Valentine's Stories for Valentine's Day

Fables

Our new unit in Language is 'Fables'. Students will be reading fables and discussing the characteristics of fables - what differentiates a fable from other texts such as fiction stories or fairy tales.

Students will also be improving their ability to construct interesting sentences and retain a storyline, by retelling fables in their own words, paying close attention to the sequence of events and important details that need to be included. This will help students improve their story writing and oral communication skills.  

Another skill we will practise is inferential thinking. Students will be asked to decide on a moral for each fable based on what they have read and why they think the fable was created in the first place. (Most fables do have a moral stated at the end of the tale, but we have found that most fables have many life-lesson morals that apply to them. Your child's job is not to repeat the stated moral, but to decide on another moral that also applies to the fable being discussed.) Students must not only have good reasons for their answers, but they must also connect directly to the text and draw out evidence to support their answers. (This is a necessary skill for comprehension of a text at a higher level, and of course preparation for the EQAO testing this year.)

Comprehension questions for any reading in grade three involves students supporting their answers with evidence from the text and well as including their own thinking. Ask your child questions about the texts he or she reads. Try using the Q Chart to help guide you to asking higher-level, thinking questions.

 Expect a clear answer that actually answers your question, and displays good reasoning and includes evidence from the text. Remind your child to keep the entire answer in one tense i.e., the past tense.

Below you will find links to a number of fable videos. If they do not include text for your child to read, they could be watched in preparation for an oral retelling, or you could use the video as material on which you could focus comprehension questions.

The Lion and the Mouse

The Boy Who cried Wolf

The North Wind and the Sun

The Clever Crow

The Ant and the Pigeon

The Cunning Fox

The Bear and the Bee

Practising Grammar, Having Fun, and Improving 

Your Command of the English Language

Below, you will find a link to a website that has many simple games and activities to help you practise English grammar and sentence structure. From the main 'Home' page, you will find games, topics, videos, and printable materials. Try going to 'Games", and then choosing one type of activity. I suggest trying, 'Sentence Monkey' and starting with the Past Simple and Past Continuous sentences.

To Parents:
Most of the students in my class are still learning how to write correctly and with clarity. When writing a number of sentences about an event or topic, many students are not able to write the entire piece in one consistent 'tense', i. e., the simple past. This and many other writing skills are being introduced and practised at school.

When using this site, I would suggest not only completing 'the drag and drop' sentences, but also copying the sentences into a notebook and reading and rereading them aloud many times to consolidate whichever skill the sentences are focusing on i.e., the simple past.
Suggestion: The sentences could be reread every night during your child's Reading Log time, with the goal that your child will instinctively use the words studied in his or her everyday speech and writing.

Click here to access the site.

Family Literacy Day - January 27th

This special day is celebrated annually to remind parents that taking time to read or do an activity with your child every day, helps improve your child's literacy skills as well as your own!

What could you do with your child that will help improve their literacy skills, not take too much time, and be fun as well? The following site has ideas for 15 minute activities, facts & statistics, and videos about literacy and literacy tips. Click here to get to the website, then click on Family Literacy in the light blue directory bar at the top of the home page. Next, scroll to the activities e.g. 15 minutes of fun, downloads, and much more.

Make every day a literacy day! Have fun!

                  Remembrance Day                  November 11th

In Flanders Fields is a famous poem written in 1915 by John McCrae, a Canadian military doctor. We read this poem every Remembrance Day, and try to understand the picture John McCrae paints with his words.

                Please click on the link below so that you can practice reading this poem fluently.

                  Try reading along with the presenter.You need to practice the poem many times.

Reading on Starfall

It is fun to read on Starfall.

Under the, 'It's Fun to Read' sign, click here, you will find some interesting reading under 8 different signs. You can choose to have the computer read the whole page to you first or just read the words you highlight.

The 8th sign, 'Next Level: I'm Reading!' click here, gives you 6 more categories to read from with many stories in each category.

You can also read from, 'Talking Library' click here, where some titles are available for you to enjoy.

Mastery Reading

When you practise reading, try to get to a mastery level with each story, book, poem, riddle, or whatever you are reading, before you move on to the next one. Mastery reading means you can read it   -  fluently (smoothly so your reading sounds like talking),
     -  with expression ( use different voices for each character, loud/soft, excited, etc.),
     -  with no mistakes,
     -  and observe all punctuation (voice goes up for a question, pause at a comma, stop at a         period, sound excited/upset/surprised, etc. at an exclamation mark).

Of course, you can retell, or explain the story or text you are reading in your own words! If you can not, you do not understand the story or text. Read the story or text again. If you still can not retell or explain it, it is too difficult for you and not a good fit. Try another text or story.

