The Important Thing about Mrs. Costa

 How Do Writers Use Funneling?

Recently the children completed a class book entitled The Important Thing about Mrs. Costa based on Margaret Wise Brown's classic, The Important Book. The children were taught the skill of "funneling" an idea and writing about that specific topic. They added details to support their topic and each student completed a page in our classroom book. We recently presented our work to Mrs. Costa and the children were so excited when she read it aloud, every writer was beaming with pride.  Thank you Mrs. Costa for working so hard to make Steward School a safe and fun place to learn!

Vincenzo and Janey proudly present our work to Mrs. Costa

Here are some important facts we uncovered...

The important thing about Mrs. Costa is that she is the principal of Steward School.

She drives a black car,

she keeps us safe at school,

she always wears a walkie-talkie,

she always says hi in the hallway,

she always smiles,

she stays calm at unexpected fire drills,

she has a daughter who's in 2nd grade,

she makes assemblies fun,

she's very tall, but not as tall as Mr. Costa,

she's thoughtful and kind,

she buys supplies for our school,

she has G.R.I.T.,

But the important thing about Mrs. Costa is that she is the principal of Steward School.

The children were mesmerized while Mrs. Costa shared our classroom book.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

The children recently celebrated Theodore Geisel's birthday with our classroom Read-In. Wearing pajamas and slippers we snuggled in cozy spots around our classroom and read our favorite Dr. Seuss books.  We invited Ms. Sideri's first graders and enjoyed our time together with our new reading buddies.  We are very grateful to my friend and former principal, Mrs. O'Leary for being our Surprise Reader to kick off Dr. Seuss' birthday. My Many Colored Days has fast become a new classroom favorite.  Our classroom door has been decorated with a Dr. Seuss theme and each of the students has written what they hope to become one day. I have no doubt your children will achieve their dreams to solve global warming, become professional sports athletes, marine biologists, veterinarians, and mechanical engineers. Please stop by and read their aspirations.Thank you everyone for supporting our love for reading!

Click on the picture below to watch !

Fabulous Fables and Folktales

The children recently read a variety of fables and folktales from different cultures, determined the differences & similarities to one another, made comparisons to similar versions, determined the elements of each, decided on the moral, or lesson and finally worked hard to relate that lesson to their own life.  They were thoroughly engaged, and as a final culminating project we have shown all we have learned through our book reports and the Fantastic Fables and Folktales iMovie below. 

Click here for our movie!

  Please be sure to leave a comment below to share your thoughts about our hard work.  

Personification, or the ability for animals to think, act or speak as humans is an element of both fables and folktales.

We reviewed the important elements of retelling a tale, and remembered it's important to restate the question in your answer.

The children have become experts in determining the differences between fables & folktales.

Working with a reading buddy, students identified the key elements in Stone Soup.

Common Core Standards Addressed in this Unit

RL. 2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

RL. 2.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.

RL. 2. 3. Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

RL. 2.6. Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

RL. 2. 7. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

Corresponding College and Career Readiness (CCR) Anchor Standard 

7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

RL. 2. 9. Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.

Read Across America

 

To honor Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss we will be having our first classroom Read-In on Monday, March 2nd.  Please encourage your child to dress in their pajamas and/or slippers. The children will be reading one of their favorite Dr. Seuss books to a reading buddy from Ms. Sideri's first grade.  Your child may wish to bring an extra snack and drink as we share Dr. Seuss' birthday.

We decorated our classroom door based on Dr. Seuss' book, Oh the Places You'll Go.

Fables and Folktales

Essential Questions:  
Can you distinguish the differences & similarities between a fable and a folktale?   Can you make comparisons between different versions of the same fable/folktale? Can you determine the moral or lesson in a fable or folktale? YES WE CAN!!

Natalie and Alex determined that Stone Soup is a folktale and not a fable for two important reasons: the moral was not implicitly stated and there was repetition throughout the story.

The Lion and the Mouse and The Tortoise and the Hare are two of our favorite fables!

The children have made solid comparisons between different versions of the same fable, Jerry Pinkney's versions of these fables are nearly wordless, but actually convey so much through his illustrations.

