Love That Dog

I love "Love That Dog"!!!  It is a great book, written by Sharon Creech, that is creatively set up in a narrative poetry journal format. (it sounds crazy) It is a story about a boy who reluctantly learns to love poetry and expresses his love for his dog.  As the story, unfolds the teacher introduces her class to several authentic authors, types of poems and poetry terms.  The story will also bring a few students to tears.  Sharon also published "Hate That Cat."

A sample of a poem in the book.  My children loved creating shape poems.

Free Down load on teacher vision

I bought a unit on TPT that I highly recommend.  It has great response questions and is easy to implement with the whold class or guided reading groups.  The students also write a few poems of their own.  I will be publishing those next week.  (Pictures to follow)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Love-That-Dog-Novel-Study-and-Poetry-Unit-561763

Raining Cats & Dogs Writing

My fourth graders have been studying all types of figurative language this year. My students just love idioms!  During the year we completed many activities using idioms and I decided to take it to the next step and incorporate one in their writing.  My students had to use suspense and the idiom "It's Raining Cats and Dogs" in a narrative piece.  I gathered stuffed cats and dogs and pinned on an umbrella.  I took photos to add to their final writing piece.

A few of the books that we read:

Raining Cats and Dogs Download

My favorite photo!!! 

Here are a few completed pieces:

The student teacher across the hall was hanging up this bright and cheery adverb board and I had to take a picture to share…Sunny Skies and Rainbows are coming soon!!!  Great Job Meghan Foden!!!

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)

US Regions and Tall Tale Characters

We have been very busy in fourth grade!  I am finally adjusting to our new curriculum and the Common Core.  It was hard letting go of our programs and transitioning into trade books.

We are working on the Regions of the US and Tall Tales.  I am really enjoying learning about tall tales and the integration into the regions.  Here is the list of characters that we are using:

• Northeast- Old Stormalong
• Southeast- John Henry
• Midwest- Paul Bunyan
• Southwest- Pecos Bill and Sluefoot Sue
• West- Febold Feboldson

We are using Mary Pope Osborne's anthology of tall tales, Lynne Peppas' regions of the United States and My America Poetry Anthology by Lee Bennett Hopkins.  I also have printable short stories and reader's theater by Scholastic.  We have been comparing and contrasting the different versions of tall tales.  I spend two weeks covering prose(fiction and nonfiction), drama and poetry of each region.  We are creating scrapbooks like last year that include dialect speech bubbles of the tall tale character from that region along with the scrapbook pages from Jill Russ on TPT, here is her blog with great resources (power points).

I just purchased the book below which fits in perfectly!  It is an abc book of idioms and proverbial phrases with a glossary that gives you the meanings and US origin.  The author's note refers to the development of these phrases due to tall tales and exaggerations.  It is one of my new fourth grade standards and I love how it fits into the tall tales!

I have added the tall tale characters to my post card bulletin board that continues to grow.  I divided my map into the five regions with a black sharpie and have marked the post cards with colored yarn.

Here are a few photos of my scrapbooks from my last year from an old post that you might want to check out for some other ideas.

  

 

I am planning a great culminating activity with my neighbor's class...can't wait to share!!!!

More Similes

I love this book!  Very creative use of similes.

I had the children pick someone and write descriptive phrases using similes.

Click here for the form from Teacher's Cauldron.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon-Fig. Language

If you are looking for a book that uses similes and metaphors than you need to read "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon."  It is one of my new anchor texts this year.    The chapter book is loaded with rich figurative language that allows the children to use many strategies for comprehension.  

Carried Away with Idioms (Freebie)

We have been using idioms for the past few weeks.  Here is my daughter modeling my "It's Raining Cats and Dogs" umbrella that I saw on Pinterest.  

I took pictures of the children pretending to hold balloons.  They wrote an idiom on the middle balloon, then added the literal and figurative meaning.

There are so many great books available.  

Click to get sign and balloons: