April 2014 archive

Week at a Glance: April 28 – May 2

Monday

Objectives:

  • Read and perform “The Red-Headed League.”

Daily Grammar Practice Week   (Monday – parts of speech).  Each group of students will read one scene from “The Red-Headed League.”  Practice reading for fluency and expression.  Then you will perform your scene for the rest of the class.

Tuesday

Objectives:

  • Review ISTEP questions.

Daily Grammar Practice Week  (Tuesday – sentence parts).   Work with a partner to determine the best answer for each question about “The Red-Headed League.”  Be sure to write down the page where you find the answer and be able to explain why your choice is the best answer.
Homework: Read a book of your choice for 15-30 minutes.

Wednesday

Objectives:

  • ISTEP test.

Daily Grammar Practice Week  (Wednesday – clauses, sentence type and purpose). ISTEP Language Arts test.  We will meet in the library for testing.
Homework: Read a book of your choice for 15 -30 minutes.

Thursday

Objectives:

  • ISTEP test.

Daily Grammar Practice Week  (Thursday – Correct capitalization and punctuation).  ISTEP Language Arts test.  We will meet in the library for testing.

Friday

Objectives:

  • Set reading goals for the week.

Daily Grammar Practice Week  (Friday – Sentence diagramming).    Fill out the reading goal slip with the title and author of your book and write down what page you begin on.  Read for 10 minutes and write down what page you end on.  Subtract the beginning page from the ending page to find out how many pages you read in 10 minutes.  Multiply that number by 6 to discover how many pages you should be able to read in 1 hour.  Double that answer to find out how many pages you should be able to read in 2 hours.  That is your reading goal for the week.  If you finish or switch to a book that has a very different reading rate, you will need to redo your goal and let me know the new one. After you finish your reading, tell your partner what you read today.  If you can’t remember anything you read, you are reading too fast.
Homework:  Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice.

Tiger, Tiger by Lynne Reid Banks

imageLynne Reid Banks brings the streets and palaces and circuses of Ancient Rome to life with an unforgettable cast of characters in Tiger, Tiger (Laurel Leaf Books 2004).  Aurelia, The Emperor Caesar’s daughter leads a pampered, if lonely, life.  She is thrilled when her father gives her a young tiger cub for her birthday.  With the help of its trainer Julius, Aurelia learns to earn the tiger’s trust.  She also learns to trust Julius and welcomes his company as much as she does Boots.  Her only other companion is her young cousin Marcus, who wants to impress but often falls short.

Aurelia may be pampered, but she is tender-hearted.  She is horrified by the acts of the Circus, wanting nothing to hurt the amazing animals she sees there.  She is also strong-willed, even daring to speak her mind (with caution, of course) to her father, who has the ultimate authority of life and death over every citizen in Rome.  While Marcus comes across as spoiled and petulant, he is only acting his age–ten.  When he most wants to impress Aurelia, he suggests a prank that goes horribly wrong.  Boots escapes into the city of Rome.  Now Julius must pay with his life as he faces another tiger in the arena–the tiger named Brute.

The streets of Rome swirl with controversy and violence.  While Aurelia lives above the dirty streets, she is not immune to their controversy.  She is fascinated by the new sect of believers who call themselves Christians.  Even though she could have grown up as cold and cruel as her father, Aurelia is kind, especially to animals.  Since we experience the circus through her eyes, Banks tempers the excitement and blood lust of the crowds with the horror she experiences at its violence and death.  Tiger, Tiger would make a good introduction or companion to the study of Ancient Rome.

Week at a Glance: April 21 – 25

Monday

Objectives:

  • Explore nonfiction text features.

Daily Grammar Practice Week  17 (Monday – parts of speech).  We are going to the library today.  While we are in the library, explore one of the nonfiction books on the table.  Using your paper as a guide, write the purpose for each text feature and find an example of it in your book.  Once you have finished, find a new book to read and enjoy the time to get lost in a good book.

Tuesday

Objectives:

  • Review elements of a drama.
  • Read “Pandora’s Box.”

Daily Grammar Practice Week 17 (Tuesday – sentence parts).   Review elements of a drama:  characters, stage directions, dialogue.  We’ll choose parts and read “Pandora’s Box” aloud together.
Homework: Read a book of your choice for 15-30 minutes.

Wednesday

Objectives:

  • Read and discuss “Pandora’s Box” and “Are You Curious?”

Daily Grammar Practice Week 17 (Wednesday – clauses, sentence type and purpose). We will finish reading and discussing “Pandora’s Box” and “Are You Curious.”  We will play a game to review the quiz questions that go along with the story.   You will choose what you think is the correct answer and try to convince your classmates that you are correct.
Homework: Read a book of your choice for 15 -30 minutes.

