FIRE!!!!!!

Who hasn't seen a fire of some sort? They are destructive, scary and they hurt people. They take away homes, cars, and even lives. Can you think back to when you were a child and you learned that "Only YOU can prevent forest fires"? Does anyone remember who said that ? If you guessed Smokey the Bear, you are right!!

In this activity, meant to teach the reading comprehension strategy of synthesizing, students will build upon their background knowledge of forest fires, read a book about forest fires and then be able to synthesize the two forms of information together.

Prior to reading the book  Fire in the Forest: A Cycle of Growth and Renewal,by Laurence Pringle,  students will be given a graphic organizer that looks like a bulls eye.  In the inner most circle, students will write down key concepts from their existing knowledge of forest fires. During the reading of the book, the students will write down key concepts that they learn from reading the book. These concepts will be written in the middle circle. Once the book has been read, students can look at what they wrote in the inner circle, and then what they wrote in the middle circle and synthesize the two together. The key concepts for the synthesized information will be written in the outermost circle.

For example: If I were doing this activity about a book on being a teacher, my inner circle might have key concepts such as "summers off", "coloring all day"and " playing with toys".  In my middle circle, I would have concepts similar to "assessments", "CCGPS" and "EOCT".  In my outer circle, I might synthesize this information into something like "teachers no longer get to play with toys and color all day since the school systems adopted the CCGPS".

This comprehension strategy helps students connect what they are learning with what they already know.
What do you know about forest fires? What might you be able to learn when you read our book? Do you think that your opinion of a forest fire might change when you are able to see a bigger picture?

The Problem Solving Monster

Everyone has that one certain food that they just hate to eat! Who hasn't tried the oldest trick in the book, the feed your dog the nasty food on your plate trick?  When your parents weren't looking, or you thought they weren't looking, off the plate and under the table went the green beans! In the story The Monster Who Ate My Peas, the main character cannot stand peas. He is forced to sit at the table until every last pea is gone.

All of a sudden, his problems are solved!!! A HUGE, UGLY monster appears and offers to eat the little boys peas....for a price. At first, the monster just wanted the boys soccer ball in return for eating the peas. The next time around, the monster wants the boys bike in return for eating the peas. The little boy hesitates but gives his bike away. The third time around, the monster wants something so big, the boy doesn't think he can do it!!! The monster wants the little boys dog! The boy decides that he just can't give away his dog. He will just have to eat the peas. In the end, the boy realizes that everything comes at a price and that peas aren't as bad as he thought.

We would use this book to help teach the reading comprehension strategy of visualization and inference. Each of us can think of that one food we don't like to eat. Mine is bananas.... This will make it really easy for students to visualize what is happening in the book as well as make connections to their own lives. 

A visualization strategy that the teacher could use is to have the students visualize that one food in their mind. They can then draw a picture of their one food they just can't eat. The teacher would then ask the students to keep that image in mind as the story is read. At the end of the story, students can share their pictures and tell what they would do if they were in the little boy's shoes.

Sheila Rae, the Brave

In our book, Sheila Rae, the Brave written by Kevin Henkes, we meet a mouse named Sheila Rae and her sister Louise who are polar opposites. Sheila Rae is not afraid of anything and is quite honestly, a daredevil. Louise, on the other hand, is very quiet and afraid of nearly everything. Like most siblings, these two deal with plenty of sibling rivalry. It takes something happening to Sheila Rae that was so scary that even Sheila Rae was scared, for the sisters to decide that loyalty and love could be better than sibling rivalry.

We would use this book to help teach the reading comprehension strategy of making text to self connections. Text to self connections involve a reader reading a passage or story and picking out different ways that they can relate to the story. Not everyone will relate to the story the same way and the students can be given the opportunity to share their feelings and work collaboratively to gain a better understanding of the book.

The way we would choose to teach this lesson would be to read the book first as a teacher and come up with ways that we as teachers can relate to the book. (We would make sure that they were appropriate for students to hear.) Then we would read the book aloud to the students, encouraging them to use post-it notes while they are listening to make notes of the ways in which they relate to the book. At the end of the story, the students would be allowed to come to the front and place their post-it notes on a large sheet of paper. The teacher could then take the paper home and look over it. She could write out any of the questions the students may have had or the ways that they related to the book and discuss it in a group setting the following day. A side advantage to this, would be that teachers would have a glimpse into the home lives of students (depending on the book being discussed) and could speak to a student based on that knowledge or refer the student to the appropriate person for help.

The Adventures of Pocahontas: Indian Princess by W.S. Craig

Have you ever been going about your normal daily routine, just like you do every day, and have done for as long as you can remember and then realized that suddenly, EVERYTHING has changed? Nothing will ever be the same again.

