Inference Game

We played a cool game online today! We all know that we use clues in the text, along with our background knowledge to come up with our inference. Well, today we were on a cool website that helped us practice this skill. Try it out at home and let me know how you did! :)
Click here to play the inference game!
Also, remember to study your commas tonight! Comma quiz tomorrow!

Making an Inference!

Today started out with a lot of fun! Mrs. Cole, Constande and Sani all performed their own skit and we had to infer what had happened to them!

Mrs. Constande was sleeping when the alarm went off. She checked the alarm and started to yell, "Sarah hurry up! Get ready! We need to call Mrs. Cole and Mrs. Sani! Hurry! Get dressed!" All of the students inferred that Mrs. Constande overslept because she set her alarm clock to the wrong time. They also inferred that she was late for work.

Mrs. Sani came out holding a dog leash and yelling, "Hayden! Ferris! Did you leave the door open again? Oh no! Georgia! Georgia! Oh no!" and she began to cry. The students inferred that Mrs. Sani's dog had ran out of the house because her children left the door open. They also inferred that Mrs. Sani loves her dog because she was crying when she found out that Georgia was missing.

Finally, Mrs. Cole came out with a map and looked so confused! She was looking everywhere. She said, "Ok, I am at the Statue and Liberty and I need to get to the Empire State building....oh no....um?" The students inferred that Mrs. Cole was lost in New York City. They also inferred that she did not live there, she was visiting because she would know where those places were if she lived there.

After we went over the definition of and inference, the students read the passage below at their seats and answered the question by making an inference.

Their final inference was that the pot was on a shelf by a window. They used the the clues from the story and their own background knowledge to infer where the flowerpot was kept.

Have you made any more inferences with your reading at home? Leave a comment and let us know!

Spelling City

Do you need a little help with spelling words? We would like to introduce you to a cool website that we love the students to use! It is www.spellingcity.com. Once you get to the website, click on the bar at the top that says "Find A List", then in the "search by" field enter "Victoria Cole". Lists should appear from this week and previous weeks. You can choose view, test me, teach me, play a game or print. The students absolutely love this website and it is a fun way for them to study without even knowing it!

Publishing Party!

What a fun day today! We have been working so hard on "growing" our seed ideas into stories and we have finally finished our first piece of writing. We started out with our seed ideas...

began our rough draft in our writing journals...

wrote our first draft on our yellow drafting paper, making sure we have a beginning, middle and end and also editing for spelling... and finally we polished and published our writing pieces on this beautiful publishing paper!

Today was a celebration of all our hard work. We each got to read our writing to the class while we sipped on punch and ate pretzels for our publishing party! We also responded to one of our friend's stories and wrote what we liked about it. We brought our responses home to share with our parents!

We can't wait for you to come and read our work at Open House; Thursday, September 24th at 6:30. See you there!

14 Cows for America

September's Book of the Month is, 14 Cows for America, by Carmen Agra Deedy. It tells the story of the Maasai tribe in Kenya, and the wonderful gift they gave America after hearing about the horrible tragedy of September 11th.

Ask your child to share the story with you!

After we finished the book we talked about tangible (touchable) and intangible (not touchable) things. Here are the lists that we came up with:

Once we thought of tangible and intangible things, we wrote beautiful metaphors that the book helped us with. In the book it says, "To Maasai, the cow is life." Leave a comment and show us the metaphor that you came up with!

We also talked about how different cultures have different things that are important to them. For example, the Maasai have cows and this is one of the most important things in their life. So, we took a trip around the world with Google Earth and learned about what are important in other cultures. We stopped in Argentina where they need shoes, Kenya where they love and respect cows, China who take great care of their water buffalo and the Philippines, where they take great pride in having a water pump. Click on the word "Google Earth" above to take your parents on the same trip that we went on today!

What writers write about...

We have been having so much fun in Writers' Workshop this week! We brought in shoeboxes full of items that gave us stories and helped us come up with "seed" ideas. A seed idea is a small idea that can grow into a beautiful story (just like a real seed can grow into a beautiful flower!).

We got into groups and told our stories "in the air" before we sat down and started to write.

Next, we came up with a looooong list of seed ideas that we can write about all year long!

What Writers Write About:

· toys

· spending time with relatives

· firsts

· friends

· pets

· vacations

· shopping

· birthdays

· places- the beach

· famous people

· family heirlooms

· gifts

· hobbies

· traditions- family celebrations- holidays

· crafts

· emotions

· getting in trouble

· jewelry

· embarrassing moments

Now we'll never hear, "Mrs. Constande! Mrs. Cole! Mrs. Sani! I don't know what to write about!" because we have soooo many seed ideas right on the front page of our writing journal! Comment on this post and let us know of more seed ideas that you came up with for homework! Happy writing! :)

Inside Readers' & Writers' Workshop

So, what does Readers' and Writers' workshop look like? Well, if you have been wondering about this, we can help you out! The students of Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Constande and Mrs. Sani's third grade ELA class had mini-lessons about what to expect during Readers' Workshop and what to expect during Writers' Workshop. Here is a list of what we came up with: Readers' Workshop

• Teachers leading mini-lesson
• Students engaged in active involvement
• Students sharing their thoughts
• Work Period
• -Students reading independently
• -Students reading with a partner
• -Students reading with a small group
• -Students working with a teacher in a small group
• -Students having one on one conferencing with a teacher
• Students listening to a read aloud
• Students discussing a read aloud
• Closing Meeting- share what you have learned

Writers' Workshop

A. Opening Lesson

• Teacherteaches mini-lesson
• Teacher shares writing
• Students share writing
• Teacher reads read aloud
• Students participate in active involvement

B. Work Period

• Students write independently
• Students write with peer
• Students write in small group
• Teacher meets with small group
• Teacher conferences with child one on one

C. Closing Meeting

• Teacher selects studetns to share work that focuses on skills or strategy from mini-lesson

Check out our Readers' Workshop Overview to study for our quiz on Readers' Workshop that we will be having this Friday!

**One last quick note! We will be having a "mini-quiz" on proper nouns tomorrow. If you want some extra paractice, click here to play this fun game online!