Character Essay Brainstorming

In both reading and writing workshops we're digging in deep with character! Our students are really looking analyzing characters in reading workshop and have been tracking changes and recently even described how settings can impact characters! Today, we introduced our new writing piece - the character essay!

In our character essay, students are to select three character traits they feel represent their character through the book and show that the character is complex. Then through evidence prove that these traits paint an accurate portrait of their characters for their book club novels. We started today with some brain storming sessions. We've done so much background work in Reading Workshop with Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching's Interactive Character Analysis Posters plus many other activities! Wish I would have remember to get a photo with all the post-its attached! But I do love these posters! The kids LOVED them too!!!

Just like a regular essay, students will form an opinion based thesis for this essay. Students will create a thesis that focuses on explaining the character in their novels. For this piece, they need to have summarized events from the book, quotes from the text, and cite pages/chapters that support their opinion/thesis statement. Today, we reviewed how to find a page and a passage from the book that support our thinking, We also reviewed how to summarize an event from a novel using Rules as an example.

We started brainstorming using Classroom Workshop's free Character Trait Categories handout! This handout was great because they traits are group with easily recognizable synonyms - although some of the words are not as higher level as Joanne's this handout was great for differentiation and allowed kids to work independently without me having to explain "scrupulous." The back of the handout also had sentence starters for kids who needed help getting started with their evidence statements. We modeled this in class and let our students take their own notes but students needed to use our model or the handout could use it if they needed it.

Students are looking back in books to find evidence! 

My students really got into their books today and even some of my struggling students were able to perform this task at their level! I'm excited to see the traits they choose to tomorrow that offer more evidence as to how their characters have layers! We will also be watching this short clip from Shrek! to remind ourselves that characters like onions are layered and we should be able to tell they are complex. Characters are more than just "nice" in a novel.


Don't forget to link up with Ideas by Jivey and share your opinion writing ideas!

Tried it Tuesday: Gel Highlighers

Today, I'm once again linking up with Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper for her Tried it Tuesday linky! Today, I'm sharing my "renewed" love affair with Sharpie's Gel Highlighters. Have you seen them? I actually tried them last year and sort of had a love hate relationship with them because some of my students got a hold of them and totally smashed all the tops! Ugh! So, I bought them again and thought I'd give them another try with a new round of kiddos who clearly understand that "my desk is my desk!"

In Michael Scott fashion, I thought I'd make a pro and con list.

Pros: They look like normal highlighters on the outside but when you take off the cap the normal marker tip is more like a crayon. This is great because it can't "dry out" and it doesn't smear wet ink or sharpie marker! Bonus! You also know when they are "out" because you twist them up like a crayon to use them. This is great because at least you're aware you're running low on highlighters - if that's a problem of yours. The colors are bright and noticeable - so you don't have to compromise on your color. Sharpie doesn't disappoint! You can also find them at any office supply store like Office Max. I've also seen them at Target and Walmart.

Cons: The cons are, of course, the can get crushed and flattened than then make uneven marks. However, I do love that the yellow still looks yellow and does not take on other colors. My only wish is that were were more colors. I miss purple. Right now there are only five colors. They are also more expensive than your average highlighter. So make sure they are kept in your teacher toolbox away from the kiddos!

Can't wait to see what you tried this week!

America Before & After Explorers

Last week was a black hole... I wasn't able to get much of anything accomplished let alone time to blog! Our parent curriculum night was a success and thankfully we are nearly done with conferences. After Wednesday night, I'm in the home stretch! Whew! I just wanted to catch up with the blogging world and share a Social Studies activity we're working on this week...

We just took our Native American test last week, so this week we're moving on to European explorers. With our new learning standards from the state of Ohio, we don't teach an entire unit on explorers anymore in fifth grade. Our "I Can's" really focus on the cultural impacts of explorers. For example, place names, foods, words in our language, etc. Much of the "history" has really been passed down to fourth grade. However, before we get into our regional studies and how explorers impacted various regions of the country - students do need reminding that Europeans came to America. So, we're spending this week doing a brief overview of explorers.

We're going to read Encounter by Jane Yolen and watch the National Geographic documentary America Before Columbus. For Encounter I share optical illusions and discuss how history often has two sides. We look at how if we look at history from different points of view we can see different things. The students love this connection and the book, too!

Then, over the next two days students watch the documentary America Before Columbus in two parts. They look at life for Native Americans before European explorers and after European explorers.

Students complete a handout as they watch the video to get down some key ideas.Our public library has a free copy to check out but Amazon and National Geographic both have copies for sale.

Video Caution:
** The total documentary is 90 minutes in length and would be appropriate for 5th graders and up. There is a part about some of the disease that were spread but it does not go into graphic detail but it does mention some of the diseases that were spread in brothels. It has been on the National Geographic channel. You can fast forward or just choose to "not explain" that scene. It's less than 20 seconds and goes into no detail with students. As always, watch the video first and make sure it's suitable for your group of kiddos!
  
We're ending the week with some cultural stations. Students will be looking at language, food, places, and architecture influenced by Spanish, French, and English explorers. I'll post a separate link up about our stations after we complete them this Friday! 

I'm linking up with Diane from Fifth in the Middle's Explorer Linky Party! Can't wait to see some other great explorer activities!  Hope everyone has a wonderful October week!

It's Currently October!

It's time once again to link up with Farley from Oh, Boy Fourth Grade to share October's Currently! Where did Septemeber go... really?! This week has been super busy with morning conferences and a curriculum night / open house night for our parents! I'm exhausted! But, my students are rock stars! They are nearly done with their first writing piece - a personal essay! We are also working on a prefix unit and our mentor sentences which are going over extra-fantastic (we studied the hyphens linking adjectives today). Plus, Cynthia Lord comes to our school to talk about Rules in less than two weeks! It's so exciting!

Here's what else is new for October...

So, I've probably been living under a rock but if you don't have the Cuptakes app. It does cost - but it is only .99cents!  It's so much pretty for your phone!  There are 300+ background and screensavers plus they have rotating monthly calendars as well. Here's a few of my favorites from October....

I just love fall!

Thank Goodness It's Five for Friday!

I'm keeping this Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching highly visual this week because I'm flat out exhausted! I forgot to get my breakfast out of my microwave today - yeah, it's that kind of day! Actually, it's been one of those weeks.... whew!!!....

My second bell finally finished their mosaics yesterday! Some of their projects turned out really, really well! This one from the Southeast was one of my favorites because of the American Indian in the chickee with his deer skin leggins. Love it! I felt bad that none of their projects were able to be featured in my blog post about American Indian mosaics but that's what happens when you write a scheduled post! So, here's one from that class so they're not left out! Check out that post here to learn more!

O-H-I-O! Let's GO BUCKEYES! Today, was Ohio State spirit day at school. The kids wore red and gray were really getting into it. I love that our principal really gets the kids excited about different events and gets the teachers excited too! I still {heart} spirit days!

We worked on finding evidence to support our thinking in Reader's Workshop this week. I think my fifth graders did a stellar job! Look at all this textual evidence....

We had library this week! It's amazing how engrossed 53 students can be during a book talk! It warms my heart so I just had to share this happy teacher moment! They were hearing parts from the book Homer Price.

My workshop charts are certainly growing although I haven't been keeping up with them as much as I should... But, I did add two about personal essays (they're on another wall) and one about "What good readers do?" this week! So I felt pretty good about that!

Hope everyone has a great Friday,