Pocahontas had that experience. Everyday, she would fill her baskets with red berries from the forest trails. She was doing this very thing on a very average morning when suddenly she came upon men at the beach that she had never seen before. They were not her color, they had a boat much bigger than those she had seen. Everything about them was different.

She raced back to the village to excitedly tell her father, the Chief, what she had seen. He was not near as excited as she was and realized that just like in times past, the white man had returned. All of the tribal council agreed that this meant one thing...TROUBLE.

The Indians compromised with John Smith and his people and agreed to share a small piece of land and the hunting rights above the river only. It wasn't long however, before John Smith's men got hungry and greedy and broke the agreement. The punishment was so severe that only one thing could save John Smith... her name was Pocahontas and she defied her father to do the unthinkable.

This variation of the Pocahontas story is illustrated in very kid friendly colors and draws the readers into a story that the average child can understand but not be afraid of. It would be a good book to read to students in the 4th grade to introduce GPS SS4H1 which states that "the student will describe how early Native American cultures developed in North America."  SS4H3 which states that "the student will explain the factors that shaped British Colonial America (including Native Americans)" It would also align with SS4H6c which states that students will be able to "Describe the impact of westward expansion on Native Americans."

The GPS standard that we think this story best aligns with is SS4CG4a. This states that students will "explain the necessity of respecting the rights of others and promoting the common good." John Smith and his men agreed to respect the rights of the Native Americans, yet went back on their word and hunted on the Native American's land. This made the Native Americans angry and John Smith had to represent his men and take their punishment. The only thing that saved him, was a Native American woman named Pocahontas. She believed that John Smith really wasn't trying to disrespect the Native Americans and steal from them, so she used "the Right of Claiming" on John Smith. John Smith was now owned by her, but she did it for the common good of both groups of people. They each had plenty to teach the other one and in the end, everyone survived the winter and both groups of people learned to get along.

(Side note: we know that book titles are supposed to be underlined or italicized, but for some reason, our blog format won't allow that change.  Here is the book title and author in the correct format.  The Adventures of Pocahontas: Indian Princess by W.S. Craig)

Vesuvius Erupts!!!

Once upon a time, (actually, in 79 AD), in a place far, far away (like Italy), there was a huge mountain. This mountain was actually an inactive volcano in the city of Pompeii. It was like any other normal day, and no one had any idea that chaos was about to erupt... 

The ground began to rumble and shake, and the people of Pompeii thought it was just another earthquake. Little did they know, that Mt. Vesuvius was about to explode.  The smoke and ash went up into the sky, creating darkness in the middle of the day. A fountain of fire shot upward and the lightning storm began at the same time. Hot tennis balls of rock and ash began to fall from the sky, hitting homes and people. The ash just got deeper and deeper. The town was not only devastated, it was pretty much buried in the ashes. Soon, the rains began, the few people who escaped the town thought the rain would cool everything off. It did, but it also turned the ashes into concrete.

Mt. Vesuvius has been an active volcano since then. It has erupted 40 times since that fateful day. Who knows when it will decide to erupt again?

The book we chose was Volcanoes and Other Natural Disasters. We chose to use the chapter titled "Vesuvius Erupts". This book could be used in conjunction with 3rd grade Georgia Performance Standard S3E1. This standard covers the different types of rocks and minerals and  characteristics of those rocks and minerals. 

We would teach the lesson on rocks and discuss the 3 times of rocks found in the earth. These are sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks.  Igneous rocks are called "fire rocks" and are formed underground when the heat of the earth's core melts them. They are then called magma and when they erupt from a volcano, they are called lava and as they cool off, they turn back into a solid form of igneous rock.

Because many children from this area, have no way to visualize a volcano, several books, pictures and other resources should be involved in the lesson. One creative resource or experiment that can be used is shown here. We have seen this video and done the experiment ourselves and got the same results as the first part of the video.  Enjoy....

The Math Curse

The Math Curse

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

“You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem.” Yes, I suppose you can…But what if you don’t like Math? What if you REALLY don’t like Math? That is the main problem in this book. This child (who remains nameless but could easily be named Michaelanne) thinks she has been placed under a Math Curse! Her teacher explained to she and her classmates that nearly everything can be seen as a math problem.

This book talks about telling time, which is taught in 1^st and 2^nd grades, using standards MCC1.MD.3 Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks and MCC2.MD.7 Tell and write time from analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.

There are LOTS of word problems used in this book.

One page has lots of measurement problems and this page would fall under standard MCC2.MD.9 Generate measurement data by measuring lengths of several objects to the nearest whole unit, or by making repeated measurements of the same object. Show the measurements by making a line plot, where the horizontal scale is marked off in whole number units.

