Author's Purpose- PIE

I have blogged about Author's Purpose a couple of times.  I recently did a lesson that my kids loved.  I saw this on Pinterest.  I have been saving extra book order forms for a few months.  The children quickly figured out the Persuade would be books with toys or sale items and coupons!

Author's Purpose Sheet

Blog Post

LIGHT!

We did a mini-unit last week on Light.  I bought a great TPT product from Nicole Shelby.  There is a great poster project that my kids loved doing.  I posted some of their examples blow.  I have a creative group of kids.  (I love the flashlight!)

Study Jams- free resource

Fourth Grade Common Core Resources

This year has been very overwhelming with our new Common Core Curriculum.  We no longer use programs in my system and it has been challenging finding great materials to support the fourth grade standards that I need to teach.  I just found a great resource for ELA and Math!  They have a resource book for grades K-5.  I am very excited to try out this new resource!!!!  There is a sample download on their website.

Fourth Grade Common Core Resources Download

This "Fourth Grade Common Core Resources" is the largest collection of resources for teaching the Common Core State Standards. This workbook includes over 850 pages of Worksheets, Activity Centers, and Posters that teach all the Fourth Grade English Language Arts Common Core Standards and all the Fourth Grade Mathematics Common Core Standards! This Workbook will be emailed to you shortly after you place your order.

Getting to the Root!

One of the Fourth Grade Common Core standards that I need to teach is learning to use Greek and Latin roots to help understand and build new vocabulary.

Last week we created root flip books using a printable from Laura Candler.  Her website offers many great resources for teachers.  I had the children find five words using their "root" and add an illustration on the front.  They wrote out definitions on the inside, you could have them also include a sentence.  We used dictionaries and the interenet to find words: http://wordinfo.info.  

I purchased a set of word wall cards and printed them small.  I gave each student their own root to research.  We then added them to our Root Word Wall that has been up all year.  I was adding one card a week and then forgot for awhile (don't judge).  This activity got 21 Roots up quickly.  I made the wall using black felt and they stick on with velcro.  I forgot to take new pictures but have some from the beginning of the year,

Roots of Success

Poetry Board and Lady Liberty

I had my class write Paint Chip Poems awhile ago and finally hung them up today for Poetry month.  I bought the crayons at Dollar Tree.  Thanks to Laura Candler from for her newsletter that had a poetry bulletin board contest.  Laura has awesome ideas...don't forget to sign up for newsletter too.  I sent my photo to Kristine George.  Check out her author/poetry site!!!  

I also ordered a giant Statue of Liberty to put out in the hall with my postcards.  (I wasn't going to tell my husband but unfortunately he met the UPS man in the driveway...LOL)

Postcards from Ellis Island

My new Grade 4 Common Core ELA unit is about the stories of "Immigration."  My kids love it!!!  We have been reading many fictional and non-fictional books.  We even took a virtual tour of Ellis Island with Scholastic.

One of the activities that they loved were the Postcards.  We read the book "At Ellis Island: A History in Many Voices."  The book has so much going on...it takes 2-3 readings to do it justice.  We read it the first time for Sera's story (a fictional character).  The second reading we read and discussed the immigrants quotes and the captions.  There are many great photos and illustrations on every page.

The next thing I did was copy a page from "I Was Dreaming to Come to America" for every student, along with the short biographical page in the back.  I had them read the pages and write a postcard from the point of view of their immigrant.  We discussed that their postcard would be based on facts but will include some realistic-fiction details.

Here are some of their postcards:

Here are the Postcards I Made for My Display:

For information regarding US immigration please visit:

U.S. Naturalization and Immigration