Color us rad!!!

Why are their traces of blue powder around Mrs. Z's fingernails?  Why does Miss Hoffmann have purple powder in her ear?  Why does Ms. Symons have green powder on her tooth?  Because we're all aliens???  NO!  We might act like aliens sometimes with our out of this world beauty, but that has nothing to do with it.  It's because we all met up to have a little fall fun at the Color Me Rad 5k this weekend.  We ran down a trail in the woods, and every once in a while, people would shoot us with colored water or toss colorful powder at us.  By the end, we were tie-dyed from head to toe.  Check out some of our pics, and leave a comment to let us know what you think!

Radical Reading Responses!

Our recipe for reading
Includes so many things
Good books, great conversation,
and the knowledge these both bring.

So that our teachers know
How our reading is progressing
We write a letter in our journal,
Our opinions we're confessing.

What book are we enjoying?
Do we like it? Why, why not?
Apply the strategy we're learning,
Ask our teachers for their thoughts.

Check out these student samples,
Great examples of each part.
Logging each new chapter book
and responding makes us smart!

Student log of chapter book completion

Student record of additional books they've read
and books they want to read in the future.

Student Responses

Reader's Response Letter Format

Use this format when you write each friendly letter.  Check off each box as you complete it in the letter.

□ Read your teachers’ comments and highlight any questions.

□ Date (upper right hand side)

□ Greeting (Dear _______,) (left)

·        Body – Indent first sentence of each paragraph

□ Paragraph 1: Answer any questions posed by your teachers in your last response.  Introduce what you are currently reading (title & author) and provide a one sentence summary.

□ Paragraph 2: Share your thoughts and opinions; look at the “Discussion Starters” in your Reader’s Response Notebook for ideas.

□ Paragraph 3: Strategy Work – Use the current strategy –

   Predictions, Connections, Questioning, Inferences, Clues in the Context, Sensory Imagery, etc.

□ Paragraph 4: Ask your teachers any questions that you may have.

□ Closing (Sincerely, Your student, Love, Your friend, etc.)

        (Right side lined up with Date)

□ Sign your name (Line up with Closing)

Engaging Beginnings & Reflective Closings

This week we have been working to strengthen the openings and closings of our story.  We learned that a good author hooks the reader by pulling them in immediately.  We discussed various strategies for hooking readers and found that most books pull readers in using a sound effect (BAM, WHOOSH, etc.), a question (Have your eyes ever been bigger than your stomach?), an interesting fact (According to the Internet, there have been zero reported cases of death by onion overconsumption.  One day last fall, I nearly changed that statistic from 0 to 1.), strong feeling (There's nothing more revolting than vegetables.  They are slimy and disgusting in every way.  They take forever to chew and are impossible to swallow.), or interesting dialogue ("Mom, please answer the phone.  It's an emergency!").

In J.T.'s story, he utilizes an interesting fact to pull readers in right away.  His story is about a time his dad ruined his lunch; luckily mom swooped in to save the day!

His beginning:  2.3 million people buy ramen noodles each month.  With it being so popular, you would think that EVERYONE knows how to make it.  That is not true.  My dad doesn't know how, and once he ruined my lunch.  It all started in the kitchen...

Lynethe lures readers into her story, about her mom's secret soup recipe, with a sound effect.

Her beginning:  CHOP!  CHOP!  CHOP! My mom's knife sliced through the chicken meat she was cutting up to make soup...

We also learned that our closings need to be strong.  The best way to make sure you have a strong finish in a memoir is to include three elements:  a resolution of the problem/how the characters end up, a lesson learned, and what you were thinking and feeling about your experience.  We will still be working on closings for the remainder of the week, but below are some strong examples that really bulk up the story and leave the reader feeling satisfied.

In Sydney's story about making meatballs with her mom, she doesn't listen to her mom's advice and ends up with a vicious burn.

