Category: Authors at Work

Literacy Week is quickly approaching as our big kick off will be happening at this Friday’s assembly. There are a number of fun filled activities that will be happening next week. In preparation of literacy week we are already fully enthralled in our theme, The Three Little Pigs. As you may know, we are focusing on The Three Little Pigs in Science as we are underway with our construction of the various homes to try and remain standing against the force of the wolf. In Art and Language Arts we have also been taking an in-depth look at those three little piglets and the wolf. In your opinion is the Wolf truly a bad wolf, or was he just misunderstood and was there a series of misunderstandings that led to the belief that he is bad? Come view our Three Little Pigs work outside our classroom. Our writing reflected our big idea of persuasive writing this past month. As your read the authors’ work, we hope we can persuade your opinion of the Wolf.

This morning our young authors listened to the storybook called My Garden by Kevin Henkes. Students focused on the power of visualization, painting a picture in their mind with the author’s words. I would periodically and strategically stop the story and allow students time to record their visualizations. https://watch.vooks.com/videos/my-garden

Ask your young author about the importance of visualizing as we read or listen to a story. How and why does visualizing support our understanding of the text?

We worked on creating 4 beautiful illustrations to match the author’s words in the text. See if your author can recall the illustrations that they created.

Lastly, because this book offered such beautiful opportunities for us to visualize, many students began generating I wonder statements, seeking to learn more information about the text. We then discussed the importance of questioning and the difference between Quick Questions (are questions that if we keep reading we will learn the answer) + Deep Thinking Questions (these questions will quite often not be answered as we continue reading the text. These questions can also provoke more thought that leads to even more questions. They can start with ‘I wonder…’). There are approximately 27 question words, as a class we currently have come up with 13. With your thinking cap on can you think of more question words?

The next time you are reading a book together, encourage your child to ask a quick question as well as a deep thinking question to extending their thinking.

To begin today’s Story Workshop lesson, the lovely Ms. Field ask the class where do stories come from? There were various answers that came from the young authors, this included:

• “our hearts, and how we feel”
• “all around us”
• “from what we see”
• “our parents”
• “from the library”
• “from ourselves”

Anywhere else that you think stories can come from? What generates a good story?

As the students were creating and developing their stories today, I asked students what they like most about Story Workshop:

• “I like it because we get to build what we want to tell”
• “I like that we can use different materials”
• “I like how you can use your imagination”
• “I like how there is life in the story without you having to touch it”
• “EVERYTHING! because we make our stories”
• “we get to play and explore and be an author”
• “I like it because it is very fun and we make our own stories”
• “I like it but my brain gets tired because my brain is thinking so hard about a whole story. I can think of lots of different things, but putting it all together can sometimes be tricky.”

The next time you are outside of Div 6, check out our Acrostic Name Poems. We worked hard in the computer lab, practicing our typing skills as well as our spelling (we did our best in identifying each letter sound that we heard in the word, Mrs.Ralph may have helped us a little bit with the spelling of really difficult words). Our objective was to use describing words and/or sentences to describe ourselves.

Can you think of an Acrostic Poem for Summer? I started a poem, can you help me finish it?

Sparkling sunshine in a clear blue sky

Unpack a picnic lunch at the beach

Make a beautiful sandcastle

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“Spread love everywhere you go, let no one ever come to you without leaving happier” — Mother Teresa

Yesterday, for Valentine’s Day, we had a celebration day full of love.  We exuded happiness, joy, kindness, (a sugar high) and love, lots and lots of love. In writing, we brainstormed and discussed ways that we can spread love throughout our classroom, school, community and world. We hope that these acts of love can be celebrated each and every day, not just on February 14th. With more people demonstrating acts of love on a regular basis, we hope that our world will become a better, more loving place.

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Did you demonstrate love today?

How did you spread kindness or friendship?

What act of love can you do tomorrow to let someone know that they are important to you?