Learning About Compound Sentences

Adding compound sentences to your writing can make your stories and essays more interesting. 

What is a compound sentence? 

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A compound sentence:

1. Combines two shorter sentences (so has TWO subjects)
2. Joins the two sentences with a conjunction (and, or, but, so, yet, nor, and for)   The comma goes BEFORE the conjunction.

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Here is an acronym to help you remember some conjunctions: 

F A N B O Y S

(for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so)

 This image has information about WHAT each conjunction means. 

CLICK TO ENLARGE. 

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For social studies, we have been reading a book called Badger Claws of Ojai. This realistic fiction story is about a Chumash boy who wants to become a brave. To prove he is worthy, he must live in the mountains for three moons, hunt a big game animal, and complete a service project for his community. 

Here are some compound sentence examples that will tell you more about this great realistic fiction story. 

Badger Claws could go and live with his aunt and uncle, or he could try surviving in the wilderness for three moon. 

Badger Claws was a young boy, yet he was able to survive successfully in Little Matilha. 

Old Silver Tip was stalking the women and children as they collected acorns, but Badger Claws was able to save the villagers. 

*       *       *       *       *

Here are some great student examples, but they are not about Badger Claws. (Hey that's a compound sentence!) 

Abigail's example:

Lily's example:

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By Friday, leave a blog comment with at least two compound sentences! 

F A N B O Y S

(for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so)

Twitter Time: What is Red?

The object of this collaborative Twitter project is to share original poems, create colorful digital images, and publish through classroom Twitter accounts using the hashtag #clrpoem! Each week a color of the visible spectrum will be showcased!

ROY  G  BIV 

One way to remember the visible spectrum is the

ROY G BIV acronym. 

(red-orange-yellow-green-blue-*indigo-violet) 

ac·ro·nym

(ak rə nim)

noun

1. an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word
2. 
   

(*Indigo is the color between blue and violet. We might combine it with blue.) 

Teachers, YOU are invited to join our collaborative project! 

The more, the merrier!

This week, we are seeing RED! Shoot a photo of something red, compose a little poetry to complement the photo, and tweet it out! Remember, use the hashtag #clrpoem.

Consider adding your poetry to

  Mrs. Hembree's Global Poetry Unites Project.

What are some things that are red?

What are some elements of poetry? 

Wrap Up: What is Black and/or White? #ClrPoem

We just complete the first week of the Collaborative Twitter Poetry Project #ClrPoem

Check out a few of the many global contributions to 

What is Black and/or White?

☛  Texas offers a wonderful acrostic! ☚

☛ Learning Japanese from our friends in Hawaii! ☚

☛ Great poems rolling in from New York City! ☚

☛ Here are few fabulous verses from Canada!☚

☛ Open the Door to B4 from New Zealand. ☚

Great to learn some of the Maori language! 

What is your favorite type of poem?

Which poet lives the farthest away from you? 

Which poet lives closest to you? 

Next, week...What is RED? 

New Student Blog: Keys to My Life!

My third graders are starting to set up their own blogs using the GAFE platform. First, I set up a blog for the student, then I invited the student to join their own blog via an email invitation. Next, the student accepted my invitation. Because I do not want my students to use their real names, they signed in with the blogger profile. Students used a pen name so their real name would not show up on the blog. Parents are administrators too! 

Here is our first student blog!

"Smiley" would love a comment from you or even just a visit. 

A visit will give her a ClustrMap Dot!  

Keys to My Life 

Thank you, in advance, for supporting student blogging!

Join Our Twitter Poetry Project! #clrpoem

April is National Poetry Month, so let's enjoy some Twitter Poetry!

#clrpoem

Twitter is a wonderful microblogging platform to connect, share, and learn with others. You can learn a lot in 140 characters! This annual #clrpoem Twitter project incorporates color, poetry, geography, social media, science, and fun!

This week, we will start this colorful global collaborative project in an interesting way. We will start with:

 What is Black and/or White? 

When you think about color/colour, some people don't think of black or white as colors/colours. In science we learn that, a black object absorbs all the visible light and reflects none of the color to our eyes. A white object reflects all light. Let's have fun with black and white. Use silhouettes (shadows)! Use a black and white filter on your ipad! Find things that are black or white!

The object of this collaborative project is to share original poems, create colorful digital images, and publish through classroom Twitter accounts using the hashtag #clrpoem! Each week a color of the visible spectrum, plus black and white, will be showcased!

ROY  G  BIV 

One way to remember the visible spectrum is the

 ROY G BIV acronym.  

(red-orange-yellow-green-blue-*indigo-violet) 

ac·ro·nym

(ak rə nim)

noun

1. an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word
2. 
   

(*Indigo is the color between blue and violet. We will combine it with blue.) 

Teachers, YOU are invited to join our collaborative project! The more, the merrier!