Her closing:  As my family sat down at the table and my mom was serving us, I cut a meatball in half and put it in my mouth.  I could feel the crumbs of the meatballs on the roof of my mouth.  The sweet explosion of flavors came over me as I gobbled up the tomato sauce.  As I chewed, I began to think about what went wrong.  (Resolution)
After a few months passed by, I learned that even if you think you do something right, you could still do something wrong.  It's important to put confidence aside sometimes and really listen to advice from others.  (Lesson Learned)
I found that you're not as perfect as you think you are.  Next time I make meatballs with my mom, I will be careful and wear an oven glove because there's nothing more painful than the oven searing your flesh and sizzling off your skin! (Feelings)

In Grace's story, the kids are fighting over a special family treat they prepare with their great grandmother.  The fight makes her feel like she "has the weight of 50 math books in her backpack."

Her closing:  We all shared.  There was no fighting.  We all got a piece.  The orange jell-o flopped on my spoon and when it went in my mouth, the sweetness filled my mouth with joy.  It was so delicious.  I could taste the sweet orange and sour lemon in my mouth.  My taste buds were so happy.  Every bite made me say, "Yum!" (Resolution)
We learned that we always need to share.  Even though it is so good and delicious, sharing is a good choice. (Lesson)
When we share it is more peaceful, and it makes my great grandma proud. (Feelings)

The Kitchen Sink for the Week of 9/17/12

Readers’ Workshop

In an effort to prevent injuries (from carrying home 70 journals), we are revamping our Reading Response schedule. Responses for students with numbers 1-12 will be due each Tuesday, students with numbers 13-24 will turn in responses on Wednesdays, and students with numbers 25-34 will hand in their journals on Thursdays.  There will be no response due this week to ensure all students have ample time to write a quality response.  Journal collection will resume the week of September 24, under our new schedule.   We will also continue to focus on creating mental images this week.  As good readers, we should create a mental movie in our minds as we read.  If our movie gets “blurry,” we should take steps to get it back into focus.  Steps include: recognizing confusion exists, continue to read seeking clarity, focusing on details, and rereading.  Ask your child how they use these strategies to clarify their mental movie.   

Writers’ Workshop

After reading the rough drafts, we noticed that our work with details is not done!  We will explore alternate ways of describing tastes and flavors, since nearly every draft includes the line, "It was delicious."  Our next hurdle will be to tackle the first and last lines of our pieces.  We will do a series of lessons this week on engaging beginnings (using action, strong feeling, dialogue, and/or sound effects) and reflective closings (tying in a greater lesson that was learned using a smooth transition).  Students will compose several versions of a beginning before ultimately choosing the one that best hooks the reader.  We will discuss the lesson of our memoirs, before brainstorming transitions like the following:  as time passed I saw that..., months later I knew that..., it became clear that..., looking back I see..., Now I realize..., One thing I know now..., and so forth.  See the blog for updates and specific examples later this week.

Skills Block

List 4 will be tested this week.  Homework is due on Friday.

We will continue to review the types of sentences and their appropriate punctuation.  A purple handout with definitions, details, and examples was distributed to each child.  

Writing Checkpoint 1: Memoir Rough Draft

On Friday, you turned in the rough drafts of the memoirs about your favorite recipes.  After reading through them, it looks like we still need to work on adding in details.  We need to focus on showing the reader what the moment was like, rather than telling.  We will continue to work on that this week.  Lots of positive things are happening during our workshop time as our routines take shape and we begin to understand the writing process.

We are proud of the way you have embraced the idea of making your ideas better through the writing of several drafts.  Many students began to notice that their rough draft was looking like a "sloppy copy" by the end of the week, as we continued to add more and more detail.  We also did a check to see if we were following the rules of writing (i.e. using appropriate capitalization and punctuation).  In many situations, being sloppy is a bad thing.  The messier your room is, the more unhappy your parents will become.  But in writing, having a "sloppy copy," like the example pictured, is a good thing.  It means you're thinking about how you can make your writing better, more clear, more detailed, and more grammatically correct.



Some of us can make changes to our writing and update our "sloppy copies" all on our own, but most writers need feedback.  We learned how to get feedback from peer partners by E.E.K.K.-ing!!!  Have you told your family about your eye-to-eye, knee-to-knee peer conference?  Have you thought about the compliment and suggestion your partner gave you?  Do you agree with their feedback?  Why or why not?  Check out these students getting feedback.