I tried to fool your children into thinking Stone Soup was a fable, but they proved me wrong!  

Working in teams the children gathered evidence to prove whether Stone Soup was a fable or folktale.  Look at the evidence they found to support their thinking!

Common Core Standards Addressed:

RL. 2.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.
RL. 2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
RL. 2.9 Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.

Author Matt Tavares Visits

We were so excited to meet a real published author, Matt Tavares author of Zachary's Ball. He spoke to us about how he comes up with ideas, the writing process, publishing a book and demonstrating how he creates his illustrations. We learned so many helpful tips to become better writers and illustrators ourselves. It was reassuring to hear that Matt begins writing just as we do with our own writing! He often takes real experiences from his life (personal narratives) and adds in details from his imagination to make an interesting story. Thank you TESPTO for bringing us such an inspirational author! Many of Matt Tavares' books are available for purchase through TESPTO, please look in your child's backpack for an order form if you are interested.

Click on the author's name to learn more about the journey Matt Tavares has traveled to become an author.

Matt demonstrated the importance each illustration plays in "telling his story in pictures."

Matt Tavares has been drawing since he was in 2nd grade. WOW...can you imagine with practice what you can accomplish!

Inferring Character Traits

The children have uncovered character traits as they're read several favorite realistic fiction titles. Take a peek at our hard work below.  Amazing Grace has fast become one of our class favorites, the children learned  and through inferring character traits we have learned more about

We Love to Read

The children enjoyed several Halloween books today, as we had a few Mystery Readers appear at our door.  Thanks to Daniel, a former student and Colin's mom and grandmother for their visits.  I know you surprised us all and we loved all three books! Happy Halloween!

Thank you for reading The Monsterator and The ish Book.

We L-O-V-E-D listening to Daniel read.

We have been working hard to improve our reading comprehension skills through several reading strategies: using visualizations or "making a movie in your mind," and making connections to ourselves, another book we've read, or to our world.

"Making a movie in our minds" helps us to understand the setting, characters and events in our book so much better.

Lincoln is working hard to add more details to his visualization.

Natalie proudly shows her work!

Here are a few questions the students developed for our first Skype.

Colin has an opportunity to ask his question.

Thank you Mrs. Klipfel for your wonderful expertise as the children enjoyed their first opportunity to Skype this year.  We connected with a group of first graders in Middleton and shared our thinking with one another. We made predictions, asked questions and even made some very strong inferences.   WOW... our comprehension skills are improving daily!

Standards Covered

RL. 2.1: Ask and answer questions  as who, what, where, when, why, how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. 

RL. 2.3: Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

SL.2.2: Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text
 read aloud or information presented orally or through other
 media.

Elements of Realistic Fiction

The children have been working hard to determine the elements of realistic fiction, we have read several picture books to model these elements and then determined how they play an important role in reading different genres.  This is a recent example of a new classroom favorite, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partrige by Mem Fox.  The children worked hard to add specific details, especially when describing the problem and solution to the BIG problem in the story.

The children inferred that Wilfrid was a caring and thoughtful boy. They found evidence from their
reading that Wilfrid's actions and words showed that he helped Miss Nancy "find her memory."

The children recently read Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman, a story about a little girl who wants to be Peter Pan in her school play.  Her classmates say she is NOT allowed, because she is a black girl and she can't play the role of a white boy.  Grace practices all weekend and is chosen to be Peter Pan after all... the author's message is that "you can do anything you want!"

Bea and Margo work hard to fill in the graphic organizer as they identify the elements of realistic fiction.

Gavin and Alex are looking for "direct evidence from their reading" to help infer character traits.

Skyping with Michigan Second Graders

Our second grade class is participating in a Global Read of Marty McGuire written by Kate Messner. We have learned that Marty is a third grader who would rather catch frogs than play princess, but she is persuaded to just do that in the class play.  We'll keep reading to find out what happens as she adds a "little magic" to her performance in The Frog Prince. Today we Skyped with Mrs.T's second graders in Michigan and were excited to share our thinking.  Our students had an opportunity to share news about their communities and schools.  They also shared predictions & asked questions about the characters and plot of Marty McGuire.  We look forward to Skyping again next week with a second grade class in Wisconsin.