 DO you love aquariums? They are big and small, salt water and fresh-water, and even dry! There are many, many animals that can live in aquarioums. Have you ever been to an aquarium that is so big you can walk through a tunnel in it? FRIDAY we are going to the Chattanooga Aquarium, in Tennessee. We will see all sorts of animals. It would be a great thing for us to preview our trip! HOW are we going to do that? WRITE of course! Now don't roll your eyes, we will be writing short articles and putting them all together for a class NEWSPAPER! We will divide the project into sections: Ms. Wells Class: The Ocean Journey, Ms. Guthrie's Class:The River Journey and Mrs. Pitts Class: Volunteer Divers HEre are some RESOURCES we will use this week. Let's start with EXPECTATIONS: 
NOW for some resources: 
WHAT IS A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE? HOW DO I WRITE ONE? www.annistonstar.com WAIT!! LET's back up a bit:
STOPLIGHT PARAGRAPHS THis week we are going to be looking at MAPS, OUr world, and where we are in it. We will read: ME on the Map by Joan Sweeny Treasure Map by Stuart Murphy Where Do I Live? by Neil Chesanov Types of Maps by Mary Dodson Wade My Map Book by Sara Fanelli Let's Start with ME on THE MAP! Here is Our world! http://www.mapsofindia.com/worldmap/kids.html Let's learn the 7 Continents! NOW, What do we call the paper that our world and our country and our state is drawn on? That's right, a MAP! There aremany different types of maps. Let read about them in TYPES OF MAPS by Mary Dodson Wade. (read book) AND MY MAP BOOK by Sara Fanelli WHaT ARE THE PARTS OF A MAP? 
 In this new unit, we will be learning about Mythology. What is MYTHOLOGY? Well, it is a culture's way to make sense of the world. It's their belief system, and a way to explain natural disasters, or the way the universe and our Earth was created. Mythology is a collection of stories from a culture that explains how the world was created and works. THey include stories about gods, goddesses and the mortals that they become involved with. THe first culture's Mythology that we will examine is GREEK MYTHOLOGY Below is a short introduction to the most important gods and goddesses from Greek Mythology.  There are HUNDREDS of Greek myths. They tell the stories of heroes, gods, and monsters! They are also the ORIGINS of Western (our culture) literature! We are going to create LAPBOOKS to collect all of our information about Greek Mythology. Here is a list of the things we will include in our lapbooks: 1. A flipbook of the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology 2. A Family tree of the Gods and Goddesses 3.. A burrito booklet of greek stories. 4. A list of vocabulary that applies to Greek mythology. 5. A flipbook of monsters 6. A list of questions about the stories WOW! That's a bunch of information for just one FILE FOLDER! That's right, ONE file folder! We will get it all in there, like magic! We will also 1. Summarize each story 2. Create a story map for each one 3. Find important vocabulary and define the words 4. Find parts of speech and analyze them 5. Write our own versions of myths with a partner and our reflections of some of the stories. By the way, I made a punctuation mistake in the previous paragraph. Can you find it? The first story we will read and watch is that of Perseus and Medusa, the Gorgon.   Boggle- It boggles the mind how many words we can make! For the next few sessions with our ELL Sparklers, we will be playing Boggle. Isn't that a game? Yes. Should you be playing games at school? YES! If they have the right focus, prep and follow up. This is what we will be learning with BOGGLE! Objective 1) The students will be listing and then applying the characteristics of fiction and non-fiction. 2)Students will be activating word knowledge and new vocabulary by searching the game and discussing/debating if the word is real, then looking them up in the dictionary. 3) The students will demonstrate their understanding of fiction and non fiction by writing a story and a non-fiction article about a Boggle using the words they found while pplaying the game boggle. Resources for our lessons: -Anchor charts of fiction/ non fiction, text features, and SWBST. -writers notebooks for reference and notetaking -Boggle charts -paper -pencil- -construction paper, crayon/marker, -great attitudes and ideas
www.kidblog.org/SparksSparklers2012-2013
Here we are!  The Christmas Season is here! Are you excited? For the next few weeks we will be exploring several traditions from our families, the United States, and other countries. We will also write about our family Christmases, what we want, and even write a story and illustrate it on the computer. www.blabberize.com CHRISTMAS VOCABULARY Nativity artificial cedar Christmas tree decorations fir icicles ivy lights pine stand star tinsel presents ornaments tradition feast carol http://iteslj.org/lists/christmas.html 
Brainstorming: What are some words associated with Thanksgiving? Let's do a word cloud! www.wordle.net A little history: http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/feast/webquest.htm How do you think Thanksgiving is related/connected to Columbus Day? Ever heard the question, "What'd you do this weekend?" Everyone has, at some point. What is the person actually asking for? Do they want a minute by minute account of your weekend? NO! They want a summary. Therefore anytime you have told your buds at school what you did over the weekend you summarized a series of events. SO, our next venture is SUMMARIZING. What? Why should we focus on summarizing? How are we going to do that? Besides, who uses summarizing skills? We hope to answer all those questions and more during our unit on creating summaries. Let's follow these links to find out more: http://www.readingquest.org/strat/summarize.html Weird video, but useful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn_ZUf3r9zg Again, a little strange, but useful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlc0RXRUy-g&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active TWO GREAT SUMMARIZING STRATEGIES: Get the Gist Somebody Wanted But So Then PRACTICE: http://englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/Level_6_Passage_1.pdf http://englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/Level_6_Passage_2.pdf http://englishforeveryone.org/PDFs/Level_6_Passage_3.pdf
| AuthorHola Everyone! I'm Ms. Sparks! My favorite things to do are to READ and TEACH! I also like to bake and spend time with my family. Let's sparkle together on our PAGE! ArchivesAugust 2013 Categories | ||||||||||||||||
RSS Feed