Literature Circles Have Begun!

Our students have split up into EIGHT groups and are studying different novels! Mrs. Gettel, Mrs. Sturgeon, and I (Miss Eisen), have teamed up to work with groups in a more focused atmosphere.

Students are taking on different roles (ie: usage examiner, word wizard, discussion director, literary luminary, illustrator, summarizer, and connector) in order to understand their books at a deep level. 

So far, we are hearing some incredible conversation around the characters and plot. 

We encourage PARENTS and FAMILIES to ask their children about what they are reading!

Tea Time - 

What better way to read, than with some tea!

We are wrapping up the story of Charlotte Doyle!

We have been up to quite a bit in literacy. Take a look!

We completed our first book with our reading buddies. This book is on VISUALIZATION - a very important strategy for reading comprehension. We also focused on the strategy of VISUALIZATION in class as we read through our class novel. We are now moving on to MAKING PREDICTIONS.

ORAL COMMUNICATION - What makes an effective presentation? 

We are almost finished our class novel. Mr. Hollybrass was just stabbed in the back with what seems to be Charlotte's dirk. We know she didn't do it, but will the captain believe her?

Stay tuned!

Peer-Editing, Connections, and Visualizing!

For those of you following our homework blog, you know that our students have been busy with our class novel! We have now met and have come to know Zachariah, Captain Jaggery, and some of the other sailors!

Students are now focusing on writing connections in a clear and sophisticated manner. These connections can be to their own experiences, other texts or movies, or real-world events.

Our students are also learning to peer-edit. This will help them reflect on their own work more critically, and make improvements to their own drafts!

In reading buddies, we are working on creating a book of VISUALIZATIONS based off of some of Roald Dahl's silly poems! Visualization is a great tool to enhance reading comprehension. Take a look at the example from Ms Berman and I, after reading the poem, "WARNING".

The students could tell by our descriptions of what we had visualized when reading the poem the previous week, which drawing belonged to which teacher! Great work!

Travel Tracer

This week, our students created a map they could use to follow Charlotte Doyle throughout her journey home...that is, if she makes it there!

In Reading Buddies, our students encouraged their younger buddies to read out their Mad Libs from last week. We had a lot of great laughs! We also talked about Meadowbrook's new ECO CLUB! Ms Berman and I will be running the Eco Club this year, and were thrilled to see how enthusiastic both of our classes were in being members of the club. Stay tuned for more information on our Eco Club!

Words, words, words!

Not only did we begin our novel study this week, but we looked at the rich vocabulary found within the first few pages of the novel. Students were given VOCABULARY PADDLES to raise every time they heard a word they did not understand. This word was added to our word wall.

Students also studied the main character Charlotte Doyle. We will continue to study Charlotte as she grows through each struggle she faces.

In READING BUDDIES, we finally met our buddies! Ms Berman and I (Miss Eisen), went through a MadLibs example for the student, resulting in a pretty silly story.

After a much-needed review of NOUNS, VERBS, ADVERBS, ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS, and PLEURAL NOUNS, our students were ready to delve into their own MadLibs with their buddies.

We learned how to find the meaning of new words, by breaking them down, or looking at the context the word is found in!

Who better than our very own History teacher to discuss the setting of the novel with our students.
Students have their vocabulary paddles ready to go!

Students are creating their very own personal dictionary using Google Read and Write.

Looking away to ensure he does not see the sentences his answers will be plugged into!

One of our final results!

The Four Areas of Literacy

Welcome to Literacy!

We have some fun, integrated lessons in store!

The four areas we work on are:
1) Reading
2) Writing
3) Oral Communication
4) Media

This year, we will begin with our captivating class novel, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.

Stay tuned to find out how our novel study unfolds!