4th Grade Booktalks

"Have you ever had to be paired up with someone you can't stand?" - opening line to Big Nate Strikes Again booktalk by Michael.

Fourth graders finished up booktalks before the winter break. The purpose was to get classmates interested in reading their book. The main criteria was to creatively get the audience's attention, give the basic facts i.e. title, author, genre, character, setting, and plot, and make eye contact with the audience. Students did an excellent job of talking-up their books with a great variety of fiction, nonfiction, picture books, graphic novels, and chapter books from all genres.  We even had a pair of students memorize and sing the famous "Harry Potter in 99 seconds" as part of their talk. See below for the video by the original creators, Paint.

Autobiography Vokis

Students in Mrs. Gallagher's class have been learning about the autobiography and biography genres. We read four biographies in class to inspire students' own brief autobiography writing piece. We turned the autobiography into a Voki, an online tool that allows you to create custom talking avatars. See below to watch our Voki autobiographies.