There are several places in the book where it talks about interpreting data in graphs, which coordinates with standard MCC2.MD.10. Draw a picture graph and a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories. Solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems using information presented in a bar graph.

The book talks about fractions, which is standard MCC3.NF.1 Understand a fraction 1/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into b equal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts of size 1/b.

The book also integrates social studies, by talking about the Mississippi River as well as several different counting strategies.

The math curse is finally broken, only to be replaced with a science curse…

This book could be used with children of nearly all ages 2^nd grade and up. We would use it in our classroom as a read aloud activity, and then go over the vocabulary terms that are new. We would use our inference skills to have students predict what kind of problems the science curse would involve. We could then have the students work in pairs to come up with all of the problems they can think of and then switch papers with a new group and answer the questions on their new paper.

47 Hours and 52 Minutes of Terror

When the patriarch of a family dies very unexpectedly, the family, with all of its dysfunction and drama comes together to mourn their loss. When this family involves 3 children ages 9,9 and 7 who don't understand the family dynamics and want to escape the chaos of the Ashton family home, this story takes a very unexpected turn...

The title of this book is 47 Hours and 52 Minutes of Terror. The author is my sister, Elizabeth Fentem. We chose this book as an example of contemporary realistic fiction. Books in this genre "include stories about animals and people that could actually exist along with events that could actually happen in today's world or in the recent past". One of the important values of contemporary realistic fiction is that it "offers readers a window into the human condition through reading about how characters cope with issues and challenges in their lives". This book definitely fits both of those definitions.

The characters that the author of this book used are definitely based on actual people. For the most part, they are credible and multidimensional and readers of this book who actually know the family it was based on will find humor in the personalities of the characters seen through the eyes of  the young author. The main characters of this story, also known as the protagonists, would be Lexie, Aaron and Grace. Many other characters are mentioned in the book. They add to the story, but are not the main focus. There are also several different antagonists in this story. Their names are never mentioned; only how they antagonize the main characters.

The plot of this book does develop logically with the "events evolving plausibly from what has previously occurred". The children get themselves lost in the woods and have to overcome the elements in order to survive. This book is a great example of person against person conflict as well as person against nature conflict. The plot is definitely not predictable.

The author of this story wrote in the forward, "It is the story of how a tragedy, combined with a horrifying few days of extreme danger and exciting adventure forever changed the way the youngest members of the youngest generation would mesh for the rest of their lives. It also changed the way a large and detached family would interact for generations to come." This is the general theme of the book is focused on the choices the children made to go on a walk through a place they knew they weren't supposed to be, and the frightening adventures that followed as they tried to find their way home.

The setting of the book is Softfur, Oklahoma. This is a make believe place based on a very real place. Having been many times to the places this story is based on, I can tell you that the author did a great job with the details and descriptions she chose of the characters and the settings.

This book shifts the point of view at different times throughout the story to different characters. It is almost always a first person point of view, it just changes from character to character as the story progresses.

Pick up your copy of the book on Amazon to see if the children ever make it back home and how the dynamics and relationships in the Ashton family are changed.

We think that this book would be great to use towards the end of the 5th grade year. It could be used as an introduction to a writing contest. The intent would be to inspire the students to do their best work for a culminating assignment and show them that children CAN have their works published. It would be a good fit for standards ELACC5W3 as well as 4,5 and 6. The students could vote on the best author in the class, and the teacher could do just like this author's teacher did, and submit the best entry to a publishing company.

Kate and the Bean Stalk

Imagine you’re at the market and a random person comes up to you and says “Hey, I will trade you these magical beans for one of your most prized possessions.” Welcome to Kate’s world. The book I am referring to is Kate and the Bean Stalk by Mary Pope Osborne.  As Kate is not the wealthiest kid on the block, one day her mother asks her to go to the market to sell a cow for some food. On her way she meets a guy who offers “magic beans” for her cow. Kate accepts, but it makes her mother furious and she throws the beans out the window. Later that night Kate goes outside to find the beans, but instead finds a surprise. She sees a HUGE bean stalk that goes for miles. In her state of curiosity she begins to climb the bean stalk. She stops when she sees a castle. An old lady greets her and begins to tell her the story about a family whose father was killed by a giant. The mother and her child were so scared that they moved and were poor. The old lady tells Kate that the king had some prized possessions. She tells Kate that if she can find those possessions the family would no longer be poor. Kate heads to the castle to begin her quest when she runs into a giantess who is looking for a servant. Kate became that servant and each time she served breakfast she noticed the giant had one of the king’s prized possessions which she would steal. Kate took all three prized possessions and the giant chased after her.  She ran down the bean stalk, cut it down and the giant fell to his death. The fairies came and told the old lady that Kate and her mother are the king’s family and they lived happily ever after.