Thursday

Objectives:

  • Conduct written conversations about literature.

Daily Grammar Practice Week 17 (Thursday – Correct capitalization and punctuation).  We’ll brainstorm big questions from the books we read aloud.  Choose one question and write at the top of your paper.  Write your response to the question until I call time.  Then pass your paper to the left.  Read what the person before you wrote.  Add your response.  Write until I call time.  We will repeat this process until you have had a chance to read and respond to everyone in your group.

Friday

Objectives:

  • Set reading goals for the week.

Daily Grammar Practice Week 15 (Friday – Sentence diagramming).    Fill out the reading goal slip with the title and author of your book and write down what page you begin on.  Read for 10 minutes and write down what page you end on.  Subtract the beginning page from the ending page to find out how many pages you read in 10 minutes.  Multiply that number by 6 to discover how many pages you should be able to read in 1 hour.  Double that answer to find out how many pages you should be able to read in 2 hours.  That is your reading goal for the week.  If you finish or switch to a book that has a very different reading rate, you will need to redo your goal and let me know the new one. After you finish your reading, tell your partner what you read today.  If you can’t remember anything you read, you are reading too fast.  We will have a quiz over this week’s DGP sentence.  If you want to review what we did each day, you can click here to watch the lessons.
Homework:  Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice.

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

imageI was captivated by Willow’s voice from the first page of Counting by 7s (Scholastic 2013) until the very last page.  Willow is not your ordinary girl, and she won’t let you forget it.  First off, she’s brilliant, but not the teacher’s pet.  I suspect her teachers don’t get her.  She loves numbers and is fascinated by plants and medical conditions.  She also picks up other languages such as Vietnamese in her spare time.

She also does not fit in at her new middle school.  When she scores a perfect score on the state standardized test (after showing no aptitude for high ability to her teachers), the principal accuses her of cheating and refers her to Dell Duke, the school psychologist.  Outside of his office, Willow meets Mai, a chance encounter that will change all of their lives.

What do I love about this book?  Let me count the ways.  There’ll be seven since that is Willow’s favorite number.

1.  Connections:  Even when life seems random and cruel, connections bring people together.  Willow has a real talent for bringing people together, especially people who didn’t realize they needed each other.

2.  Voice:  Once you read what Willow has to say, you won’t be able to get her voice out of your heart.  She is true and honest and sees the world a bit differently–more brilliantly–than the rest of the world.

3.  Alternating points of view:  Willow is not the only teller of this story.  A third person narrator fills us in on the rest of the characters from pseudo-psychologist Dell Duke to Vietnamese nail salon owner Patty and generous taxi driver Jairo.

4.  Unforgettable characters:  Even the ones who rub you the wrong way at first–like Dell Duke and the angry Quang-ha–turn out to have a better side.  Mai is a loyal friend from the start, and Pattie opens her arms and home to a little girl.

5 .  Coincidences:  Is life random and cruel?  Is life random and lucky?  Maybe it’s all of these and none of these, but Willow experiences them all.

6.  Passion:  Willow gives everything to her interests.  She has mastered medical textbooks and would be glad to sit down with you to discuss any concerns you have.  She has created a garden oasis out of a desert–not just once, but twice.

7.  Family:  Whether it’s the family she’s lost or the new family she’s found, Willow comes home to people who love her for who she is.  Now if we could all be that lucky.

Holly Goldberg Sloan has crafted a brilliant story of love and loss, passion and friendship, tragedy and miracles.

The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine

imageWhen I first heard the buzz about The Lions of Little Rock (Scholastic 2012), I thought it would be set during 1957, the first year of school integration and the story of the Little Rock Nine.  I was wrong.  Instead Kristin Levine weaves a story of friendship that is set during the following year of 1958, when Little Rock closed their high schools in order to prevent further integration of the schools.

When Marlee and Liz becomes friends that year, they never dream that their friendship will test not only their loyalty to each other, but will also take on segregation and put their families in danger when Liz is caught “passing” for white at Marlee’s middle school.  No matter that the world is set against their friendship Liz and Marlee reach out to each other and help each other.

Marlee tells the story of their friendship, which is quite remarkable considering that Marlee is too frightened to talk to most people.  She even freezes up with her own mother.  Liz, however, pushes Marlee to find her voice and to speak up for herself.  Marlee teaches Liz how to be quiet.  Together, they face the tumultuous changes that come.  Marlee misses her big sister Judy, who is sent to live with a grandmother so she can go to school.  Liz finds a bit of romance.  Marlee joins The Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools and the Stop This Outrageous Purge campaigns and learns to talk to her mother.  Together, they learn that “a friend is someone who helps you change for the better” (289).