Enjoy improving your reading skills!

Stories You Can Read Along With on the Computer

Get  a copy of one of the books listed below so that you can listen to the story and then read along with the story reader. Listen to the story reader to get ideas about how to improve your expression when you read aloud. This activity will also help you to improve your reading fluency. (Read each page many times until you can read it fluently.)

There is a basket in our classroom library with a copy of each of the books listed below. You may sign out one book to take home overnight in your Book Bag for your nightly reading. Check my post under, Activities with the title, Summer 2014 to get more ideas about how to read along with the computer.

* One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss, click here.
* Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman, click here.
* The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman,click here.
* The Hat by Jan Brett, click here.
* The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, click here.
* The PaperBag Princess by Robert Munsch, click here.
* Sadie and the Snowman by Allen Morgan, click here.
* The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, click here.
* The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, click here.
* Silverlicious by Victoria Kann, click here.
* The Chick and the Duckling by Mirra Ginsburg, click here.
* Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig, click here.
* Miss Nelson Is Missing by Harry Allard, click here.
* The Bike Lesson by Stan & Jan Berenstain, click here.
* The Wheels on the Bus by Maryann Kovalski, click here.
* Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar, click here.
* The Big Storm by Rhea Tregebov, click here.
* Franklin In The Dark by Paulette Bourgeois, click here.
* Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, click here.
* Abiyoyo by Pete Seeger, click here.
* Jesse Bear, What Will YouWear? by Nancy White Carlstrom, click here.
* The Cat In The Hat by Dr. Seuss, click here.  (Start at 1:53, there is a long introduction)
* Hop On Pop by Dr. Seuss, click here.  (This book is sung as a song.)
* Red Is Best by Kathy Stinson, click here.
* Six DinnerSid by Inga Moore, click here.  (Start at 1:00,

Sight Words

Sight words are words children recognize and read immediately with no need to sound them out or decode them.

Practise your sight words to improve your reading fluency.

Click here to play a sight word game called, Popcorn Words.
There are 3 levels to play through.

Also, don't forget to practise our sight words lists in
Spelling City.

Starfall Homework

Completing the Starfall exercises I have selected for you will help you improve your English. Even if the exercises seem simple, the idea is for you to understand the skill being taught, so that you can apply it in any situation.
For example, after doing the Long a work you should be able to "add a silent e" as one of your strategies to write a long vowel word. Also, if you see a long vowel word in your reading, you can use this information to sound the word out.

                can          cane
         short vowel          long vowel
You can see how one letter sound can completely change the meaning of a word.

Directions For Starfall Homework

Below, you will find directions for completing Starfall homework.
(This information is also in your Language book.)

Click on the link below. When you are on the Starfall site, click on Learn To Read.
There are 3 main sections on this page - Play, Book, and Skills.
The activities on this page are numbered (red numbers on left side of page). Scroll down to the number I have asked you to work on, and follow the directions below.

Play (This section has 2 games for each red number.)
1. Go to the game number I have asked you to work on.
2. Play the game and write the words you make into your Language book.
   (Sound the words out loud!!)
3. Make up a sentence for each word and write the sentences into your Language book.
4. Read your sentences out loud at least 2 times to make sure they;
                                           *make sense and sound right;
                                           *have articles before nouns;  (a dog, an octopus, the store)
                                           *start with capital letters and end with punctuation. ( .  ?  ! )
5. What is the game you played trying to teach you? (Answer in a sentence.)
(I may ask you to do something different with the 2nd game like a word sort, alphabetize the words, make up a word search, etc. I will let you know when I assign the work.)

Book (A story based on the phonics skills just learned from the games in 'Play".)
1. Go to the story I have picked for you to read.
2. Try to read it to the end without help. (Click the words only if you can't work them out.)
3. Read the story again. Copy the sentence from each page, after you have read it, into your Language book. Use a coloured pencil to mark the sound being taught every time you see it in your copied sentences. (For example, if the long a is being taught, mark every long a in the story with a long vowel line above the long a and an arrow from the silent e to the long a.)
4. Read the story again from the computer, and then again from the sentences you copied. Look carefully, there should be NO copying mistakes.
5. Make sure you know all the words and are reading fluently.

Skills (Various activities to review or consolidate a skill.)
1. Go to the skill I have picked for you.
2. Watch the whole movie/video.
3. What is it trying to teach you? Write a sentence or two about it in your Language book. Remember to write a title first.
4. Copy the words from the movie/video into your Language book.
5. Make up 10 more words following the same pattern. You may look in books for help.

                                         Click here to go to Starfall.