We will give your notebooks back tomorrow in class, and we are excited to spend this week adding more details.  However, we will also be moving on to two new concepts:  Engaging Beginnings and Reflective Closings.  We look forward to seeing your second drafts improve after these lessons.  Keep that rubric we discussed in class last week close by your side, and you will have no problem meeting the expectations for this first writing assignment.  In case you like to keep your rubric at school, here's a copy you can view at home.

Name__________________________     #_________  Score:______

                                                                                                     18

Nonfiction Narrative/Memoir Rubric

Narrative Element	Description of Narrative Element	Self Assessment	Peer Assessment	Teacher Assessment
Title & Focus	Related title is used and recipe is mentioned
Engaging Beginning	Characters and setting have been introduced in an engaging manner
Story Structure & Sequence of Events	Beginning, Middle, and End that follows a chronological sequence of events
Details	True, exact details are used to create a picture in the mind of the reader
Closing	Ending wraps it up and reflects on lesson learned using an engaging format
Editing: C.U.P.S. & Paragraph Form	Corrections have been made to a 3rd grade standard in capitalization, awkward wording, punctuation, spelling, and paragraph form

Author’s Comments: 

I am proud of__________________________________________________

I need to work on_______________________________________________

You won't be expected to meet all the elements of this rubric until we turn in the final draft in a few weeks, but at this point you should be thinking about each element as it's introduced in class.  So far, we have discussed the use of details in a recipe related story that follows chronological order.  The story should include a lesson of some kind, and it should be a true story from your life.  One student was brave enough to share her rough draft as an example of someone who is meeting the guidelines thus far.  How does your story compare?  We can't wait to see her final draft, as her story continues to grow and change!

Look out, American Idol!

We are having fun with nouns and verbs this week, singing and rapping our way into feeling more comfortable with these parts of language.  We know that our memoirs should include oodles of details, but we can't lose sight of the rules.  It's just like driving in the car with your parents.  It might be fun to have the radio going, but you still have to remember to drive the speed limit and stay on the right side of the road.  The same is true in our writing.  It's important to have fun painting a mental picture for the reader with details, but we have to remember to put capital letters and punctuation in the right places, so the reader can actually read all our great details.  Working with capitals and punctuation was tough for many of us.  We weren't quite sure how to form a complete sentence, so we took some time this week to analyze the parts of a sentence.  We learned that complete sentences always have a noun and a verb.  The noun is the who (or the what) that did something.  The verb is the action that the who (or what) did in the sentence.  Knowing the parts of a complete sentence can help us put capital letters and punctuation in the right place!  Then everyone can read and enjoy our stories!  Do you still need a quick review of nouns and verbs?  If so, just sing and rap your way through these hits from class, and you'll be spotting nouns and verbs everywhere!!!  Then show off your knowledge of nouns and verbs by leaving a comment.  Give us a complete sentence and then tell us the noun and verb.  Use this example as a guide.  Miss Hoffmann ate 15 donuts!  (Noun=Miss Hoffmann Verb=ate)  Leave a comment by Monday of next week and you will earn 3 success tickets.

A noun, a noun

can easily be found

inside of a book.

You just have to look.

It’s a person, place, or thing…

Like a church or diamond ring

a mom, a toy,

a president, a boy

a desert, a classroom,

a stage, a sonic boom

a penny, a star,

a lamp, or a jar.

Nouns are easy to find

with this rap inside your mind.

So take a quick look

inside your favorite book.

It’s oh so easy cheesy!

So find some nouns please-y!

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is the action

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is what’s happening

Walk, run, sit, cry

Dance, laugh, clap, try!

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is the action

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is what’s happening

Walking, running, sitting, crying

Dancing, laughing, clapping, trying!

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is the action

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is what’s happening

Walked, ran, sat, cried

Danced, laughed, clapped, tried!

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is the action

The verb, verb, verb

The verb is what’s happening

Sequencing Plans

Our "Memoirs of Main Dishes" writing project is well underway.  Students are eagerly planning out the sequence of events for their memoirs.  We talked about the qualities of good memoirs, and we learned that good memoirs zoom in on only the most important moments of a tiny seed/small moment in time.  We also learned that good memoirs always include true, exact details.  It is important to be honest (ex. We don't want to put in a part about Justin Beiber coming for dinner if it didn't happen.) and exact so the reader trusts us and feels like they are there in the moment with the author.

