Katelyn's Book Talk

Katelyn's Review of The Girl Who Could Fly

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester is about a girl named Piper. It takes place a long time ago on a farm. Piper discovers she can fly and loves it, but her parents don't want her to fly. They don't understand it and are afraid about it so they keep her hidden from the world. When they notice how sad she felt about not flying, they took her to a community picnic. After everyone ate, the children started playing a game of baseball. Piper's team was losing so she flew up and caught the ball. She thought it would make the kids like her, but instead they thought she was creepy and left. After that, she was reported in the newspaper and all the news people showed up at her house. Piper and her parents were afraid about what would happen to her now that everyone knew she could fly. Then a lady named Dr. Hellion showed up and said the only way for Piper to be safe was to come to a special school far away from her parents in the mountains. A bunch of strange and magical stuff happens there, but to find out more, you will have to read the book. If you like fiction and magical stories, then you would probably like this book.

Charlie's Book Talk

Charlie's review:

I finished a book this weekend called The Secret Agent on Flight 101. It is about two kids and their dad. They all go to a magic show. After the show, Hexon the magician shows them how he did the disappearing act, but their dad disappears. The Hardy brothers and their friend Chet try to find their dad. Frank is one of the Hardy brothers. He is a good mystery solver.

Will's Book Talk

Will's review of The Island of Adventure

The book I did my report on is called The Island of Adventure, by Enid Blyton. It is the first book in a series of eight books called the Adventure Series. The main characters are Phillip, Dinah, Lucy, and Jack. They are on summer vacation in northern England, along the coast. When they decide to explore a nearby island called the Isle of Gloom, they discover some mysterious things going on. It became clear that the old copper mine on the island was not abandoned as they had originally thought. The kids and anew friend, Bill, decide they must stop the villainous counterfeiters that they discovered in the copper mines under the island. Jack gets caught by these bad guys, and so the friends then must rescue jack, escape, survive the flooding copper shafts, and make sure that these dangerous men are brought to justice! I really liked this book because it was so exciting, and Jack has a talking parrot named Kiki as a pet -- which I would really like, too!

Hooray!! ERB's are complete!

Elizabeth and her mother baked banana chocolate chip muffins for everyone to enjoy last Thursday on our last day of testing.

What's Up in Readers' Workshop?

We are continuing to focus on character development in our novels. We are taking a close look at the three ways we learn about the characters in our books: through what the character says or thinks, through what the character does, and through what others say or think about the character.

During our class time each student is either part of a Guided Reading Group or doing an independent study on character. Students will alternate between the two.

Guided Reading Groups
Guided reading is part of a balanced literacy program .  During guided reading, students read as the teacher guides them through the story.  I pause to ask questions and prompt readers to use multiple reading strategies to decode words and comprehend the text.  Great discussions arise from our guided reading sessions as students learn to make connections to the text, predict what will happen and ask questions as they read, visualize events happening in the story, make inferences, and respond to stories in their reading response journals. It is also a time for the teacher to observe whether or not students are using the reading strategies taught during shared reading and teacher read-alouds.

Independent Character Study
Students are reading books of their own selection. Each day they select one of the questions below to think about as they read. During the conclusion of the Readers' Workshop time, they respond to the question in their RW notebook.

• Are there any powerful characters in the story? What makes them that way?
• Who is the most interesting character? Why?
• Who is the most important character? Why?
• What character is the fairest? Why?
• Who is the bravest character? Why?
• Which character taught you the most?
• Who else could be in the story?
• What choices does a character have?
• How does the author reveal the character? (Look at what the character does, thinks, or says; or what others say about the character.)
• How does one of the characters change? Why?
• Which characters change and which don't? How is character change important in the story?
• Who is a character that plays a small role? Why is this character necessary in the story?
• What did you learn from one character in the story?
• How did characters feel about one another? Why?
• Are the characters believable? Why or why not?

Breaking News!

The 4th graders have been hired by the North Carolina Tourism Industry to create a new advertising campaign to bring more tourists to our state. More to come on this exciting learning opportunity!

Math Update: Describing the Shape of Data

The 4th graders are having a great time exploring the magical world of data collection and representation. We have been meauring our height and the heights of our 1st grade reading buddies, counting how many raisins are in a box, sharing the most slices of pizza we've ever eaten, and counting cavities. Once we collect all this data, we have been deciding what type of graph or chart could best represent that information. Students are reviewing how to make bar graphs, double bar graphs, line plots, and charts. We are analyzing the data by using math terms such as mode, median, range, and outliers.

Please take time to look over the Investigation parent letters that your child is delivering to you to learn even more about this math unit.