To wrap up our week, we had a field trip planned. However, this is the second consecutive Friday that it has rained when we had a field trip planned. Today though the rain was so bad that we ended up canceling the field trip to the Creole Queen and Chalmette Battlefield and rescheduling for Wednesday. Wednesday it should be a beautiful day for students to enjoy the ride on the Mississippi river and tour the Battlefield.
So, instead of a field trip students began blogging about their passions. You can check them out
here!
We also wrapped up our week with finishing the chapter book
The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies. We read this chapter book in three weeks time incorporating lots of pre-reading, during reading and post reading activities as well as lots of group work during reading workshop time.
If you are looking for a new book to read with your 4th graders, I definitely recommend The Lemonade War. This is a great read to introduce or tie in economic vocabulary, business terms and even math problems, as well as discuss family relationships. It also has a wealth of captivating figurative language within the text that makes for an engaging chapter book.
Each chapter begins with a business oriented term which I made as our word of the day. After completing the chapter for the day, students discussed why this term was a good choice or not a good choice as the title of the chapter giving text evidence to support. During reading I supported the text with questions from the
Leslie Preddy's site. Students turned and talked as I monitored discussions and scaffolded when needed.
Here's a look at a student's pre-reading work in their notebook.
Finally, to conclude the reading for the day students worked in collaborative groups choosing from the following tasks on the board such as: ( Each day students are to choose a different task, completing all 4 tasks by Thursday.)
1. Vocabulary Finder- Choose two words from the chapter to define, locate its part of speech and write a sentence
2. Question Writer- Answer 5 basic recall questions from the chapter.
3. Summarizer- Write a 3-5 sentence summary of the chapter.
4. Connector/Illustrator- Complete the following sentence stem- My favorite part was ....... It reminded me of ......
Here's a student's sample:
Early Finishers: Students completed a Fakebook page on one of the main characters Jessie or Evan.
Zephyr stadium to see the New Orleans Zephyr baseball team play which ended up being rained out. Although, we ate lots of great ball park food. The nachos are always my favorite!
A ride on the Creole Queen down the Mississippi river to the Chalmette battlefield.
Finally, just my 4th grade class participated in a BioBlitz hosted by Jean Lafitte National Park and National Geographic.
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