Ask Me About Wednesday, November 18, 2015

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Today we analyzed this photo to get a better understanding of the differences between mountains and hills.  We watched a video that introduced different landforms.  Ask me to name three landforms.  
We also learned a new routine today.  We learned about independent reading.  During independent reading, readers choose three books from "Just Right" baskets that they read.  They find a quiet place to read their books without talking to children around them.  They read these books the whole time, so they don't get up and choose new books.  The purpose of independent reading is to focus on reading the whole time.  We use books that are "just right" so they can practice reading fluently, without stopping to decode unknown words.  They read the whole time to build stamina, so they can stay focused and read the whole time.  Reading is hard work!  Children's eyes have to learn to scan across the sentence and follow the lines down the page.  This becomes more difficult and tiring as they begin to read longer books.  The children enjoy making choices in the books the read as some are books they have read in their reading group, and some that are books that are new to them.
We listened to a wonderful story today by Mo Willems.  We read Knuffle Bunny, which is a story about a little girl who loses her stuffed bunny at the laundromat.  Because she is not yet talking, she communicates this through loud sounds and eventually goes "boneless" to let her dad know something is wrong.  He doesn't figure it out, but mom knows what is wrong as soon as they hit the front door!  We thought about what made this story so enjoyable so that we could make our stories more interesting to read.  Ask me why Knuffle Bunny was such a great story to listen to!  In our writing today, we wrote about personal experiences and how putting in our feelings made the story more interesting.  I wrote a story that quite honestly I don't probably remember, but have heard the story told so many times that I do remember it!  I shared a story about being excited to go to a play of The Wizard of Oz with my dad, but then how I got scared when the Cowardly Lion ran up the aisle near where we were sitting.  We will continue to use Mo Willems as an author to study to help improve our writing!

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet