4th Grade Theme and Main Idea

The past few weeks have been lots of collaboration with the 4th grade ELA teachers. Our latest co-teaching endeavor has been over main idea and theme. We started with main idea, reviewing how to find the main idea of a selection.

At each table, I placed a short passage that had the title cut off. Students were given post-it notes and were asked to write the main idea in a sentence, and to give the passage a title. When the time limit was up, they covered their answers and moved to the next table. At the next table, they did the same with another passage.

On the last rotation, students then uncovered all the other answers and chose what they thought was the best written main idea.  It helped them to see that the main idea is not copied straight from the passage, but is in your own words.

The next week, we read SNEETCHES AND OTHER STORIES, by Dr. Seuss, which is a great book for comparing themes. I read the first story, SNEETCHES, to the whole group. We came up with a theme all together, then found the text evidence. At their table groups, students made a chart with each story, the theme, and the text evidence. They had the other stories from the book at their tables. This collaborative lesson took two days of 4th grade coming in. This is one reason why it is so important to be on a flexible schedule if you are collaborating with the teachers. 

On the second day, after groups found the theme of each story, students had to compare the themes of all 4 stories. This led to a discussion of the events that were happening during the time period that this book was published. We had some very thoughtful discussions. 

Read Across America Recap

Read Across America is one of my favorite weeks of the entire school year! This year our school wide theme for the week was "Make the World a Better Place". Each day we had fun dress days, guest readers, and fun activites! 

A retired assistant superintendent came to read GREEN EGGS AND HAM to our students. He talked about reading this book to his granddaugter every night that she came to visit. Then he told us about how his granddaughter is now in college. 

Mr. Washington reads GREEN EGGS AND HAM

We had two firefighter crews from the Garland firestation visit our students. They read to us and talked to us about their jobs. They told the students that even though their job is a physical job, they have to use math, reading, and writing every day.

Garland Firefighters read to students. 

Garland firefighters 

Two of our amazing school board members came to read with our students this week as well. Mrs. Griffin even dressed as the Cat in the Hat for the students. It was lots of fun. Both school board members talked to the students about their roles as school board members, and discussed how reading helped them be successful in their jobs, personal lives, and get elected as board members. 

Mrs. Griffin dresses up and reads to our students. 

Mr. Selders came to visit, read, and take pictures. 

One of our parents came to read to several classes. She read FOX IN SOCKS, which was her daughters' favorite when they were really little. She also wore her crazy socks just like our students.

Parent reads to students. 

Crazy socks day! 

One of the best parts of this week was the bench that was donated to our school by a nearby retirement home. The bench was built and painted by the residents of the retirement home, and now the bench has a forever home in our library. Isn't that AMAZING!! 

We had several other activities going that week. Their was a Seuss trivia on the announcements each morning with prizes for the winning classes. The students voted on their favorite Seuss book, and the winner was THE LORAX this year. 

Family Literacy Night

Our campus hosts an annual Family Literacy Night that falls around Dr. Seuss's birthday, so what better theme to use the Dr. Seuss's books!

In the past, I would host the book fair on this night for parents to shop. While I made good sales on this night, it was too much to plan the evening, plan Read Across America Week, and have book fair. After breaking out into hives last year, I decided book fair could be another week.

Our families always have a great time at our reading night. The favorite activity is the trivia scavenger hunt. I hang up cards that have paragraphs from a Seuss biography. Each family gets a page with questions that can be answered by looking for the information on the cards. Some of the answers can also be found on the Seuss biography website.

Hat Making Station

What better way to celebrate Dr. Suess than to make our own tall, striped hats.  Kids could use crayons, markers, washi tape, dot markers, and stamps to make their own hat creation. They enjoyed wearing them the rest of the evening and showing off their creations.

Bookmark Creation Station

My favorite station is where families can create their own bookmarks.  At the station are blank bookmarks to start the creation. Washi tape, crayons, stickers, and markers are provided at the station for use. We also set out popular Dr. Seuss quotes that can be copied onto the bookmarks.

I love to see all of the unique creations that students come up with.

Comprehension Cootie Catchers

This is a favorite station with the older elementary students, and parents love that they are taking home comprehension questions for their kids. At this station, students make a cootie catcher, also known as fortune tellers. We have ones with comprehensions questions for nonficion text and another for fiction text. Inside the cootie catcher, or fortune teller, are questions that parents can ask their child after reading a book. This is a fun way for the whole family to be involved in reading.

Story Times

You can't have Family Literacy Night without story time!! Our principal read OH THE THINKS YOU CAN THINK and I read GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

Boggle 

This is another fun station for the older students, and it is a great challenge for our academically gifted students. If you've never played Boggle with your students, you need to try it out next week! When I was a classroom teacher, I had a different Boggle board in a Daily 5 station every month.

Boggle is a word game that has 16 random letters in columns and rows. The object is to find as many words as you can in the grid. You can move in any direction, but letters must be touching in a chain.

