Where to begin??

Holy cow we have done so much already this week! We are trucking along through figurative language and having a great time at it. Just like I predicted my kiddos LOVED our focus on simile! We have looked at simile, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and tomorrow we begin metaphor. Another one of my faves! This means I have a plethora of books to share, hehe!

Ahh..one of my favorite sights!

But before I even start with all of the fun work we have been doing in class...I must share my cheesiness...We got part of our first book order today! Whoop! Whoop! Sometimes I think I get more excited than the kids.

Can you just smell that amazing new
book goodness! LOL

How sad is it that out of all of those books in the box above ~
these are mine. Oh my goodness!

Okay...all my goofy cheesiness aside, some fun and exciting learning has been happening in Room 506 all week! 

 

Tuesday started with a celebration of David Catrow. Ok, well not really, but we sure enjoyed a couple of his illustrated masterpieces as we looked at onomatopoeia. (What a word that is!) Wet Dog! by Elise Broach and That's Good! That's Bad! by Margery Cuyler are packed with great sound words, better known as onomatopoeia. I did warn you that you would see much of Mr. Catrow on this blog. There is not much that I don't love about his quirky illustrations.

Mud by Mary Lyn Ray is a messy look at touch sensory detail and onomatopoeia. The gardener in me loves Mud!                        

Now, moving on to alliteration. Lots of lessons to be learned in the stories we shared for alliteration. So here I double dipped, and we of course discussed common themes in literature. Bootsie Barker Bites by Barbara Bottner and Some Smug Slug by Pamela Edwards not only showed us the power of alliteration but also that sometimes we get what we deserve. Kindness can go a long way and Bootsie Barker and Smug Slug learned a hard lesson.

 

We then practiced using alliteration with our names...

  

Tomorrow we will be looking at metaphor! This lesson is right up there as one of my faves, but I am a broken record at this point with all my "faves."

 

My School's a Zoo by Stu Smith (ah-hmm, yes ~ illustrated by one Mr. David Catrow. I promise I am not a stalker.) and Misery is a Smell in Your Backpack by Harriet Ziefert are both great metaphors. Not the only great ones of course, but I enjoy them. After reading Misery is a Smell...we will create a metaphor poem of sorts, but we will have fun and think happier thoughts, looking at "Happiness is."

This is last years, I will post this years later this weekend :)

I always like to use music where I can when talking about figurative language, and this is a perfect example of metaphor, simile, and onomatopoeia! Cracks me up every year when kids start realizing that they have been singing and using similes and metaphors all this time without even knowing it. I just love seeing those little light bulbs turning on!

One last piece of writing before you think that is all I teach. I wish I can take credit for this, but of course I can't. (Remember, hardly any original thoughts in like forever!)  I borrowed it from my son's middle school teacher. This was a homework assignment that he brought home years ago in which he had to create a character that wears a cap for "Ivan Capp." I have loved using it with my own kiddos to help them remember the parts of speech. This will stay up and we will refer to it OFTEN!

 

So Grandma Dowdel has been moved out to the hall for now. Although I don't miss looking at our anchor of her (Katie Bird is working on another for me,) I do miss her character. We still talk about her almost daily when we talk about character traits. Such a strong character to start our year. My chunky attempt at a trumpeter swan will become the background for one our our Trumpet of the Swan anchors. We can only hope that most of his chunkiness will be covered once we finish the book. 

Just thought I would share another glaring example of cheesiness. Not sure if I should, but I just can't help myself. My friends have already rolled eyes and giggled, so why not you? As we began The Trumpet of the Swan, we started with a short biography of E.B. White which discussed his love of animals. At one point we discovered that Mr. White collected all sorts of animals including, oddly enough, polliwogs. Of course my kiddos wanted to know what a polliwog was. Please give a small guess as to who might have had the perfect picture book to answer that question...yes, I have THE perfect picture book to describe and share what a polliwog is. Polliwog by Tammy Carter Bronson. Are we knee deep in cheese yet? I think we will be when I share, trying to hold back my silly excitement, that my book is not only autographed but it has a great theme as well. Woohoo...

 

So would you think less of me if sometimes I share a book  just to meet MY needs in the classroom? One guess as to what my goal was with this wonderful read aloud. Hmmm...Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein turned out to be a perfect mentor text at just the exact time I needed it. You just have to love mentor texts.

So proud of all of the book recommendations!

We will continue looking at genre and theme as we work in reading. Lots of great reading!

Now to share a few of our morning messages and head to bed.

  

Off to bed now...Happy Reading my friends!