2013 Inquiry Groups - Day 1

Here is a short video capturing our first day in our animal inquiry groups. Everyone was very excited to meet their group members and dive into their research resources!

First, I modeled what researchers sound like and look like when they are wondering and learning about a topic. Next, the learners explored different inquiry tubs full of books and printed articles about animals they may be interested in. Each group will also get a chance to research either on the iPad on a safe-website or on the smartboard.

Then, they wrote down their top 3 choices and I organized the groups based on who would work well together, interest, etc.

Finally, they met in their groups for the first time and explored their resources at their fingertips.

We will track our learning and then taking the information and organize it into an informational book. Our final project will be a creation using a digital tool, such as an iMovie, a podcast, an interactive published book, a song, a play, etc....the possibilities are endless and we will be learning different digital tools to use together!

Dear families,

This week we learned about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and what an important leader he was to children and adults alike. We described what we thought Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream meant to us and compared his dreams for the United States of America with our dreams for ourselves as we grow up. We then wrote down our 'dream words' that we hoped to experience, feel or be a part of for the rest of our lives. Finally, we worked with an iPad app called "Skitch" (free download for any with iPads/iPods/iPhones at home) where you can take a graphic and describe it with text - kind of a visual graphic organizer surrounding ourselves. After teaching the class how to use the app, for the most part, they were able to manipulate the tools and text boxes themselves.  Mrs. Rottschafer was also a wonderful help in guiding us through this 1:1 process. It was inspiring to see how quickly their brains can understand and apply sequential steps with technology.

Enjoy our "Dream Words"  

Eva

Kinsey

Meeka

Brylee

Natalie

Luke

Destiny

Riley 

Reese

Shelby

Keyland

Jasmine

Mason

Ethan

Casey

Joe

Christian

Colton

Martin

Christy 

Haylee

Nick

Sam

Deaglan

Zack

Celebrating Fluency with Readers Theater!

Dear families,
We have been working on our love for reading and fluency in reading this year...We are celebrating our fluency by reading Readers Theaters of familiar stories. This Readers Theater is the main summary from our story of the week last week, Space Pup. Enjoy these strong readers acting out Space Pup! All readers will get a chance to do Readers Theater throughout the year!

Fluency in Reading

Dear families,
As STRONG and GROWING readers, we are always working on our FACE of a growing reader. This week while continuing to work on decoding strategies to read words Accurately (A in FACE), we are learning about reading Fluently (F in FACE). Fluent readers read the words smoothly, like when we're talking and read with expression. We practice and model fluent reading by keeping our fingers under each word, checking for punctuation (stopping for a breath at a period, asking like a question with a question mark and reading excitedly for an exclamation point), going back to re-read if we didn't read very smoothly and reading Good Fit books. We practice changing our voices when we notice talking marks and reading like we think the author would want us to read.  This is a great strategy for you to practice when you read with your child at home, to grow their fluency.

Here Joe and Blake are reading their "Orange Pumpkin, Orange Pumpkin" book practicing their fluency.

Read to Self

This is our first choice from Daily 5 where we work on growing as readers! Enjoy this video! More to come:)