Literacy: Reading and Writing
Important poems.
After reading "The Important Book" by Margret Wise Brown third graders talked about Wise Brown's craft and came up with a writing structure to mimic hers. Using this student made structure, the third graders wrote "Important Poems" about themselves. |
President Study.
These third graders took an interest in American presidents following a conversation about the upcoming presidents' week break. Taking this interest and running with it, the third graders broke up into groups to perform in-depth studies of American presidents. Using biographical trade books, groups developed timelines of the president's lives, making decisions on which important life events to include. The project culminated in the groups delivering oral presentations of the posters they created. |
Fairy Tale Study.
As a class, the third graders read several classic fairy tales such as "Cinderella", "The Three Little Pigs", and "Little Red Riding Hood" and many variations on the same classic stories including "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs", "Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters", and "Little Red Riding Hoodie". Then they discussed the ways the stories were changed through their setting/time period, a role reversal, or a change in point of view. The students discussed how important it was the the authors didn't change TOO much about the story, so that it was still recognizable as a classic. Then they wrote their own takes on favorite fairy tales. The stories were planned out using story grammar based on fairy tale structure. The third graders were challenged to edit work in peer groups and work on their craft in group critiques. New techniques practiced in this activity included correctly organizing dialogue and using consistent verb tense throughout the story. Third graders were given a choice between publishing their work by typing it in google docs or writing it in cursive. We celebrated this project with a family publishing party. |
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Literary Response.
Near the end of our year together I read aloud the story "Catwings" by Ursula K. LeGuin. This short chapter book could easily be read by a third grader in an hour or so, but reading it aloud left more space for the children to think about the big ideas and themes within the story. It also gave the children a chance to make predictions and ask questions about big events. Near the end of the story the third graders in this class had a long conversation about the choices characters were making. They came up with this big question and wrote their own responses to share with the class. |