Week at a Glance: April 14 – 18

Monday

Objectives:

  • Read “Welcome to the Future” on pages 21-24 of Scope magazine.

Daily Grammar Practice Week  16 (Monday – parts of speech).  Read “Welcome to the Future on pages 21-24 of Scope magazine.  As you read, take discussion notes.  Write down ideas that you want to talk about from the article.  What surprised or amazed you?  What confused you?  What questions do you have?  Which vocabulary words are confusion or interesting?  What does the article remind you of from the news, other books, other television shows or movies?
Homework:  Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice.

Tuesday

Objectives:

  • Discuss “Welcome to the Future.”

Daily Grammar Practice Week 16 (Tuesday – sentence parts).   Use your discussion notes to talk in a small group about the article.  Share your ideas, answer each others’ questions.  By the end of your discussion, everyone in your group should have a deeper understanding of the article.  Then you will take a quiz over the article.  For each question, cross out one or two answer choices that are obviously wrong.  Choose the best answer from the choices that remain.
Homework: Read a book of your choice for 15-30 minutes.

Wednesday

Objectives:

  • Review elements of literature.

Daily Grammar Practice Week 16 (Wednesday – clauses, sentence type and purpose). Read “Electric Summer” in Scope magazine.  We will review the literary elements of character, point of view, setting, tone and mood, and plot.  Complete “Back to Basics,” giving examples from the story.
Homework: Read a book of your choice for 15 -30 minutes.

Thursday

Objectives:

  • Review literary elements.

Daily Grammar Practice Week 16 (Thursday – Correct capitalization and punctuation).  Complete the “Electric Summer” and the review of literary elements.

Friday

Objectives:

  • Set reading goals for the week.

Daily Grammar Practice Week 15 (Friday – Sentence diagramming).    Fill out the reading goal slip with the title and author of your book and write down what page you begin on.  Read for 10 minutes and write down what page you end on.  Subtract the beginning page from the ending page to find out how many pages you read in 10 minutes.  Multiply that number by 6 to discover how many pages you should be able to read in 1 hour.  Double that answer to find out how many pages you should be able to read in 2 hours.  That is your reading goal for the week.  If you finish or switch to a book that has a very different reading rate, you will need to redo your goal and let me know the new one. After you finish your reading, tell your partner what you read today.  If you can’t remember anything you read, you are reading too fast.
Homework:  Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice.

Guitar Notes by Mary Amato

I don't have a guitar, but this book might inspire me to pick up my dulcimers again.

I don’t have a guitar, but this book might inspire me to pick up my dulcimers again.

For my students, music is not only the soundtrack of their lives (as it is for mine, too), but music is their lives.  If they could, they would go through their days with music pouring into their ears.  Many of them have music pouring out of them as well, through singing or playing an instrument.

As soon as I saw the cover of Guitar Notes (Scholastic 2012) staring at me from the shelf of the Scholastic Book Fair, I knew I wanted to add it to my classroom library.  Mary Amato did not disappoint me with this witty and heartwarming story.  The premise is clever.  Two students–completely opposite in temperament and musical styles–end up sharing a music practice room on opposite days.  They begin leaving notes for each other–at first insulting, but later revealing.

The point of view switches between Tripp Broody and Lyla Marks, letting us get to know them separately and gradually, just as they get to know each other.  Tripp is desperate to spend time with a guitar–any guitar–now that his mother has taken his away until he pulls up his grades.  Lyla is desperate, too, but desperate for a break from the high expectations her father and friends place on her for perfect grades and perfect cello notes.  Neither Tripp’s mom nor Lyla’s dad are bad parents;  they are just imperfect ones who don’t see what’s right in front of them.

The notes that Tripp and Lyla write are highlights of the book.  They are funny and sarcastic, downright snippy at first.  But soon Tripp and Lyla are looking forward to receiving and writing the notes.  They challenge each other to be honest, and they teach each other what they love about music.  As they come together, they begin writing songs to share together.  As I shared bits of the book with my students, they were sure romance was on the way.  I was glad Amato did not take the obvious path with that part of the plot.  The friendship that grows between Tripp and Lyla is so much more than just a romance, even if it takes a tragedy to reveal the depths of their friendship to their parents and friends.

This novel is an ode to the power of music, and it doesn’t stop with the last page. In the back of the book is a copy of the “Thrum Society Songbook,” which has the lyrics and chords for each of the songs that Tripp and Lyla write.  Throughout the book, Tripp and Lyla share pages from their notebooks where they brainstorm and write their lyrics.  You can also visit the Thrum Society website where you can listen to and download the songs for yourself.  Amato provides the tracks and karaoke tracks.  Even though the songs are copyrighted, Amato gives permission for readers to write their own lyrics, perform and record the songs, or create music videos for the songs for noncommercial use.  The website also gives free resources for songwriting–writing notebooks, blank chord charts, links to songwriting videos and more.

