Finding the Main Idea and Details: Through Close Reads

My students have become pros at close reading! So proud of them!

This lesson was a big success...my kids were engaged throughout the whole process. Currently, we are focusing on informational text and our theme for this unit is innovation. We've been discussing innovations in regards to technology, transportation, communication & media, medicine, and engineering. I pulled an article from Achieve 3000 (my school site has a subscription to this program) that related to last weeks topic of communication & media. A little side note: Achieve 3000 is a great site packed with nonfiction text/articles which are differentiated to the student's reading level.

I started the lesson off with discussing the learning objective... to get the gist and determine the main idea in the Achieve 3000 article about an innovative idea that helps people communicate.

There are many different ways to annotate while close reading and depending upon what the focus of the lesson is, I have changed it up a bit. For this lesson, I used and charted the following close read strategies:

1. Read the entire text, without stopping to get the "flow."
2. Read a second time circling important and unfamiliar words. Write the main idea for each section or paragraph along the margin of your text.

I gave my students a few minutes to read the article independently first for the flow.

The second read was devoted to circling important or unfamiliar words and writing the main idea for each section (paragraph) in the margin of their paper. For my struggling readers, I broke the article down into specific "chunks" and gave them a large index card to cover and isolate their focus on the smaller chunks. I'm fortunate to have a teacher's aide everyday (I know practically unheard of in 5th grade!) and I had her work with a few of the focus students who needed the extra support while I facilitated the lesson.

Once they finished their second read and jotted down the main idea of each section,  I gave them a few minutes to write down what they thought the main idea for the whole text was. Next, they shared their main idea with their table partner and gave evidence in the article that helped them come up with the main idea. We came back as a whole group and a few students shared their thoughts. Together we came up and charted the main idea of the text.

Now it was time to get them walking around and discussing! I had them strategically placed in groups...I drew a colored line on the top of their article...this made it super easy for them to get into their groups. I pulled and charted details from the article (some were important details that connected to the main idea and other details weren't as important to the main idea). They did a "gallery walk" using post it notes to explain/make a case on whether or not the detail was important and connected to the main idea of the article. As I walked around I heard a lot of great discussions! Especially if there was a disagreement...it was great to hear them making their case.

Once they made it to all the posters, we debriefed on what details were important and how the details connected to the main idea.

A Year of Sundays Photo Project!

I heart photography and love being creative and seeking out photos that aren't the usual suspects. I'm working on this project with my blogging friend Heather over at Loose Shoelaces. I always look forward to sharing our photos and creating the diptychs. Once the year is over, I am going to make a nifty photo book with all of our diptychs.  It will be such a fun little book...a glimpse into both our lives for a whole year on Sundays.

I've gotten WAY behind in my blogging. This seems to be a recurring thing for me...hahaha! I have a ton of things I want to blog about and I told myself I would catch up during Spring Break. Well, Spring Break has come and gone.

Check out the last six weeks of our images!
Heather's shot is always on the left and my shot is always on the right. It's fun to see the similarities and differences in our shots each week. We never discuss what we will be shooting...the only criteria is it takes place on Sunday!

March 16, 2014

Coffee and Brussels Sprouts

March 23, 2014

Sky and Earth

March 31, 2014

Gardening and Shooting

April 6, 2014

Tree and Tea

April 13, 2014

Donuts and Poppies

April 20, 2014

Easter Eggs and Frozen Yogurt

Fun with Photosynthesis

This will be a short and sweet post :)

My students really enjoyed making their photosynthesis diagrams. I think they turned out great! It didn't take long and added a bit of fun and creativity to our unit.

Currently...April!!! Whoohoo!

The school year has flown by!! I can't believe I have only 2 months left with my sweet 5th graders. A little sad...I really love this group. Now time to link up with Oh Boy Fourth Grades Currently Linky!

Listening: Nothing exciting goin' on here...just listening to the world around me. My pooches barking at nothing, the train that I usually have tuned out because I'm so used to it and the wind. Our weather has been really weird lately. One day it is in the 80's, the next day brings rain, today it's super windy. Not to mention last Friday we had a little earthquake that had my house rocking' and rollin'. It wasn't too big, a 5.1,  but we were a few miles from the epicenter and it was a bit nerve wracking. We actually had pictures fall off the walls, drawers opened up, knick knacks fell.  A water main near our home even burst. I hear the aftershocks are a good thing, helps relieve the stress and lessens another big earthquake.  However, they still make me really uneasy. I heard today that Chile experienced an 8.0 earthquake, which makes what I experienced a little less traumatic. I pray everyone in Chile is ok. I can't even fathom what that would be like. Got off on a little tangent...haha. See there ya go, now it is raining, yes raining. I hear the water drops...and this weekend we are back to highs in the 80's. Gotta love California. :)

Loving: We rescued another adorable Dachshund! We now have three little pooches running around our home.  He is 3 years old and came to us with the name Russell. We didn't feel Russell suited him, so we changed his name to Clyde. He gets along great with our other pups and is really such a sweet boy.  We have rescued all our little guys and have had the best luck with them. I'm such a proponent of rescuing dogs. Now we have Hans (aka Hansy) who is 10, Buster who is 6, and 3 year old Clyde. I guess you could say we are the crazy dog peeps, but I wouldn't have it any other way. These little guys bring us so much love and joy!

