"Check" us out!

This week we worked on understanding an author's perspective or point of view. We read a few fairy tales told from different points of view to practice this skill! 

The students are really enjoying their reading groups as well! In one group (in both the morning and afternoon classes) we are reading The Westing Game. The kids are having fun playing detective, figuring out clues, and piecing together the mystery! 

Every Friday after we take our weekly Quick Quiz, we have "Free Write Friday"! Students can sit anywhere in the room and write about whatever they want! This is their chance to let the creative juices flow! This week we started having students share their writing. We have a few students that have chosen to write chapter books and read the class a chapter each week on Friday! When students share they get to sit in the "author's chair". 

And like every Friday, I had a question up on the board for students to respond to as they enter the room! I loved reading the responses this week! 

Have an awesome weekend and GO HOKIES! :) 

KIDNEY TABLE!!! and other great happenings in our class this week!

This morning the kids and I walked into the classroom to find that our kidney table had been delivered and set up!! Oh the little things :) The kiddos and I had been using a smaller round table for reading groups so we really love the extra leg room! 

This week in reading we had been working on making predictions with fiction texts! One of the activities we did to practice this skill was to finish comic strips with our own predictions. Here are some of the examples from the week: 

The book fair also started this week and boy were we excited to look around on our preview day scoping out new books! The book fair lasts through September 20! Get your books while they last :) 

Have an awesome and relaxing weekend! GO HOKIES! a

Getting into the Swing of Things

This week I feel like the students and I finally got into a groove during reading rotations. Even though it was a shortened week, we really started to get our routine going. I revamped our reading rotations with a "menu" so that students now know exactly what they should be doing during each rotation according to their group.

I didn't get as many pictures taken this week as I would have liked but I guess that means I was too busy teaching :)

We had a lot of fun in our reading groups this week talking about text structures that we will see when we read nonfiction. Students practiced identifying each structure during small groups using task cards. The task cards had 3 paragraphs, each on the same topic but written in a different text structure.

In History we learned about the major rivers and water features of the United States and how each one was significant to our country's development.


We ended our week with another whiteboard activity: "Feel the Love Friday". Students got really into this activity and I loved reading all of their responses :)

I hope everyone has a great weekend and GO HOKIES!!!!

Our week in review :)

Things have been pretty busy in Mrs. E's class this week! I truly enjoy each and every day with these kiddos and I am so very glad that each one of them is a part of our class family :) 


 We started the week by getting introduced to nonfiction text features such as: bold print, headings, subheadings, captions, diagrams, the index, glossaries, many others. 

On Tuesday we began a text features sort and scavenger hunt. We used old newspapers to find examples of the text features we learned about and cut them out! 

We also played a text features game in reading groups! 

Students used nonfiction books to identify certain text features within a time frame shown on a card. 

Students also began working on vocabulary word lists and used their vocabulary menus to do some fun activities with their words!

Silas doing "ghost words" with his vocab! 

We wrapped up the week with a bell ringer activity on Friday in both classes. Students came up to the board and used a post-it note to tell us one thing they learned this week!

I hope you all enjoy your 3 day weekend!! 

We have a quiz on Nonfiction Text features tomorrow! Remember to study! 

These are the nonfiction text features you need to know: 

• subheadings 
• bold print
• diagram
• index
• photographs
• glossary
• captions
• table of contents
• maps
• nonfiction 

Use your interactive notebooks!