Rhyming Books

If you haven't heard of Dr. Suess's Learning Library Series, you are in for a treat!

"I'm the Cat in the Hat,

and I think that you need

to come take a look at

this thing called a seed."

This book discusses what grows from seeds and how

they are useful. Students enjoy the rhyming and rhythm of the story. It is so much fun to read these books-even for your reluctant readers. The series has several other content related themes. Be sure to check the out!

"Into the Book"

This website boasts a peppy tune that is difficult to get out of your head once you hear it. The lyrics help students understand the seven reading strategies. You can also print the lyrics and posters to reinforce their understanding. Above is one of the 'posters'. My students loved it!

http://reading.ecb.org/teacher/downloads.html

Vocabulary

Multiple Meaning Words!!! My colleague, Jill the magnificent, just loves working with students on multiple meaning words. She starts the students off in a dialogue to see what they already know about the word. From there she will present sentences and ask them 'how' the word is used in the sentence using their context clues strategies. Once students are familiar with the concept, they are asked to look for multiple meaning words to add to our word wall. Students really become invested looking for these words and often use dictionaries to determine the meanings and part of speech. Later, in the vocabulary center, students are asked to use these words in sentences with their various meanings. As you can see by the word choices, we were doing a unit on plants.

LLV books by National Geographic are a wonderful resource for students to use for both content knowledge and vocabulary exploration.

vocabulary

When reading, we taught students strategies such as reading ahead, rereading, looking at illustrations, pictures, graphs, using the glossary, etc. to determine the meaning of unknown vocabulary. We start by modeling each strategy and then use the gradual release of responsibility to foster independence. Students fill in this organizer to show their thinking and to hold them accountable for their own learning. This activity is then used in our vocabulary center, which is what is pictured here.

Vocabulary

Linear Arrays! A great way to show relationships between words. I love using them. It really helps ELL's to gain a deeper meaning of new vocabulary by showing the relationship to vocabulary already known.

Interesting Leads

"Would you stand in the front line of a battle?" "What kind of a person would you do business with?" These are some of the interesting leads our third grade students came up with to 'hook' the reader! Each student choose a famous historical figure from the American Revolution and was asked to write about one of their character traits with supporting evidence from their research. Students then had to 'hook' the reader with an interesting lead. A great way to write a report through the lens of character traits.

"What would it be like to be a scientist?" Read about Benjamin Franklin and find out what it takes to be a famous inventor.

"Do you know who the first African American poet was? Well, it was Phillis Wheatley...."

Mini Lessons

I loved this shutterfly post on anchor charts! Not only does it give you some great tips, but as you view them you can see how some of the charts evolved over time. Thanks again to Christine K. for a wonderful recommendation. :)

Click here to view these pictures larger