Where Children and parents can discuss their thinking, ideas and the world!
Spring is here and with it many baby animals are born. We have been learning about how some animals are born. Please click on the button below to look at the presentation about different kinds of animals. Click on the arrow on the left hand corner of the slide to go the next slide. At the end, read the last slide and follow the directions. Please discuss with your child the two prompts and post your response. Here are some words that we learned. Please use these words in English and in your language to discuss the different animals. We would love to learn these words in other languages, so please share yours with us by posting them in our blog. April is Poetry Month. As you know, we love the poet and artist, Douglas Florian. Here is a poem from his book, Lizards, Frogs and Polliwogs. Have fun reading more poems from his book. You may borrow it from your library or get it at a bookstore. Click on the book to find out more about it.
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We celebrated the diversity in our schools as the parents hosted International Day. This year, the following countries were represented: India, Greece, Israel, India, China and Korea. We also had the chance to enjoy a wonderful assembly for grades 1-6. The Peace Train came to our school to share music and dance from South Africa and to deliver the message of "Unity In Diversity". Please go on their link to learn more about The Story of the Peace Train http://whenvoicesmeet.com/the-story-of-the-peace-train/To learn about the history of apartheid, please watch the video and discuss what it was then, what the changes are today and what you can do to help people understand tolerance and respect for different peoples. http://whenvoicesmeet.com/watch-the-trailer/ We are fortunate to enjoy such a multicultural and diverse community where respect and tolerance allow us to learn from each other in so many more ways than academics. As a teacher of English as a second language and an advocate for multiculturalism, tolerance and peace I have truly enjoyed today and hope you can get a taste of it through some of the pictures. Please take a look, read about the Peace Train, listen to a short video and ask your children what they took from today's experience. Please post your comments and thank you to all the parents who worked so hard to bring us this day and to all the community for embracing our similarities and differences! Click the button on the top and it will take you to a presentation, a video and a read aloud of Max's Dragon Shirt by Rosemary Wells that I put together for you.Once you click, go to the "Present" tab on the top right to open the presentation as a slide show and watch the two videos. Follow the directions on the presentation and then post your comments on the blog.
Do not forget to bring the words you chose in your language and the sentences back to school. Have fun! We have been very excited reading about these three characters and their adventures. We have learned many things about them from what they say and do. They have helped us build our vocabulary and our critical thinking skills as we ask questions and discuss the different books. After we read Yoko and Bunny Cakes, we read Yoko Writes Her Name, Yoko and the Paper Cranes, Max Cleans Up, Max's Dragon Shirt and Max's Chocolate Chicken. Please look at our work. We have shared our thinking with all of our friends in our classrooms. I am very fortunate to collaborate this year with Mrs.Graye, Mrs.Aday, Mrs.Colon and Mrs.Harle. There is a lot to see so please take a look and post your comments. Give compliments to your friends and share your thoughts with your parents and caregivers. Many of you have borrowed these books from the library. Please feel free to borrow them again either from school or from the town library. Scroll down the first one to see some posters. The issuu books are fun to read. Just click on the arrow to turn the pages. You can also zoom in with the plus sign on the magnifying glass and move around the book. You can share the link so other friends and family can see your books. The padlets are like post its. Click on them and you can share them with others too. There is a gallery of a wordless retelling of Yoko Writes Her Name. Click on each picture to see it closely. Finally, there is a prediction of a new ending for Max's Dragon Shirt with speech bubbles at the end. Click on play to see what could happen when they get home. Have fun! Lately, we have been very busy reading books by Rosemary Wells. We first read Bunny Cakes and discussed the things Max and Ruby do and say. We then read Yoko and decided to write about her. When we study what characters do and say we get to know how they are from the inside or their "internal character traits". We share our thinking about why characters do what they do and try to figure out how they feel or what kind of people they are. Please click on the issuu link below to read some of our thoughts about Yoko. You can also look at the slideshow below. Please ask your child to tell you the story of Yoko using the feelings words that we have learned. Then post a comment on our blog. http://issuu.com/eslmonica/docs/yoko_book.docx Here are some wonderful pictures of New York and London as they celebrate the holiday season. Take a look and post a comment. We are getting ready for winter and so many animals go into hibernation. One of those animals is the bear. We have been reading about bears, Time To Sleep, Brown Bears and Old Bear. In the story of Old Bear the character is dreaming while he hibernates. Discuss with your parents what he is dreaming about and share what you wrote about in class. Please read below some of the dreams that your friends have come up with. Then write a comment telling us what you think of the book. You may also see our ebook if you click on this link. Clickon the arrow on the right to turn the pages. Have fun! http://issuu.com/eslmonica/docs/old_bear_pd
Thanksgiving is a holiday that we read a lot about in our classroom. We read informational books like Pilgrims of Plymouth by Susan Goodman and stories like The Perfect Thanksgiving by Eileen Spinelli. We compared our lives to those of the Pilgrims'. We had many interesting conversations about being grateful. Some of the comments were:
Questioning, or asking questions, is a reading strategy that we use to understand what we read. We are practicing question words or -wh words - who, what, where, when, why. We are also using how, another question word that explains the way something happens.
As we read two different books, Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann and Old Bear by Kevin Henkes, we had lots of questions about the pictures and the story. We asked them directly or we wondered what the author meant. Here are some of our questions. Good Night, Gorrilla Why did the animals get the zookeeper's keys? Why is there a mouse on every page? Why is the peanut inside the cage? Old Bear I wonder what the book is about. I wonder why the Old Bear is sleeping in the ground. I wonder what the bear is dreaming about. I wonder why Spring is here and Old Bear is not dreaming. As you spend time at home this Thanksgiving weekend, please read a book that you love with an adult and ask questions about it. Post the title of the book you read and two questions so we can share them in class. Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Reading! |
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