Week of September 20, 2010

Welcome Fall!

This week I left plans for a substitute since I was helping plan my daughter's wedding. New sod was laid in the front, new blinds were installed, house cleaners and carpet shampooers were scheduled before the out of towners came to stay. We had a bridal shower and rehersal dinner to attend before the big day on Saturday. Such a busy week! Anyway, enough about me....

My plans included the following...

Fifth graders completed the Lewis and Clark DVD, listed problems and benefit of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and now we are organizing our information into a Lotus Diagram. This takes time and is a process which is very beneficial for students to discuss and then decide in which sub topic the information should be located. We will continue this lesson throughout October.

Fourth graders have completed Roald Dahl's, Danny, the Champion of the World excerpt from the Roald Dahl Treasury Book. We are following up with the last chapter of the actual book. The purpose of this lesson was to listen to the great detail and word selection Roald Dahl uses in his writing to describe locations, situations, and characters. Two of the classes were able to listen to some tips Roald Dahl used himself to come up with ideas for stories and to hold the reader's attention. The students were interested in hearing that Roald Dahl's hardest story to write was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He became so caught up in describing over 15 characters in the beginning of his rough draft. He asked his nephew to read it and his nephew said it was "horrible." Roald rewrote the script and it became what is now in the book. This led us to discuss peer editing....and how we need to offer gentle suggestions to our friends in the writing process.

Third graders continued to read Esio Trot, written by Roald Dahl. We also read the tips for holding your reader's attention by Roald Dahl. Two classes also wrote a sentence to their friend backwards just like Mr. Hoppy did for Alfie in the book. We decided to use a nonfiction book about a tortoise and hippo friendship as a follow up titled, Owen and Mzee. This book was written by the father and daughter team of Craig and Isabella Hatkoff. You can visit the website at
http://www.owenandmzee.com/ to find out more.

Second graders continued their Patricia Polacco book quest by reading Rotten Richie and the Ultimate Dare. Students discussed what sibling rivalry was, their participation in sports, and ways to solve problems in family situations involving daring someone to do something. My substitute shared with me this was an interesting discussion to say the least.

(sorry...i posted first and kinders twice and each time the postings were lost)

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

Week of September 13, 2010

The display case was changed this week to include books about bats and owls. Since fall is basically here I wanted to fill the case with non fiction books. The kindergarteners are in the process of learning the differences between fiction and nonfiction and I am just as excited as they are when they are discovering information about different subjects. We have paired text sets about snakes, goldfish, and dinosaurs.

First graders are continuing to choose beginning chapter books since we have been reading about Dragon by Dave Pilkey. We are moving on to the dragon books by Shelly Moore Thomas, paired with homophones. We all agreen this was much harder than opposites! We followed up with a book called, Dear Deer after reading Good Night, Good Knight.

Second graders continued with Patricia Polacco's Meteor and Thundercake (depending on their track).

Third grade is enjoying Esio Trot by Roald Dahl. ew lla evol ti (we all love it).

Fourth graders are completing Roald Dahl's, Danny the Champion of the World.

Fifth Graders are finishing up the Lewis and Clark DVD. From their we will complete a KWL chart which includes the Corps of Discovery, Seaman, problems encountered, and benefits of the expedition.

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

Week of September 7, 2010

How's your reading stamina? At Highcroft we have been building reading stamina over the past few weeks. Students find a spot in the media center after book checkout to practice. This has also been happening in the classrooms during our balanced literacy program. It seems we really don't need to practice our "video game" stamina, "movie" stamina, or "sports" stamina. I have observed such a positive impact with classes who have implemented this push for independent reading, discussion of good fit books, and natural communication about books that our students are selecting. It's all about choice and I am happy to see such an impact within a small time frame. It's an enriching, relaxing, academic climate at school when all of us are "on board" with the same reading program. Way to go Highcroft!

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

READKIDDOREAD

Finding a great book for a young person is really easy. This site offers book selections and reviews, personal input from well known author, James Patterson, contributions from other authors and celebrities. You might want to check it out at http://www.readkiddoread.com/

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

Week of August 30

Several lessons were happening in the library this week. Fifth graders on track 4 participated in a Good Fit book lesson (see previous post). Other fifth grade classeswere introduced to adventure books written by Will Hobbs. We proceeded to discuss the ultimate adventure, or expedition, by Lewis and Clark. For the time remaining, we began to watch National Geographic's, Lewis and Clark; Great Journey West. We will continue through next week.

