A Peek at the Week {4-7-14}

Hello fellow bloggers! Susan here with a peek at my week with Jennifer over at Mrs. Laffin's Laughings.

This week should be pretty easy considering two of the days my students will be taking the 3rd Quarter benchmark assessments. I'm anxious about how they are going to do with it being so close to the EOGs. I'm sure they will do fine because we have all worked so hard!

Now, for the rest of the week I have some exciting activities line up.

#1

For my guide reading groups, I am using books from Reading A-Z. The books I've chosen are Wildlife Rescue and Titanic Treasure. I plan on trying something new this week that I heard about at the NC Reading Conference during Jen Jones's presentation. She introduced the idea of using TBE (Text Based Evidence) Graphs to get students to refer back to the text. Students get to shade in boxes on their graph for the quality of response they give to a question asked. They are required to use quotation marks and tell where in the text they find the evidence for the question. Students should display their answer on whiteboard. The graph gives the students instant gratification when they answer a question correctly. I am super pumped to finally try this out this week. Wish me good luck. Here is a picture of her product in use below. Click here to take you to her TPT store.

#2

I plan on continuing my poetry rotations that I blogged about on last weeks Peek at the Week. But my focus this week is on Alliteration and Hyperboles. The poems I will be teaching with are called The Base Stealer by Robert Francis and I Ate a Spicy Pepper by Unknown Author. 

#3 

If you haven't read any of my posts before you probably don't know, but I'm getting my masters in Reading Education at Appalachian State University! Currently I am taking a poetry class as an elective and I have learned some fun teaching activities that I can take back to the classroom. One that I've been dying to try out is using scripted poetry. It's basically the same as a reader's theater but you use poetry instead and usually there are only a few speakers. The students are going to read it and answer the same questions above about the poem. I want to make sure the get the general gist of the poem. Then they are going to re-read it several times. Eventually they will add gestures, lots of expression, and have a performance. If time allows, I'd like  them to find pictures to go along with the poem, background music that fits the mood, and make an Animoto with their poem. But with it being so close to the end of the year who knows if we will get to that. (Maybe an after the EOGs plan) Below is an example of one of the poems I scripted today! It's very easy to do and I believe it is going to be a real hit with my kids!

Keep A Poem In Your Pocket


By Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

Person 1: Keep a poem in your pocket


Person 2: And a picture in your head


Person 3: And you'll never feel lonely


Person 1, 2, 3: At night when you're in bed.

Person 1: The little poem will sing to you


Person 2: The little picture brings to you


Person 3: A dozen dreams to dance to you


Person 1, 2, 3: At night when you're in bed.

Person 1, 2, 3: So - -


Person 1: Keep a picture in your pocket


Person 2: And a poem in your head


Person 3: And you'll never feel lonely


Person 1, 2, 3: At night when you're in bed.

#4

I started a text talk with Wonder last week using the first 5 chapters and plan on finishing up the vocabulary portion this week! Text Talk's are typically used with K-2 to build vocabulary and comprehension but my teaching partner and I decided that if we did it with a 5th grade level book we could make it work. The kids absolutely love Wonder and are dying to read more.  The vocabulary portion includes a yes/no example game, word associations, what's the word, and which word works best. If you haven't used a text talk in the lower grades I highly suggest it! :) 

Thanks for stopping by this week!

~Susan