Table of Contents and Owls

This week we are continuing with our camping theme but moving into a nonfiction unit. Each day we will be reading a nonfiction text about a different animal you might see if you went camping. Yesterday we read about owls. After reading, we went around the class and took turns sharing one fact we learned about owls. Then, we created these cute little owls and used them to record 3 different facts we learned.  Here is what it looks like all closed up:

And here it is opened to the facts:

We talked about the difference between fiction and nonfiction and noted that one major difference is something called a table of contents. I taught the kids that the table of contents tells you what information you will find in the book and on what page, because in a nonfiction book you do not have to read from cover to cover like in a fiction story.  A little bit later, during daily 5, one of the students came up to me with one of our Draw, Write, Now books from the work on writing station. She was super excited to show me that she found a table of contents in the front of it.

"Look Ms. McCormack! This book has a table of contents! It shows you all the things you can learn to draw and shows you what page to go to. That way you don't have to look through every page to find what you need"

(forgot to take a picture so I pulled this one off google images)

I love it when they listen and learn something new. Makes my heart smile! :)

Reading Partners

I noticed over the past week that many of the friends in our class were getting off topic during read to someone. What might start as a discussion about a book was quickly turning into 20 minutes of free talking time. To help get the kids back on track during this rotation we created a poster together with different ideas of topics they can talk about together. This poster is now hanging in our classroom as a reminder to students what they can talk about during read to someone. I love how it turned out and I love that the kids took ownership of it by helping me come up with the ideas.

Daily 5

Last week we really dove head first into Daily 5.  After all the practice the week before, the kids did such a great job with their daily 5 rotations! Quite often I heard something along the lines of, "yes! it's daily 5 next!" which really makes me smile. I love that the kids are so excited about reading and writing!

For those that don't know, Daily 5 is what we use as our reading rotations while I am working with guided reading groups.  Here is a peak of what we are doing:

Read to Self: Students get to choose a special seat and read independently from their individual book box.

Read to Someone: Students share books with a buddy. This is a great opportunity for them to get help from a friend, help someone else out, or discuss their connections to the books with others.  Read to someone is always a favorite!

Word Work: Students start by choosing a spelling task card. This gives them some good practice with the weekly spelling words. After they  have completed the card, they are allowed to choose one of the "fun" ways to practice their words. These include: magnetic letters, abc stamps, wikki sticks, magna doodles, and typing words on an old keyboard.

Work on Writing: Students can use this time to write stories about anything they want! If they want help coming up with an idea we have setting cards, character cards, and plot cards. Some of our favorites at this station are the Draw Write Now books, where students learn to draw something new then copy some information about what they have drawn in their neatest handwriting.

Listen to Reading: This is the all time favorite because it involves the computer. Students use a website I have set up that has links to a bunch of different sites with stories they can listen to.

Daily 5 is a huge part of our daily reading instruction. The kids are engaged in reading and writing activities and I have time to meet with each student in a small group setting to work on reading skills at their level. It feels so good to finally be in the routine of Daily 5. So much learning takes place every day during this block of time.