Irregular Verbs

This week we've been working on verbs during Language Arts time, which for some reason this year has been quite painful.  I'm doing the same thing as always, but this year, it's not clicking.  Today nouns were being identified as verbs, then not one, but multiple students were underlining two, three words per sentence that were to be verbs.  Uggh!  I think I've got them on the right path, but it's Friday.... Monday will probably be a different story.

Next week verbs will continue with the introduction of the dreaded irregular verbs.  I usually take several days to work on these to make sure they get it.  Last year I designed these I have, who has cards for class time that worked really well.  I laminated them for durability, then as a class we played a couple of rounds together.  Then on day two I had multiple sets available for groups of 4-5 students to work on together.  I plan to take out my sets next week.

I Have... Who Has

The day before a break

What's a 4th grade teacher supposed to do on the day before vacation to keep her sanity in the classroom?  Why a variety of things of course.

A favorite activity of mine is to do a reader's theater during the language arts block.  I usually start by giving the students a chance to look over the script for a brief time to see what part they would like to read before they get into their assigned groups.  This year I used Thanksgiving at the Toppletons.  I liked the length of this script as it allowed for a dividing  of the class into a variety of possible group sizes.  I usually like to do groups that are sized to allow for each student to have a couple of parts--more oral reading practice.

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday Top Five Pinterest Finds

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                            I love this idea-I'm going to use it just for the bathroom. 

Morning Meeting Ideas

Not for school, but for Thanksgiving treats by each plate

Reading Graphic Organizer

Matter Vocabulary

Character Traits

I think everyone can relate to how crazy this year has been, I can't believe that I can be this busy.

With that said, my class recently finished our first class novel,  The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling.  I really love all of the chapter books that my teaching partner and I chose to use as a part of our reading curriculum a few years ago, and this one is such a great choice to start with as as kids LOVE this book.

As one of the final activities to be completed I followed an idea shared by Fourth Grade Frolics.  It's the perfect book to use to show how a character has changed as the story moved along.  Talking about how the character has changed has always been something that I've done, but when I saw this activity I knew it was the perfect wrap up for the book.

After the book was finished we together brainstormed different words to describe John Midas and what he was like at the beginning/middle/end of the story. Then I let them loose to follow the plan I wanted them to follow.  

Here are their results:

Non-fiction reading is up next for my students using their hardcover reading book.

Starting up and Inferences

Wow!  What a wild start to the year.  I had the best of intentions to begin this blog at the end of August, but the school year has been CrAzY.  Now that 4 weeks of school have taken place, things are getting into a routine.

One of the things we have been working on the last week has been inferences.  What a tough thing to convey, but I think we are getting it.

One of my favorite things to do is throw up a few photos from the nationalgeographic.com site where there are more photos than you'd believe to select from.  Every year I find a new couple of photos to use that get them thinking...now that I type this, I probably should use the same photos from year to year, but that would be too easy :O), and there is that fact that I kind of like looking at the photos.

I put the photo up on the smartboard and then go back and forth between the photo and this photo inference sheet.  The biggest problem is getting them to see the difference between a prediction and an inference.... painful to begin with for sure.

The second inference sheet is one in which I do on day 2 of inferences.  I put together a paper sack with a variety of items that will lead the class to infer who it may belong to.  One at a time I pull out the evidence; cough drop, bike lock, snack, glasses case, and a reading medal and we together go over the evidence and fill out the chart together.  As they work their way through the items they're able to piece together that it belongs to a second grade girl because of the evidence.

Hope these help.

Inferences-photo

Inferences-paper bag