Summer Reading Tips I

Follow along as we look at ideas to keep kids reading all summer long!

Make sure the book is on their level. Too easy is boring and they will quit, too hard and they're frustrated. AR levels, lexile levels, or just the 5 finger rule when looking at a book.
Interesting books. Know what interests your child and encourage them to find books in that genre.

Owning favorite books. Repetition is helpful to improve fluency and comprehension. Reread that favorite book again.

Keep a supply on hand. Our school library paired with a home or public library selection should give your child several options when it comes to reading time.

Poetry Choice Board

Reading a variety of literature means working with poetry too!  Often we work with fairly elaborate poetry to have high quality examples of figurative language, theme, symbolism, etc.  When the students are interacting on a higher level, we have a lot of creative fun!

Giving students choices means the students are more highly invested in the project and are dedicated to their product.  As a teacher, I pick options that get a lot of the same work done in many different modalities.  We'll be making posters with the three mini-projects they choose from their tic-tac-toe board.

The choices are:

• 

  text to self- how you react to it
• text to text - compare to another text
• text to world - learn about the part of the world
• format copy cat - write a poem
• acrostic - write a poem
• inspiration journal - journal about an authors point of view
• illustration - picture story
• wordle - hand made word organization of important phrases
• mini bubble - word maps of vocabulary

For our next poetry unit we will be working with poems that are a bit easier and more approachable for students to access on their own.

Our leveled book room had a class set of

"all the small poems and fourteen more" by Valerie Worth.

Most poems have a simple noun topic with detailed language and descriptions.

Dr. Seuss Literacy Night - Yertle the Turtle

Our school wide Dr. Seuss Literacy Night is TODAY, March 16th!

There are games, a book trade, crafts, and reading!

Look for our classes' entry in the door decorating contest with our theme:

The turtles are all happy.

and know that reading, not people, will help you soar to high heights!

See you tonight!

Dr. Seuss Birthday

Read Across America Day is March 2nd! We’ll be reading a few Dr. Seuss books, but check your bookshelves, and read a book by the good doctor tonight to celebrate a great American author and illustrator.

Parents or voracious readers….check out from the public library Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel, a biography about Dr. Seuss. It was a fascinating read about this influential author!

Our school will be doing a Literacy Night themed around Dr. Seuss on March 16th. More information will be coming home soon.

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Storytown Lesson 21

A favorite student week...

We're reading a selection from Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.  If your child has not read this whole story I would encourage you to check it out!  It is a great family read!

More information about the book, movie, and others who enjoyed the book are here!

Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s. Please ask that children use adult supervision when visiting websites outside of this blog, especially YouTube. While there are many great videos, please considering the ability for the public to post and comment on videos on YouTube.

Free Weekend Fun

The Cripple Creek Ice Festival is in Cripple Creek this weekend through the 21st~!
I went last weekend with a friend, and combined with a hike near Divide it was a great afternoon.

One Fish

Two Fish

"red" fish

"blue" fish


Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s.

Night before Thanksgiving

We enjoyed reading this week ‘Twas the Night Before THANKSGIVING By Dav Pilkey. Here's the ending!

The very next evening,
Eight families were blessed
With eight fluffy
Thanksgiving turkeys
As guests.

They feasted on veggies
With
jelly and toast,
And everyone was thankful
(The turkeys were
most!).

So each one gave thanks
For love and for living
And
they all had a wonderful
Happy Thanksgiving.

Posts on More Than the ABC’s may include links to external websites. Links to external sites are not under the editing control of the author of More Than the ABC’s.

Biscuits for Dinner - Cooking with Kids

Not sure about dinner every night this week?

This week in our reading series we are reading "Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World"

Maybe try having biscuits for dinner, (and make your 4th grader help!!)

Cooking is a great skill, and uses math, reading, and problem solving with a delicious result.

Here is a recipe from the Food Network.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1 cup buttermilk, chilled

DirectionsPreheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.)

Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.
Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round.

Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter (or the mouth of a drinking glass), being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)

Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.