 

Thinking: My birthday is coming up and my husband has a surprise for me! He has told me the following: We will be heading out during the early evening and be getting home quite late. We will be in Malibu, but not on the beach/near the beach. Hmmm....so the mountains??? I'm stumped!

Wanting: Spring break seems so far out of my reach! I'm so jealous of everyone who already had or currently is enjoying their spring break. My two week countdown has officially started!

Needing: This kinda ties in with the above. I need a long vacation of just relaxing. You know, on a nice warm sandy beach, relaxing in a hammock while reading a great book.  A place where I can disconnect from all this tech stuff...no more phones, texting, fb, instagram, tv, etc. That sounds like heaven to me.

Hours and Last Day: I get to work at the 6:30 am, crazy, right?!?! I have quite a commute, so leaving early in the morning means I am not stuck in traffic for hours. I actually like getting to work in the early morning because no one else is on campus and I can get a lot done. School gets out at 2:19 and I am out the doors by 2:30. Unless of course I have a meeting with a parent or admin. I figure I get there super early and get all my work done, so why stay after school? We teachers also have lives! Our last day of school is June 5th!! Looking forward to summer vacation, but I am definitely sad that this group of students will be moving on. In my 7 years of teaching they are by far the sweetest, most thoughtful, eager learners I have ever had the pleasure to teach!

ABC's of the American Revolution

I wanted to share this super fun ABC's of the American Revolution activity I found on Teaching with a Touch of Twang's blog. My students LOVED this activity!

We are in the midst of the unit, so they already have some knowledge about the causes of the war and events that happened during the war. I gave them a  12x18" sheet of paper and they folded it five times. Each box had to have a vocabulary word and a sentence or two that either defines the word or gives information about the vocabulary word. I wanted them to add a few illustrations on their poster, but the boxes were a bit too small. I guess there is always next year!

It was great walking around and hearing them discuss certain events of the war that they were going to use for their poster.

It's that time again: Five for Friday!

Friday is here!! Whoohoo! I can't wait for tomorrow! I will be heading to a Southern California teacher blogger meet up. It will be awesome to get the chance to finally meet a lot of the amazingly talented teachers in my neck of the woods.

We had a busy week in the classroom! Linking up with Doodle Bug Teaching for Five for Friday!

We've been reading the historical fiction novel, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. My kids absolutely love it and I heart how it aligns with our social studies standards (American Revolution). It's a lengthy book, but so interesting. We've only got four chapters left. Today we finished reading a chapter and it was time for us to get ready to head home. I caught these two students reading ahead instead of getting their things together. They just didn't want to put the book down. Don't you love it when this happens! 

We finished our ABC's of the American Revolution posters! This idea came from Teaching with a Touch of Twang's blog. I'm planning on blogging about it (along with many other things we've been doing...). It was great to see them so engaged in their learning.

 

Today we finished up our unit on the digestive and circulatory systems with some science experiments/activities. The students made a stomach and observed what happens to food (cracker) when our stomach acid (OJ) mixes together. I heard quite a few "ewww" or "gross" as they were working. After that they participated in a circulatory system activity in which they graphed their heartbeat while resting, jogging slowly, jumping vigorously, and resting again.

I finally got around to having my students work on a fun project called One Word 2014 I found at A Full Classroom's blog. It should have been completed in January, but you know how it goes...better late than never. Instead of creating a list of new year's resolutions, they think of one word that will define how they want to live this new year by. A word they can reflect upon daily. My kids really enjoyed the activity and they came up with some great words.

 

I got a little cooking in this week! I made my favorite Brussels sprouts recipe, Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and aged balsamic vinegar. Delicious!

A Year of Sundays!

Heather (Loose Shoelaces) and I are 6 weeks into our year long photo project only 46 weeks left! Every week I look forward to Sundays because it allows me to get out my camera and document a moment of my life.

The photos we took for the last two weeks are VERY similar! We never ever discuss what we will take photos of and to top it off, we don't even live in the same state. That's what makes this project so much fun. We have weeks in which things are completely opposite and weeks in which our photos have commonalities.

Heather's image is always on the left and my image is always on the right.

March 9, 2014

Wowsa!! Heather's adorable nephew and my pooch, Hans, are both smack dab in the middle of the frame. Of course it doesn't stop there, they are both looking straight in to the camera. I can't get over how much these photos are alike. What are the odds of this????

March 16, 2014

Again we were on the same wavelength. Both our images have to do with food/drinks.

This is such a fun project and if you like photography, you should try something like this out!