A tip of the hat to Catherine Monaghan for this colorfully clever idea.


Consider adding your poetry to Mrs. Hembree's Global Poetry Unites Project.

What are some things that are black?

What are some things that are white? 

Have you ever used your black and white filter? Try it!

What are some elements of poetry? 

Couplet, triplet, or haiku,

What kind of verse can we expect from YOU? 

:-) 

Vernal Equinox ~ 2016

One sign of spring is the abundance of colorful flowers that start blooming everywhere!

Rose photo by Mrs. Yollis  

Lilac photo by Mrs. Yollis 

Poppies by Mrs. Yollis 

Pink flowers in the eucalyptus tree by Kostaki and Will 

Our tree! by Bailey and Keya 

Pink flowers popping by Karissa

The first day of spring is called the 

Vernal Equinox. 

Spring started on Saturday, March 19, 2016, at 9:30 P.M. (PDT) in southern California. It is called the Vernal Equinox. There are two times when the sun is exactly above the equator. One equinox is in September and the other is in March. Equinox means equal night and there are nearly twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night.

Here is a video from Discovery Education to

help explain the Vernal Equinox!

In addition, BrainPop offers six different informational videos about spring! 

Even Mrs. Yollis' website is blooming!

What signs of spring have you noticed?

Do you have springtime hobbies or activities?

What did you learn from the BrainPop movies? 

Charlotte's Web Collaborative Cartoons

We just finished reading Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White. To complement the book, we made a collaborative slide show. Each of the twenty-two chapters got a summary slide. Students worked in pairs to create each summary slide. Cartoons helped tell the story!

First, students picked a chapter. Then they went to Scholastic's Charlotte's Web Make-Your-Own Comic. It is fabulous!

Once there, students picked a layout. We recommend template two. 

In addition, two comic cells per slide looks best. 

There are many comic options. For example, there are characters, objects, settings, and speech bubbles. Students clicked and dragged the items that went with their chapter. The funniest item was the pile of manure that Wilbur adored to lay in. :-) 

Students took screen shots of their comic cells and then inserted the screen shots in the collaborative Google slide show. 

Behold! Our Collaborative slide show!

After learning how to make a web, we decided to make one in our room! How did we make this web?

Photo by Maddie

Which slide was your favorite?

Which character do you like the best and why?

Which character changed the most? 

If you want to be clever, leave a comment from the point-of-view of a character.  :-) Great idea, Michael.

Opinion Writing Lessons

We have been learning about opinion writing from our district writing TOSA, Mrs. Andrews. Here is what we've learned.

1. What is an opinion? How is it different than a fact?

A fact is true. A fact can be proven through research and/or by using your own eyes to verify. 

An opinion is what a person thinks or believes. It cannot be proven. When stating an opinion, it is important to have reasons to support your opinion. 

2. How should you begin writing an opinion piece? 

Mrs. Andrew recommends making a list of all the reasons that  support an opinion. Here is a surprising opinion about Disneyland with a list of reasons.

3. What should you do with your list of reasons? 

Choose your top three reasons for your opinion writing piece. The most important reason should be your last reason. 

Then come up with support sentences for your reasons. Explain your reasons. Give examples.

4. Write a first draft of your opinion.  

The easiest part for many was coming up with reasons. The hardest part was supporting each reason. Many students ended up writing a paragraph made up of reasons.

:-(

To avoid confusion, Mrs. Yollis cut up sheets of colored paper and placed them in an opinion writing center. 

OPINION SENTENCE: on green paper

REASON SENTENCES: on  yellow paper

2 SUPPORT SENTENCES: on pink paper 

CONCLUSION SENTENCE: on green paper 

Below is a photo of the opinion center box. A completed opinion piece is taped together and displayed to the right of the opinion center. Because the strips of paper could easily be taped together, revision was easy! 

For the first two opinion pieces, the topics were chosen by Mrs. Yollis. 

First opinion piece: 

Which Chris Van Allsburg book is the best? 

We had done an author study on Chris Van Allsburg, so it was a great beginning point for opinion writing. Students had one week to write a draft on the color-coded paper, type it in Google Classroom, and then revise it with help from peers and/or the teacher. Final opinion paragraphs were copied and pasted from Google Classroom to the class blog. You can read the final opinions in the comment section here.  

Second opinion piece:

The Daily 5 is great.

 That was the unanimous opinion!

As a class, we listed all the reasons to love the Daily 5.

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

Next, students wrote rough drafts using the color-coded strips. Once the color coded strips were approved by Mrs. Yollis, students went in and typed the Daily 5 opinion piece in Google Classroom. 

Students used this chart with useful words and phrases to give the opinion piece the final touches. 

This week, students will write and publish an opinion piece all on their own! Here are a few ideas that we brainstormed together.

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

What is your opinion about this opinion writing process? 

Which step is the easiest? 

Which step is the hardest?