Fourth Graders are visiting Roald Dahl's website to learn more about the author and the upcoming Dahl Day on September 13. Roald Dahl wrote many stories which continue to captivate students attention. Check one out at the library.

Third Grade students were involved in one of the following lessons depending on their track. We learned about Haiku, Acrostic, and Telephone poetry; was introduced to Melville Dewey and his amazing invention of the Dewey Decimal System in only one day, and visited two Roald Dahl websites for information purposes.

Second graders continued with their study of Patricia Polacco. We enjoyed the story of Meteor! paired with a nonfiction of Seymour Simon's, Comets, Asteroids, and Meteorites. Two other second grade classes were able to view Patricia Polacco's, Appelemondo. The story of a boy who dreamed...and others could see his dreams! However, his gift did cause problems...read the story and find out for yourself, or better...let your child retell it to you.

First Grade students enjoyed reading about dragons. Many of us were so sad to learn they are mythological creatures. We did learn that the Komodo Dragon was real and lives on the island of Komodo. We learned so much from our nonfiction book, but paired it with a fun, easy chapter book, which is a good fit for first graders, titled Dragon Get's By, by Dav Pilkey. Two other first grade classes read Raising Dragons, followed up with a game to determine fiction from nonfiction.

Kindergarten students continue to enjoy Eric Carle books. We read The Very Lonely Firefly, 10 Little Rubber Ducks and other books to support those themes. Our lesson was going on a book hunt; going to find a good one; we know how...not to hard, not to easy, but just right....have a great week everyone....

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

Week of August 23, 2010

The title is "School Librarians Teach Every Student" by David Shannon. I do see every student since I am on a fixed schedule. Every week each class visits the library to hear a story which is carefully selected based on age, content, grade level standards, or it will support a lesson I will teach that day followed with book selection and check out.

This week the Fifth Graders were introduced to my blog where they were able to access a few links I had posted. They were able to use Infotopia, World Almanac, National Geographic for Kids, World Book Online, eField Guides, Infoplease and AOL Homework Help. We also read an excerpt from Guys Write for Guys Read. It was titled, A trip to the zoo, by Jack Prelutsky. This may explain his interest in writing about animals and funny situations.

Fourth Graders were reintroduced to Roald Dahl. We are reading about Danny, the Champion of the World from the Roald Dahl Treasury. It is a condensed version from the chapter book written by Roald Dahl. We discussed biographies and I shared with the students a few lines from Boy and Going Solo...needless to say all my Roald Dahl books were immediately checked out.

Third Graders learned how Melville Dewey at the ripe old age of 21 invented the Dewey Decimal System in only one day! I have a story which I received from a Judy Freeman's workshop that I share. The visuals in the story help students locate certain books. And did Dewey really invent the DDS in one day? No...that part is Fiction....However, the students did browse the stacks with a little more interest than they have before.

Second Graders are continuing their quest to read as many of Patricia Polacco books as possible. This week we read her book titled, Meteor!
I paired this title with some nonfiction books on Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors, by Seymour Simon. The students were so interested in this our 523's took a real hit. They also learned a little about Seymour Simon and his fantastic photographs. Students are now asking for anything by Seymour Simon...

First Graders were on a quest to learn more about dragons. Several were very disappointed to learn dragons never existed...only in books, stories, movies, etc. However, all was not lost when I shared the nonfiction book about Komodo Dragons. I also picture walked through Life Size Dragons, and the ooh's and ahhhs were fantastic. We finished up with a humorous story titled, Dragon finds a friend, by Dav Pilkey. Oh well...all our dragon books are gone from the library :-)

Kindergarteners went on a bear hunt...and a book hunt. We read Michael Rosen's, Going on a bear hunt. What a blast! After each line the kinders would repeat. I would point to the words to reinforce the left to right movement. We followed up with Going on a Book Hunt; going to find a good one, not to easy, not to hard, but just right. Kinders went to the nonfiction section today for the first time and they were so excited they acutally clapped when I introduced them to several of the books and explained the differences between the picturebook section and the nonfiction section.

It was a very busy week.

Happy reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

Welcome to my blog fifth grade!

Hey fifth graders...

I wanted to show you my blog which logs all the happenings in the media center. Mrs. Wetherell will show you around. Maybe you will see something that interests you or you may find helpful information at your fingertips.

Enjoy and Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell