Watt's Up Thomas Edison???

One of my new Common Core ELA Units is called "Figure it Out."  It is about notable people who overcame challenges to become successful in life.  We read about Helen Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, George Washington Carver and Thomas Edison.

We created lap-books using an Invention Brochure that I bought on TPT from This Little Piggy Reads.  The printables fit nicely on the file folder.  Here are some samples of my student's work.  I made a sample but allowed my students to use their own creativity.  It also fits in with our electricity unit.

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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!!!!

PINTERESTing! Nonfiction Text Features

Here are some great non-fiction ideas...

Anchor Chart

Free on Teacher's Notebook

Free Cards from Scholastic

File Folder Project

Our Reading Hits!

I created a binder for "Our Reading Hits" or book recommendations.  I printed genre posters on white card-stock from a few blogs to cover all the different ones in our standards: bethnewingham, mrsrhodesscholars, dots-n-spots .  Due to limited wall space, I love the idea of putting them in a binder as a reference.

I printed out recommendation sheets from the blog: create*teach*share

I typed up a sheet of labels with names of all the genres to stick on the top of each recommendation sheet.  The book will be placed in my classroom library.

I was inspired by post on teachingwithatouchoftwang.  I bought the paper towel holder and I didn't like how my sheets hung on it...they were all flopping over.  I tried all sorts of things to fix it and came up with Plan B.  My other concern with this design was the space it would take up on my counter.

Non-Fiction Reading Marathon

I posted about My Reading Marathon and I tweaked it for non-fiction.  

My kids don't make a peep while we do this...it is magical!

My next marathon will be poetry.

Set a timer for 10 minute intervals:

Box 1- Design a book cover with title and author

Read for 10 minutes

Box 2- Write a list of questions you have about your topic

Read for 10 minutes

Box 3- Draw a Photo or Illustration with a caption

Read for 10 minutes 

Box 4- Write any interesting or new vocabulary with definitions

Read for 10 minutes

Box 5- Draw a diagram, Chart, Map, Graph or Timeline and Label

Read for 10 minutes

Box 6- List important facts about what you learned

Here are the kids working..so focused.

Here are some final projects:

http://mrshallfabulousinfourth.blogspot.com/2012/03/reading-marathon.html