                This is a good example of traditional literature to have in the classroom because it incorporates different elements of traditional literature.  This story incorporates motifs such as magic, journeys and quest, trickery, and respective phrases.  The story incorporates magic because Kate receives magic beans. Those magic beans lead to a magical kingdom with giants and fairies. As the story goes on Kate goes on a journey to find all the king’s possessions so that the king’s family will not be poor. The giantess uses trickery to keep Kate as a servant so the giant will not eat her. The giantess would make Kate hide whenever the giant would eat his food. Kate would also use trickery when she would take the king’s prized possessions. The Giant used  a repetitive phrase whenever he ate. The giant would say “FEE, FI, FO, FUM” every time the giantess would give him breakfast. The setting also contains elements of traditional literature. The book starts out, “Long ago, a girl named Kate  lived with her mother in a in a humble cottage”. The plot is also predictable. Every time the giant would eat his breakfast, Kate would steal one of the king’s possessions.  In our opinion this would be ideal for the third to fourth grade, because the language and plot is easy for the students to understand.

                

I Never Said I Wasn't Difficult

Have you ever felt torn between two or more emotions? Have you ever wanted someone to be there for you, but yet you try to push them away and make them leave? Have you ever wanted privacy, yet you didn't want to be alone? Does this sound familiar to you? If you are old enough to read this blog, you are old enough to have been there. These are common emotions for teens and preteens. They want to be all grown up and not need their parents, but yet in so many ways, are still so young and need their parents love and support more than ever.

So, what is poetry? Our book says that poetry “tugs at you with an insistent voice that rings through your head.” Another page says that “poetry is like a picture taken without a camera.” Poetry has several elements that make it able to be considered “well crafted”. Some of those elements are sound, rhyme, alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia, rhythm, figurative language, shape, emotional force and insight.

Wow, does this blog post seem all over the place to you? Yes, I have taken my ADD medicine this morning. 

Just like teens and preteens can often seem all over the place with their emotions but to them it makes perfect sense, I am going to tie the elements of poetry and the wide variety of emotions of teens and preteens together.

The element of sound in poetry consists of the subcategories of rhyme, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia and rhythm.  Our textbook says that “the sounds of poetic language are what make it sound musical to the ear.”

 Are you still wondering how these two seemingly different subjects tie together?  Read this poem by Sara Holbrook and I will show you how they relate.

I Never Said I Wasn't Difficult by Sara Holbrook

I never said I wasn't difficult,

I mostly want my way.

Sometimes I talk back or pout

And don’t have much to say.

I've been known to yell “So What?”

When I’m stepping out of bounds.

I want you there for me and yet,

I don’t want you around.

I wish I had more privacy

And never had to be alone.

I want to run away,

But I am scared to leave my home.

I’m too tired to be responsible.

I wish that I were boss.

I want to blaze new trails,

But I am terrified of getting lost.

I wish an answer came every time I asked you “why?”

I wish you weren't a know it all.

Why do you question when I’m bored?

I won’t be cross examined!

I hate to be ignored.

I know I shuffle messages like cards.

Some to show and some to hide.

But if you think I’m hard to live with,

You should try living with me on the inside!

This poem has a rhyming scheme in which the 4^th line rhymes with the 2^nd line. This scheme repeats in several stanzas of the poem which gives it a “tug of war” type of feeling. That feeling is often displayed in the emotions of the preteens and teens that this poem was written about.

There are several  examples of assonance, or a repeating internal vowel sound that provides a partial rhyme in this poem. Here is one of them.

“I wish I had more privacy, 
And never had to be alone.
I want to run away
But I’m afraid to leave my home.”

The repeated sound is the long O sound in alone and home.

Poems also have the elements of figurative language, shape, emotional force and insight.

This poem is a great example of using emotional force. This poem pulls you one way and then another, over and over again, much like the conflicting emotions felt by a middle school student. It also gives us insight and helps us remember what it was like to be that age and be all over the place as far as our moods and emotions are concerned.

There, I did it. I made two seemingly unrelated subjects subjects relate.

 My opinion of this poem is that it could definitely be used to teach the elements of poetry to a group of older elementary children. Many 4^th and 5^th graders, especially girls, can already understand this emotional tug of war. If we as teachers acknowledge it, and show examples of authors, who our students look up to, who acknowledge it, then it will seem more normal and not as scary as they begin to navigate the course of their preteen and teenage years.

 If we don’t acknowledge the mood swings that our students face as they enter these confusing years, we cause it to be a taboo subject and students may feel like it is not a normal thing. Our goal as teachers should be not only to teach the CCGPS and GPS standards, but to teach life as well, because many of our students won’t get those lessons at home.