. It's fun to see the choices. For example, today we saw this. One can't help but smile. 

Regular practice, warm ups and assessment

We have been keeping our math muscles fit with regular practice of two-digit addition. We do some problems every day. If possible, the students do them in the head, if needed they do them in the written form. This week they tried out how welll their math muscles meet challenges. They solved multi- digit addition problems, checked their answers and then fixed mistakes. We are on our way to feeling confident and being constantly successful in multi-digit addition. We just need a bit more praxtice. Next up: multi-digit subtraction.

How to have a discussion about literature

Every Tuesday and Thursday the students gather for Literature Circle meetings. They have read the agreed nukber of pages and usuaally have jotes witht them. Sometimes they simply take turns reading their notes. The goal for them is to have a natural discussion. This week in class we learn ways to share our thinking and expandin it. 

On Monday we looked at possible thinking stems we can use to get started.

We practiced using these thinking stems with this read aloud:

Today we added questions we can ask to invite the other speaker to clarify, extend or support their thinking.

We used another picture book to try out these questions.

Revision: Sentence fluency.

The sentence fluency is probably the hardest trait to teach in writing. You have to listen to the text to hear whether the text is smooth and flows naturally, whether the length of the sentences helps to build  suspense or creates a peaceful mood, whether the sentence structure helps the reader to understand and supports the thoughts of the writer. 

It is possible to play witht the length of the sentences.

It is possible to play with the structure of the sentences.

Playing with the order of words or order of sentences opens up even more possibilities.

This week during revision the students chose one paragraph from their fictional narratives and played with sentences - adding, chopping off, rearranging them.

We also looked at different ways to start a sentence.

Dance, dance, dance

Music, beat, steps, sequence, practice, practice, practice has filled our UOI and Music lessons. We have a stroy. We have a plan. Now we need to put together the pieces of music and coreography that individual students have created. A bit of dancing every day, or a lot of dancing on some days, is good for our body and mind.

The usual

Back to school and back to the routines.
We have some positive routines in our class.

Morning circle
In addition to regular free choice sharing, we shared our holiday reading. We reflected on how well did we stick to our plan and what were our favorite books we read.

Wordstudy
This started on Tuesday and did only regular, written and blind sort. Next week we will start on Monday again and also include the timed sort.

Mental math
No escape from it. We will pay a bit more focus to subtraction before we move n to multiplication.

Five Minute Friday
Today's word was Imagine. You can try it at home.  Set a timer for 5 minutes and just write. We got a word list, a writing reflection, some writing prompts for future and some stories.

Closing circle
Finishing a day with a positive note leaves me smiling every day. To hear what the students like or accomplished shows their engagement and effort. Friday's comments about the classmates show appreciation. I did get a suggestion today to change our finishing chant and I hope that the students will help me with a new chant next week.

What if

In this lovely book (I had read to the students some time ago) a girl named Eva is struggling with a school writing assignment. Different people on her street give her writerly advice. 

The same advice is useful for us during a revision process. Before we went on holidays the students had been working on their fictional narratives. On Tuesday I gave them their drafts to read, recommended to ask one of the greatest revision questions: "What if...?" and look for new possibilities in their drafts. This is a big question, and bold writers could change a character, a setting, a plot or the perspective they are writing from. It is a chance to turn the story upside down and make it fresh. This advice is a way to improve idea development.

The second advice from the book says: "Put poetry into your writing."

It doesn't mean writing your text in verses or inserting rhymes between paragraphs. It is meant to look closely at the word choice.

To help student to see and hear what poetic language looks and sounds like, we explored several short poems where poets have chosen simple and small or every day things and with careful word choice have created incredible images. The same literary devices can be used in narrative writing.

Isn't it beautiful when author writes about a dragonfly and calls is a sky ballerina? (metaphor)

Or what about this image "safety pin, closed, it sleeps on its side."? (personification)

Or "its tail out like a thin shrimp"? (simile)

 

These were poems (most of them by Valerie Worth) that did not have rhyme, but used the visual and sensory words and line breaks to express images.

Homeroom

We started the second half of the year talking about how should we be and what should we do to have a positive social and learning environment. We all wish to feel good and learn well. At first the students listed different ideas on post-its and then we talked about the ideas and organized them into groups. I was glad to see that their ideas fit well with my two expectations: Be Kind and Learn.

The pictures below are work in progress.

I hope you can find the PYP Profile words on this picture

When we started the school year in August, we wrote about ourselves. Now, when several moths have passed, it was time to create another piece abut ourselves, to see how we have changed and also as a way to introduce us to our new classmate.

drafting with post-its

adding color

Reading

 

I chose The Paper Bag Princess  for a read aloud book to review the different reading strategies. 

Since we started a new round of Literature Circles we talked about ho to prepare for it. Readers use post-its to mark pages where they catch themselves thinking. And later use some of the marked places to write down their thinking in more detail.

At first some students can get over excited and use a whole package of post-its and mark every thought crossing their mind. To help them to choose a bit better, I shared some "signposts" that a reader may find and should pay attention to in literary texts. (Idea from a book Notice and Note)

When I reread The Paper Bag Princess, they were able to find again and again signpost in the book.  When I was reading The Velveteen Rabbit, the students were able to name the tough question the main character asked and identify the words of the wiser.

I hope that with more practice, the student will be able to pay closer attention to their Literature Circle texts and individual reading.

Next week we will inquire into what can we do and how could we speak to have a rich and interesting discussion during the Literature Circle meetings.

Math/Dance/Music

When I was gathering ideas and resources for our UOI "Dance" I found a very interesting website called Math in Your Feet. On the very first page I viewed two videos of workshops where dance and math are combined. Oh, how I wished to invite Malke Rosenfeld, the workshop leader, to my class. Unfortunately she was too far from Estonia. Using her videos as inspiration, we still decided to try out the idea of combining dance and math.

First we looked at the vocabulary.

The first assignment was to create 4 beat pattern and to dance it in unison with a partner.

congruent (danced in unison)

Not in unison/ not congruent

The second assignment was to create a four beat pattern and dance it in reflection.

The third assignment was to create a 8 beat pattern with reflection and perform it to others.

first part of one 8 beat pattern

Ms. Rosenfeld has created a list of criteria to determine success.

Students thought of steps, created a pattern, practiced it, analyzed it, changed if necessary, and practiced some more.
On the fourth day we showed our patterns to our music teacher Ms. Karolina.

You can try these assignments. I was a partner to one student. Coming up with the steps was probably the easiest part, to get to the dance into unison and then reflect it. That took practice. Try. You can let your child teach you.

Today the students used some of the patterns in thinking about the dance we plan to create as a class performance.
 

Project: Let's Dance

Goal:

·      With a group create a dance.

Role:

·      Find some inspiration for your dance eg. a piece of music, a rhythm, a picture, a story etc.

·      The dance must be accompanied by something eg. music, narrative, poem, rhythm, percussion instrument etc.

·      Choreograph the dance

·      Perform the dance for assessment

Audience:

·      Perform your dance for your peers and parents.

Situation:

·      Use the things you have seen, heard and thought about during the unit about dance to help you to choreograph your dance.

Product:

·      The dance should be at least 1.5 minutes long if you are working alone or 2 minutes long if you working in a group.

·      The dance should not be longer than 5 minutes .

·      You need to think about what you will wear for your dance.  Your costume does not need to be fancy or made especially for the performance but think about what you might wear in order to illustrate your/the groups thinking during the creating process.