Five for Friday-Lots of ELA Stuff

I haven't been blogging much lately because I haven't felt like I've had enough to share for a full post.  It's been hectic in the classroom and I haven't taken as many pictures as I'd hoped.  So that's why I love Kacey's Five for Friday.  I can share lots of random stuff...without feeling totally random, lol!

 

Have you read this book?  It's a great Chinese folktale and I used it to help teach Common Core Standard RL.3.3.  Now I feel like I've always done a pretty good of teaching character traits but last year I don't think I did enough to help students see how characters' traits and motivations impact the sequence of events. Well, this folktale is a perfect way to introduce this skill in a basic way.  Each of the brothers has a strength that later in the story allows him to help save another brother from being killed by the Emperor's men.  We used this graphic organizer to list the brothers' strengths and how those strengths were used as an advantage later in the story.

We also pulled out those highlighters (our BFFs in 3rd grade) and verified our chart's information in the text.

The students really enjoyed the folktale; in fact, they were literally on the edge of their seats as we read it. And I think it was a great text to use to help learn this standard!

We've been working on L.3.1a (so many parts of speech to address there!) and so we made these pronoun trees.  Students wrote a pronoun on the tree and then wrote nouns that the pronoun could replace on the leaves.  Super simple activity but it got them engaged and helped them demonstrate understanding of pronouns. 

To go along with our character trait study, we also create a "slinky character."  I found this idea from Ms. Jocelyn and knew my kiddos would love it!  They had to first read the Chinese Cinderella story, about Yeh-Shen.  Then they listed four character traits on the slinky character and had to highlight evidence from the text that proved each trait.

I just set up an account with Class Dojo and let my kiddos pick their avatars.  We are going to start using this management tool on Monday, mostly during centers and other independent work time. I am hoping that it helps improve time on task and motivates my kiddos to make better choices during centers.  Do you use Class Dojo?  I'd love to hear your success stories and any tips that you might have for me!

I ran into the public library the other day to get some books to use with Ashleigh's amazing Personal Narrative Unit and I couldn't believe it when I saw this on the front display.  I've been wanting to read this book but for whatever reason, I never bought it or checked it out.  I haven't gotten too much read yet but I'm hoping to get some major reading done this weekend!  Have you read it?  Is it as good as everyone says?

Have a blessed weekend!