The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

The story of Harris Burdick has always intrigued me and I thought it would be a great way to introduce mystery writing to the grade 4's.

In 1953, a man named Harris Burdick visited a well-known publisher in Chicago, Illinois named Peter Wenders. Mr. Burdick show him 14 fascinating drawings with equally fascinating captions, promising to return the next day with more illustrations and the stories to match. Mr. Wenders never heard from him again. Over the years, Mr. Wenders tried to find out who Harris Burdick was, but he never found out. All that remain are the samples of his supposed books. Readers are challenged to imagine their own stories based on the images for the books.

Media Literacy

In this activity, students learned how the media constructs reality by studying television families and comparing them to real-life families. The lesson began with a survey of student's favourite TV shows about families and what they enjoy about them. In groups, students chose a family-based television show to watch and report on using Google Slides. 

Promoting Critical Thinking

This is a great strategy for increasing engagement, understanding and independence for all students whether you teach kindergarten or grade twelve. I've been reading "Making Thinking Visible" which is a research based approach to teaching thinking. The strategy helps develop students' thinking dispositions while deepening their understanding of the topics they study. Students' thinking becomes visible as the students' viewpoints are expressed, documented, discussed and reflected upon. 


To test this strategy, I started with a "Tug of War" to introduce persuasive writing. The students were given two post it notes, on one they were asked to write a reason schools should allow cell phones and on the other they were asked to write a reason schools should NOT allow cell phones. The discussion they had was insightful and engaging. Next, we are going to explore this topic further with "what if" questions. 

Questioning

We ask questions before, during and after our reading. We ask questions to clarify meaning and further our understanding of the text. This week we are reading "The Bracelet" by Yoshiko Uchida. It is a book about a young girl who is sent to an internment camp with her family and the bracelet from her best friend is the only reminder of their friendship.

Explanatory Writing

Explanatory writing helps students increase their knowledge and comprehension of a specific topic. Explanatory writing needs an introduction, 3 facts with supporting details and a conclusion. To introduce this unit, we watched several videos on Iqaluit, Nunavut and completed a shared writing piece about the city. Now, the students are researching a city of their choice to write about. 

Holy Week

Welcome back! I hope you had a relaxing March Break with your families. 

This week is Holy Week - a very important time in the Catholic church. Holy Week starts on Palm Sunday and ends on Holy Saturday. During this time, we commemorate Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection. We remember how He died on the cross to give new life to all who believe. 

Procedural Writing - Minute to Win It

To close out our procedural writing unit, the students were asked to create a "Minute to Win It" game based on the popular TV show. Their game had to include a title, a goal, materials found around the house, and directions which used transition / sequence words (first, then, after, next, finally). 

What the students came up with was truly remarkable! There was a game where you had to blow 5 cotton balls around the paper into a paper bag using a straw. Another game had the contestant trying to get a cookie from their forehead to their mouth by only using their facial muscles. The most popular Minute to Win It had to be the game where you had to get 10 tennis balls in a milk crate by once bouncing them only once. Great work Grade 4's!

I'm Done. Now What?

When I first started teaching grade four, I noticed how quickly many of my students would finish assignments. To challenge these diversified learners, I came up with the "I'm Done. Now What?" box. Inside the box are dozens of meaningful language activities which are both fun and educational. 

Procedural Writing

Procedural writing doesn't have to be dull! To teach procedural writing, the students are creating their own "Minute to Win It" games. The premise of the show is that contestants take part in a series of 60-second challenges that use objects commonly available around the house. If you haven't seen the show, check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxwr3JAEF54&app=desktop

Stay tuned to see what the students came up with! 

Boggle

Boggle is an awesome way for students to practice their spelling. We played Boggle a few weeks ago for Fun Friday and the kids had a great time playing.  

Here are the rules: 

-Words can be made by going across, up, down and diagonal, much like a word search.
-The letters must be touching in the correct order.
-You cannot use the same letter twice in the same word.

How many words can you make? 

Inferring with pictures

Inferring doesn't always have to be done with books, it can be done with pictures too. Today, I showed the students a few pictures and asked them what they could infer using the clues in the pictures and their schema (background knowledge). Their answers were quite insightful and thought-provoking. Then I had the students get together in groups and make inferences using this picture. What can you infer is happening here?

Martin Luther King Jr.

Today, to commemorate the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the United States, we discussed the importance of his life.

During the 1950's, Dr. King was the leader of the civil rights movement for racial equality. He participated in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and many other peaceful demonstrations that protested the unfair treatment of African-Americans. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. 

Commemorating the life of a tremendously important leader, the United States celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day each year in January, the month in which he was born. Even though we don't celebrate a national holiday for Dr. King here in Canada, he is still important to us as well. His message serves as a reminder to everyone that racism and discrimination has no place in our society and in order for it to be stopped, we need to be a part of the change.  

Article on Martin Luther King Jr. 

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/history/martin-luther-king-jr/

Martin Luther King Jr. story read by LeVar Burton 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC-RyrakaQM

Spartacat!

We had an amazing visit with Spartacat! He brought us a pizza party, Kyle Turris bobble heads and tickets to an upcoming Binghamton Senators game at the Canadian Tire Centre. He also signed autographs and played a game of hangman with us. Most importantly, he told us how important reading is for our future. We are going to continue to track our reading minutes and maybe we will get another chance to have a party with Sparty!

Parents, check out the link to the Read to Succeed program here: http://sensatschool.com/lisonspourreussir

Inferring

To introduce inferring, I started with a lesson involving the contents of a ridiculously large bag I lug back and forth to school every day. To begin, I showed the students my bag and began to pull out its contents. I explained that they were going to make assumptions about me based on what was inside the bag. 

I divided them into groups of two and they had to decide what they could conclude about me based on the items. 

Here is a summary of what they came up with. 

Happy New Year!

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas break. 

Today, we discussed our goals for 2016. Below is one of my favourite quotes and, as one of my students pointed out, it's actually incorrect because 2016 is a leap year! So we actually have 366 days to write an amazing book. 

We tried to make our goals meaningful and realistic. We discussed strategies on how we are going to achieve these goals.