More I Survived by Lauren Tarshis

The I Survived series of historical fiction has been extremely popular in my classroom this year.  For students who are not sure about historical fiction, they provide a short (less than 100 pages), quick introduction to the genre.  Lauren Tarshis chooses some of the most exciting, most dangerous times in history to write about–the Battle of Gettysburg, the Japanese tsunami, the Nazi invasion of Europe.  With these dramatic historical events as the background, Tarshis creates a young character who must survive.  Whether an escaped slave or a young American overseas, each character is both believable and relatable for modern readers. I already had six of these titles in my classroom library.  Now I have extra copies of those six plus three new adventures to share.  Here is where–and when–the latest titles will take you.

I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863 (Scholastic 2013) imageThomas and his little sister Birdie are slaves on a Virginia plantation.  When they hear that their master wants to sell Thomas, they flee into the woods to search for freedom.  They are lucky enough to meet up with some Union soldiers who take them in.  Corporal Henry Green looks out for Thomas and Birdie as they travel with the army and tells them stories of his home in Vermont.  Soon the army receives orders to march to Gettysburg.  Will Thomas and Birdie survive this bloodiest, deadliest battle of the Civil War?  

I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944 (Scholastic 2014) When my students first start reading about the Holocaust, many of them ask why the Jews didn’t fight back.  The answer is that some Jews–along with Resistance fighters from different countries and faiths–did fight back.  Max looks out for his little sister Zena (and she looks out for him, too) while they are trapped in the Jewish ghetto in their town in Poland.  After a daring escape, they encounter Resistance fighters, including one who surprises them.  As they are traveling to the secret camp deep in the forest, German fighter planes drop bombs throughout the forest and German soldiers sweep through the trees with machine guns.  Will Max and Zena survive the explosions and fire and be able to reunite with their family?

I Survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011 (Scholastic 2013) imageBen, his little brother Harry, and their mother are visiting their dad’s hometown in Japan.  The visit brings back painful memories of Ben’s dad, who died a few months earlier in a car crash.  But Ben’s memories of his dad and his dad’s stories from the Air Force give Ben the strength and courage to survive the devastating earthquake and tsunami that swept across Japan.  The roiling waters rip Ben from his family and he must fight to survive all alone.

 

If you want even more about these survival stories, check out the Scholastic I Survived Website.  You can learn more about each of the disasters, see what I Survived book is coming up next, and even take a quiz to test your survival skills.

Wolf Storm by Dee Garretson

imageStefan auditioned for a part in the action movie Ice Planet Earth never dreaming that he would actually get the part.  Now he finds himself on location in mountains of Slovakia.  He is trapped with a stuck up costar Raine, annoying costar Jeremy, and supposedly cursed costar Cecil.  Throw in some trained wolves for the movie and wild wolves surrounding the set–a run-down abandoned castle–and a blizzard closing in, and Wolf Storm (Scholastic 2011) has all the ingredients for an action-packed adventure.

Dee Garretson creates a story filled with suspense and danger.  The tension between the young costars soon turns to tension to survive against ever escalating dangers.  A snowstorm turns into a blizzard.  A blizzard turns into an avalanche.  Wild wolves circle closer, hungry.  Now Stefan, Raine, Jeremy, and Cecil have one chance to do whatever it takes to survive.

The Batboy by Mike Lupica

imageMy middle school sports fans love Mike Lupica, and I enjoy his books, too, even though I’m not a big sports fan myself.  Now that baseball season has rolled around once again, it is the perfect time to introduce The Batboy (Scholastic 2010) to my classroom library.

Brian Dudley loves baseball, especially his home team of the Detroit Tigers.  Even though his dad was a big league pitcher, Brian knows he is lucky to have a spot on his travel team.  Along with his best friend, Kenny, he plans to make the most of this summer of baseball.  But travel ball is not the only ball in Brian’s summer.  He has his dream job–batboy for the Detroit Tigers.  He gets to see every home game from his post right beside the dugout and wear the Big League uniform.  Brian doesn’t care that being batboy involves lots of work both before and after the games as long as he gets his fill of baseball.

Just like Lupica’s other books, there is plenty of baseball action, but there is much more than sports.  Brian’s dad may have been a great pitcher, but he loved baseball more than he loved his family.  Brian is elated when his baseball hero, Hank Bishop, comes back to play for the Tigers.  Unfortunately, Bishop doesn’t act like much of a hero in the locker room.  Brian’s efforts to deal with the disappointment caused by his heroes provides the heart of this story.

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