Relay Races Cat in the Hat style 

In previous years we had Seuss Bingo, but I thought we would change it up a little and have relay races. Since our theme was Dr. Seuss, we decided to go relay races Cat in the Hat style.  We had several challenges. 

• How high can you stack the cups. 
• Skip backwards while saying the ABCs backwards. 
• Juggle 3 or more items at a time. 
• Balance an object on a spoon while hopping. 

Green Eggs and Ham Hunt

This one is a hit with the younger students. We write sets of rhyming words on green easter eggs and place them all around a classroom. The object is to find pairs of rhyming words, then pick out of a prize box.

Tongue Twisters

I got the idea of this station while reading FOX IN SOCKS to a class one day. We printed out tongue twisters onto strips of paper. Families took turns trying to say the tongue twisters as fast as they could without messing up. This helps with fluency. Then, they could write their own tongue twisters on the blank strips of paper.

Photo Booth

This was a hit! I bought these fun photo props at Party City!

Read Across America

This is one of my favorite weeks of the whole school year! This week celebrates the love of reading, and it really motivates the kids to read. Even those that love to read anyway get excited to celebrate Dr. Seuss. The older kids don't really read the Dr. Seuss books anymore, but they love this week when they get to be silly and enjoy the amazing rhymes.

Dress Days

Each day of the week, we focus on a different Dr. Seuss book. The staff and students dress up different ways each day.

• Monday - wear orange or a mustache for THE LORAX 
• Tuesday - wear stripes like the cat's hat or wear a hat for CAT IN THE HAT
• Wednesday - wear crazy socs for FOX IN SOCKS
• Thursday - wear read and/or blue for ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH
• Friday - wear green for GREEN EGGS AND HAM 

Guest Readers 

The purpose of this week is to place a focus on reading. While I do that all year long, I really try to pump this week up with extra motivation. We had some fabulous guest readers this year, and the students absolutely loved the opportunities. They always hear their teachers or me reading, but this week they were able to see that other adults enjoy reading also. 

The superintendent read ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH to a first grade class.

Our district library director brought Patsy Swine and read with our kindergarten class.

Our area director read to a first grade class, WHAT PET SHOULD WE GET?

Our principal reads THE LORAX to 2nd grade classes. 

Our assistant principal reads GREEN EGGS AND HAM to kindergarten.

Read-A-Thon

To celebrate Read Across America, we have an annual Read-A-Thon. Our goal this year is to read 33,000 minutes and to raise $1,000 to purchase new books for our library. 

If you follow my blog and enjoy reading about our library, consider donating to our Read-A-Thon and support our reading journey! 

Breakout

The most fun was putting together the BreakoutEDU games for 4th grade and 2nd grade classes. I found a Seuss themed Breakout, where Thing 1 and Thing 2 get upset and lock away the cat's hat. One of our 4th grade classes solved it in under 10 minutes! I kid you not!!! 

The clues were scattered around the library, thanks to Thing 1 and Thing 2! They hid the keys underneath a stuffed Cat in the Hat, and even hid the secret blacklight flashlight in the locked box. So the students had to find the key in order to find one of the clues that was written in invisible ink.  Other clues were hidden inside the book, CAT IN THE HAT. While other clues had to be researched using PebbleGo or the online encyclopedia. 

2nd graders broke out, found the hat, and a few surprises in the box. 

Seuss Week Recap

I'm pretty sure that I was insane when I decided to host my book fair the same week of Read Across America and the same week that our school held Family Literacy Night that, you guessed it, I was in charge of planning. Needless to say, I survived and that is behind us. Anyway, even though I barely survived, the week was a huge success!! By the way, during this week we also had a fire drill, tornado drill, and lock down drill. CRAZY!!!

Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Day is one of my all time favorite weeks of the school year, second only to Spring Break!! We started the week off with Green Eggs and Ham day with everyone dressing in green. The cafeteria staff even got in on the fun and served green eggs and ham for breakfast. We also had hat day, mustache day, and college shirt day. One day was all focused on ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH. Again, the cafeteria staff got in on the fun and served colored goldfish to the students, and gifted a copy of the book to the library.

For fun, we held a Battle of the Books, Dr. Seuss style. We started off with 16 books, 8 classics and 8 beginner books. The first 3 rounds were held during Read Across America week, but we are now down to 2 books! THE LORAX and GREEN EGGS AND HAM. Tomorrow is the last day to vote, so we will soon find out the winner.

The book fair was a huge hit, our students always get SUPER excited about the book fair. We reached our goal and sold over 1,300 books! We also held a coin drive to buy books for the teachers' classroom libraries. I made it into a contest between the houses and told students that the house that raised the most money would have the library decorated in their colors. AMABLE was the winner, and today I purchased a ton of green decorations to go in the library tomorrow. 

I was amazed at the amount of money our students and parents donated to our coin drive. It was enough for me to purchase every teacher 3 or more books for the classroom library. 

Literacy night was a big success! Families came out and enjoyed numerous activities, including story time with Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2. There was a bookmark making station, as well as a hat creation station. QR codes with Seuss books were scattered around the building, and a DR. Seuss trivia.