I'm enthralled watching my small-group kids who are equally enthralled reading about sloths. They are reading and researching silently and don't even know I am watching them!
Sloths, you say? Why SLOTHS? Our fluency passages currently are all about unusual animals, so when sloths popped up this week, we became very curious. They have been using EPIC as an online reading site, and after reading on EPIC about the lives of sloths, we have found that they are quite interesting: they are very slow (like 6-8 feet in an hour!), they hang from trees, if a predator comes they cannot outrun anything, they have a sleep/happy face, they have a very low metabolism, they live in trees and eat leaves, and - get ready - the best fact of all: they only go to the bathroom once a week!!!! We're quite intrigued--so intrigued, not a creature (kiddo) is stirring.....we are all silently reading and rather sloth-like now that we have to move on to something else.....but since it's lunch, we can do this! These dear students of mine do this to me all the time - slow to start, but then you can't get them to move on....homework time at the end of the day, limerick writing, etc. Sloth-like beginning, then stubbornly hanging on when it's time to move on - gotta love it!!
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I am participating in a month-long writing challenge called The Slice of Life Story Challenge sponsored by Two Writing Teachers. The purpose is to share little short "slices" of your everyday life in realistic terms. "Slicers" also read and comment on other bloggers' slices - and in the process we get to experience some fun topics and are exposed to many different writing styles. {There is an individual SOL challenge and a classroom SOL challenge, so perhaps next year I'll be brave enough to tackle this with my students!} Our inspiration for today was to share simple little stories that creep into our lives. This is a perfect opportunity to highlight an app we use in our classroom to share simple stories and slices of our learning: ChatterPix Kids.
If you're not familiar with it, look for it in the App Store. It's easy to use and my kids love it! Here are just a few ways we've used ChatterPix Kids to share our learning:
I am participating in a month-long writing challenge called The Slice of Life Story Challenge sponsored by Two Writing Teachers. The purpose is to share little short "slices" of your everyday life in realistic terms. "Slicers" also read and comment on other bloggers' slices - and in the process we get to experience some fun topics and are exposed to many different writing styles. {There is an individual SOL challenge and a classroom SOL challenge, so perhaps next year I'll be brave enough to tackle this with my students!} IMWAYR?I love IMWAYR - mostly because I love books and reading! My classroom is so very full of books, from wordless picture books (a future post because I find such joy in these), to picture books, chapter books, ABC books, graphic novels, entire series, magazines and poetry - you name it, we've got it! And the daily read-aloud part of our day is inarguably the favorite part for me and my students. Our last book was The Hundred Dresses, which we finished in mid-February. Sadly, with state-mandated testing last week, we just have not made time for this over the past two weeks. We've all missed that special time set aside each day to, well, frankly - to get lost in a book. A classroom read-aloud is a unique time, a shared experience but also a personal and private one as students make their own connections to the story. No, we've certainly missed snuggling into a 12x16 space all tuckered out after lunch and recess, looking to refocus as we immerse ourselves in the words of a beloved author. But that all changed today! Today we happily returned to our regularly scheduled daily read-aloud time! {Insert whoops and hollers!!} We've just started the fun book pictured here; it's written from the point of view of a dog (insert much tail wagging and barking), and after only one chapter we are HOOKED! Fenway and Hattie, by Victoria J. Coe, published by Penguin Random House. It's a scream, filled with dog language and antics - please look for it if you have a middle-grades reader! If you are a teacher, what are your favorite books to share with students? What read-aloud traditions or routines do you have? I am participating in a month-long writing challenge called The Slice of Life Story Challenge sponsored by Two Writing Teachers. The purpose is to share little short "slices" of your everyday life in realistic terms. "Slicers" also read and comment on other bloggers' slices. There is an individual SOL challenge and a classroom SOL challenge. My slice today involves the four photos shown below. If you hover on a photo, the caption will appear. What do all of these pictures have in common? Not much, except that they are the last four pictures on my phone's camera roll, and they show a slice of my afternoon.. Why share? Well, each one makes me smile for some reason. They show something about my afternoon - a trip to the store, cleaning out a cabinet, and venturing outside on a sunny Sunday. Look at the last four photos on your camera roll. What slice of your life do they share? There once was a book-loving danger-avoiding mama named O'Kincer
Whose two children (unlike her) are brave and seek the thrill of adventure. The daughter treasures most her horseback days in a saddle. The son is happiest up the river with a paddle. And poor mama has to learn to ignore her built-in danger sensor. |
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