Scranimals in Second Grade

Students in second grade have been exploring Jack Prelutsky's poetry. Recently we read Scranimals which explores the world of Scranimal Island and it's odd creatures. Creatures in the poetry collection are combinations of a plant and an animal. Students tried their hand at creating their own Scranimal. See examples below.

Pupshroom by Amanda

Oh, pupshroom your such a cutey,
With your big eyes and your beauty.
You might cry, you might moan,
But you will be on your own.
I love you, you love me,
And we are just meant to be.
Even though I might love you,
I will still always eat you.

Frapple by Jake

The Frapple sits by the water
Of an apple, of a frog
It looks so tastey
I so want to eat it
Bye bye frog
I'm going to eat you
Oh no! He got away.

Pancakes for Breakfast in First Grade

First graders practiced retelling stories with the wordless picture book Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie DePaola. We read the story together as a class and then each student narrated a page from the book to create our own class version of the story. We recorded the narration via Vocaroo and I put the voice to the pictures using iMovie.  Students also filled out graphic organizers to retell the story in four parts using both words and pictures.Watch our versions of Pancakes for Breakfast below:

Mrs. MacDonald's class

Mrs. Forget's class

Mrs. Milhomens class

Biography Puppet Interviews in 3rd Grade

Third graders have finished their biography puppet interviews. Students worked in groups of two and three to research a famous person, created a puppet version of the person in art and then did an interview-style puppet show with the information they gathered. Below are a few samples of our work. To see all of the puppet shows, visit our SchoolTube channel and search by keywords, "biography puppets & your teacher's last name:
biography puppets & Monteiro
biography puppets & D'Ambra
biography puppets & Brun

Albert Einstein

Neil Armstrong

Gabby Douglas

Harry Houdini

Christopher Paul Curtis
 

Hilary Clinton



Here is the list of people researched:

Monteiro Helen Keller Chief Joseph Gabby Douglas Neil Armstrong Steve Jobs Roberto Clemente Charles Drew Ella Fitzgerald

Brun Albert Einstein Harry Houdini Christopher Paul Curtis Jeff Gordon Georgia Okeefe Althea Gibson Sacagawea Barbara Park

D’Ambra Louis Armstrong George Lucas Hillary Clinton Wilma Rudolph Grace Lin Sally Ride Snowflake Bentley

Find out how this fits in with Common Core Standards and library standards here >>

If Not for the Cat: Haiku Riddles

Students in Miss Edwards and Mrs. McKinnon's classes experimented with haiku riddles after reading Jack Prelutsky's If Not for the Cat. The book has 17 haiku that form a riddle about a certain animal. Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry with 17 total syllables about the natural world. The poem is broken into three lines with 5 syllables on the first line, 7 syllables on the second line and 5 syllables on the third line. Can you guess the students' haiku riddle?


It lays eggs on land.
It's body has a hard shell.
It loves to swim slow.

Answer: A turtle

Snow comes from the sky.
It's cold and makes people sick.
It's white everywhere.

Answer: winter

It's black and yellow.
They can fly around outside.
They can be sneaky.

Answer: a bee

How to Bicycle to the Moon in 9 Steps...and Take a Selfie

Last week, due to testing in the library, Mrs. Cabral's class took a break from our Easel.ly infographics on the computers and I read the instructional picture book, How to Bicycle to the Moon to Plant Sunflowers by Mordicai Gerstein. Written from a young boy's perspective, he outlines 24 steps to bicycle to the moon and plant sunflowers including the physics of getting there, acquiring a spacesuit, and convincing your parents. After reading the book, students created their own version using a 9-panel comic style organizer. The activity helped students practice sequencing, instructional writing, and using their imaginations to make the impossible possible.

Austin used traditional carpentry to build a ramp and supplemented with jet packs:

 Sam took the thrifty approach and fashioned a ladder out of monkey bars using a blow torch:

Elijah catapulted bike and all and ended the trip with makeshift wings:

Zoe made sure she had a food sack, jet packs, and the proper suit:

Samantha suggested sleeping on the moon to make sure the sunflowers took:

Kennedy launched from a giant slingshot:

Elizabeth used 5 Dumbo elephants to get to the moon:

Lily's final step was to return home and have horrible nightmares about the whole ordeal:

And in true 2014 fashion, Sam took a selfie on the moon so he could post on Facebook.

Reader's Theater in 2nd Grade: Calabash Kids

I love reader's theater. Students read an adapted folktale aloud together to hear a great story, practice speaking,  develop fluency, work collaboratively, and just plum have fun with expressive reading. Scholastic does an awesome job of explaining why reader's theater is valuable. And of course, it falls right in line with the Common Core Standards listed below.

In second grade, we performed a reader's theater of The Calabash Kids: A Tale of Tanzania by Aaron Shepard as a culmination of our unit on folktales. We had read and discussed folktales from several different continents including, The Empty Pot by Demi, The Hatseller and the Monkeys by Baba Wague Diakite, and Wiley and the Hairy Man (one of my favorites!) by Molly Bang. Each student got a booklet of The Calabash Kids story with their part highlighted. There were also several whole group parts which kept everyone engaged even after their individual lines were over. We talked about using expressive voices while reading and staying "on-script." My favorite thing about this lesson was that it leveled the playing field for all. Everyone was able to participate equally regardless of reading level. Students waited in anticipation for their part, followed along religiously, and spoke with confidence and flair when it came to their turn. We didn't record this version but are currently working on a new poetry reader's theater that we will turn into a multimedia presentation. Stay tuned!

Common Core Standards:
RL 2.2: Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.
RL2.6: Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud. 
SL 2.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.