BUZZ about books!

We sure can buzz about books!  We tried our hand recently at buzzing in "real time"  on Todaysmeet.com.  We were able to see what each other had to say and respond, all while we listened to the story Miss Smith's Incredible Story Book.

The Author of My Weird School Tweeted Alaina Back!

Woohoo! Alaina's tweet was replied to :) Take a look!

Readers of the Month!

Congratulations!

Congrats to our readers of the month Ahmed and Daysha!

Ahmed read 980 minutes in the month of October!

Daysha read 731 minutes in the month of October!

WAY TO GO!

Many students also read over 500 minutes, WOW!

Bryce, Dontay, Faith, McKenzie, Kasey, and Trevor

Had to Share!

Earlier today Izzy wrote a tweet to Katherine Applegate the author of The One and Only Ivan.  Just a short time later Katherine Applegate read her tweet and favorited it! HOW COOL!

We're on a reading roll!!

WOW! We are finishing books left and right! Take a look at some of the reading extensions we completed today!

Colby, Marcelo, Alaina, and Izzy tweeted authors, fingers crossed they tweet us back!

Bryce's Voki

Faith's Voki

McKenzie's Voki

Yahoo, I Finished a Book!

I wanted to give our 4th graders a way to showcase what they have read with the class, you at home, and even the world!  After students finish a book, they will be able to pick a way to promote, showcase, or inform an audience about what they have just read.  Some choices require a shorter time commitment where others are much more involved.  Much of the work will be done in class, but students can choose to work from home as well.  Take a look at some of the options below!  We have been discussing and using many of these options already in class, ask your child what some of them are!  Coming Soon: a new way for us to showcase these projects with you and the world!

Bagels and Books

Bagels and Books!

November 8th, 2013

Join us for our first annual Bagels & Books in our classroom on November 8th from 8:30-10:00am! We invite parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles or any other special person to join us in our classroom for a morning of sharing favorite books while having a bite to eat.  Please consider joining us for whatever amount of time you have available, do not feel like you need to join us for the entire event.  

We also need a few donations for our event.  If your family is able to send in any one of the following items it would be greatly appreciated.

• Small Package of Bagels
• Tubs of Cream Cheese
• Small Paper Plates
• Small Cups
• Milk or Orange Juice

Out Of My Mind Word Cloud

Recently one of our connections for the global read aloud tasked us with creating word clouds about Melody and the book Out of My Mind.  Take a look at the word clouds we created!

Thank You Aunt Gail!

Recently my aunt gave our classroom a donation :) We were able to buy almost 50 books for our classroom! Thanks a bunch Aunt Gail! We really appreciate it, and are excited to dive in to all our new books :)

The GRA has begun!

We have begun reading Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper aloud as a whole class.  We are connecting with a class from Michigan and a class from Louisiana! Each day we read a chapter from the story, and our connecting classes do the same, we post to edmodo, tweet, and next week we will skype about what we have read, feelings we have, and deeper thinking we have developed about the story.  The connections, and insights we have made have been amazing!  Not only are we replying to posts written by each teacher about the book, but we are creating and replying to posts written by 4th graders!  We are learning so much about communicating over a blog, typing and editing posts, and creating posts that others will reply to.  Take a look at a few of the posts we have already made!

Make sure to ask your 4th grader about the GRA, what we have learned about the character, and what lessons we've learned about life!

Battle of the Books: Parent Letter and Book List

The book lis for the 2013-2014 Battle of the Books has been chosen!! Please take a look at the parent letter as well as the list of Titles!  I will be working to acquire as many of the Battle titles this year for our classroom library.  You can also find these titles at local libraries and if one or more are of particular interest to you, you could pick them up at your local book store.

We will be reading some of the Battle Books this year as read alouds with the whole class.  4th Graders may also choose to read any title as their independent reading book.  Many 4th graders last year found reading the harder titles at home with a parent or family members a successful way to get through some of the more challenging Titles.

We will keep a tally of how many battle books students read on our Data wall to keep us motivated throughout the year!

 Let the Battle Begin!

Global Read Aloud

We are super excited to be apart of the Global Read Aloud this year! Across the world students will be reading the book Out of My Mind starting next week. We will be connecting with two classrooms in both Michigan and Louisiana over edmodo and Skype!

Take a look at the video we used to introduce ourselves to both classes of 4th graders!

Book Recommendations: Week of April 8th

Check Out What We're Reading!

We are well on our way to reaching our individual 20 book goal by the end of the year!

Take a look at some of the books we recently finished!

The One and Only Ivan

Recently we finished the story, The One and Only Ivan, as a whole class read aloud.  After reading the captivating story, the students were asked to continue the story in their own way on Edmodo.  Read to find out how each student would continue the story!