Wednesday, March 28, 2012

This week in literacy

Our class book of poems is HOT OFF THE PRESS! Mr. Sathish worked really hard last night and got all the books bound! Today, our students took a sneak peek at it. When we come back, all the 1st grade classes will have a little publishing party/celebration together. Our writers are really looking forward to the celebration.

As we wrapped up one unit, a new one begins. The last two days, we have been reading some nonfiction books during our Reading Workshop time. We talked about how there are different types of nonfiction. Some nonfiction books are "all about" books. Some nonfiction books are "how to"/procedural books. Some nonfiction books are biographies about a person's life. This month we will be focusing mainly on "how to/procedural" writing. Yesterday, our writers generated some ideas for their how-to books by thinking what they are good at doing. Some kids said they are good at swimming fast. Some kids said they are good at taking care of their dogs. Some kids said they are good at being quiet in class. I cannot wait to see how these how-to books are going to turn out. I am sure they will be informative and fun to read!

One cool thing that the kids got really excited about was when I read and showed them an article and a short clip about Jane Goodall. The kids quickly made the connections of the books we've read aloud in class, Me...Jane, and The Watcher, both biographical picture books about the renowned chimpanzee expert/primatologist, Jane Goodall. They were amazed by her undivided dedication and the number of years she's been committing to her research (now that she's 77 years old!).
Here's a short article and video clip about the work she's done and the new documentary/movie coming out soon.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/03/21/jane-goodall-current-interview.html

Pretty neat!

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