In order to make planning easier, we are utilizing a template that resembles a comic strip, or storyboard.  This plan will be useful as we move into the drafting phase; it will guide us and keep us on track as we write.  Also, we won't get stuck when we're writing because we can look at our plan to know what comes next.  Is your sequencing plan completed?  At this point, it should be if you're staying on track.  Here's an example from class if you need help.

Our next step will be to use these plans to create our drafts.  We will use our sequencing plans as we tell our stories moment by moment, step-by-step.  We will use true, exact details so the reader feels invited into the moment to live with the author for a short moment in time.

Cooking for Cryptids

Last week, we devoted some of our writing time to learning how to work as teams and use a little creativity. We got comfortable with the cooking theme by studying recipes, and we noticed how precise measurements are, as well as the great variety of cooking verbs (stir, chop, dice, mix, bake, toss, scoop)  We then worked as teams to dream up tasty treats for some "friends" that may or may not be real,taking their geographic location and interests into account.  The only thing we do know for sure is that the monsters enjoy tasty treats that are really GROSS!!!  We came up with everything from Junk Pizza, which Moth Man "loves because he ate it with his friends in 1995" to a Super Snow Cone for the Yeti, which is "yum, yum, yum" and involves blending frozen items like stranded hikers and mountain snow.

Check out these other class favorites:

The Unicorn's Forest Fruit Smoothie


7 tbsp. cherries

2 pounds sliced apples
1 pound oranges
4 1/2 pounds plums
5 pear halves
1 pound of meadow grass
3 pounds of peaches
3 tsp. blueberries
dash of glitter, magic, and rainbows.

Chop up the fruits and throw them in the blender.  Keep the blender on for 5 minutes.  When you are done blending, pour the smoothie in a bowl and stick it in the freezer for 10 minutes.  Leave it in the meadow under a rainbow for the cryptid to find.

Or how about...

The Chupacabra's Goat Blood Chili

2 pounds lamb
5 gallons goat blood
16 ounces ribs
1 cup ghost pepper
5 cups red beans
2 cups shredded green peppers
3 cups spicy beef
6 pounds deer meat

Soak red beans in goat blood for 5 minutes.  Pour the red beans and goat blood into a big pan and add rest of ingredients.  Put in oven for 10 minutes on 350 F.  Take out of oven and let cool for 10 to 15 minutes.  Put into bowls and leave it on a farmer's roof in Mexico for the chupacabra!  Don't stick around to watch him eat it!!!

Like we said, these treats are totally gross, so don't head into your kitchen to create them anytime soon.  Nevertheless, we sure had fun imagining up these ridiculous combinations, and we learned a lot about sharing ideas and taking turns in the process.

The Kitchen Sink for the Week of 9/4/12

Readers’ Workshop

Last week students were given their Reader’s Response Journals.  Students were also informed of our expectation that they read 25 chapter books by the end of the year.  Students should be tracking their success on the charts in their journal.  Ask to see your child’s journal to monitor their progress. 

We will also begin responding in our journals this week.  Expectations for student responses can be found in their journal.  Students are expected to respond once a week.  Journals will be collected each Friday for teacher review.      

Writers’ Workshop

This week we will continue working on the planning and early drafting stages of the memoir project.  At this point, students should have chosen a recipe that is important to them.  This recipe is being used to inspire a story about their life.  Students should have a significant memory of eating or cooking this recipe.  This week we will focus specifically on story structure with regards to sequencing.  As third graders, students are expected to be able to plan out their drafts in chronological order.  We will use our sequencing plans to begin writing our drafts at the end of this week.

Skills Block

There will be no spelling this week.  Instead, students will begin building their vocabularies through our Text Talk series.  We will read Montezuma's Revenge.  We will study the following words:  coaxed, mesmerized, misery, revenge, frustrated, and regret.

Besides vocabulary, we will also be studying the four types of sentences students will be using in writing (i.e. declarative sentences/statements, interrogative sentences/questions, imperative sentences/commands and requests, and exclamatory sentences/statements of strong feeling).  We will analyze these sentence varieties and discuss the appropriate punctuation.