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? 

Global Play Day ☼ 2016

Today, my class participated in Global School Play Day! 

Thank you to the Bedley Brothers and Twitter for introducing me to this project!  The power of a Personal Learning Network (PLN) triumphs again!

I was heavily influence to participate in #GSPD after listening to this eye opening presentation: 

The Decline of Play TED Talk from psychologist Peter Gray. 

☼     ☼     ☼     ☼     ☼

On Monday, I emailed parents, shared "The Decline of Play" video, and asked for games to be brought in for our #GSPD event. On Wednesday, we had a few curricular blocks, but we were able to have two solid play sessions. 

The sessions were sensational!

☼     ☼     ☼     ☼     ☼

First, we talked about the rules. 

There would only be ☝, the Golden Rule.

Let's play!

This was a funny Twister game! 

Jenga!

As these students were setting up the game, they used the commutative property. See it? 

Even putting this game away was fun!

Let's play Hedbanz! 

Working the loom! 

What do you notice about this game? 

How do you play? 

Look at super cool creation on her head! 

Very creative!

Learning all about the Rubix Cube! 

A fun card game played on the Twister mat! 

Dominoes, rain forest style!

It was fun to play with our Journeys buddies! They are only five years old.  

What is your opinion of Global School Play Day?

Would you recommend it?

Convince me!

Your homework was to play. What did you do with your time?

A Variety of Van Allsburgs

My class recently completed an author study. 
We read a variety of books by the author, Chris Van Allsburg. 
It was magical!

By Tim Pierce (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0
 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Compare and Contrast

As a class, we read several Van Allsburg books: The Garden of Abdul Gaszasi, Ben's Dream, The Sweetest Fig, Jumanji, A Bad Day at Riverbend, Widow's Broom, and Two Bad Ants.  After reading each book, we did a compare and contrast of each story and the illustrations included in each. We loved Van Allsburg's award-winning illustrations and delightful drawings. Some illustrations had color, while others were black and white using pen and ink. Many had a dreamlike appearance to them. 

We often found a special dog named Fritz either as a main character or hidden in the illustrations. Who is Fritz? We also saw similar images between books. For example, we saw the train from The Polar Express in Jumanji, and the kitchen from Two Bad Ants in the book Ben's Dream.

Summarize Your Favorite

After we read and discussed six Van Allsburg books, students picked their favorite picture book to  summarize. Each student was given a Google doc via  Google Classroom.  Students planned and wrote a summary on a Google Doc using the summary poster below.  

Here is one student's 


Somebody 
Wanted 
But 
So 
Then 

digital plan for Riverbend. 

Summaries

Once each student completed a summary, I grouped students together according to their favorite book. They read each other's summaries and selected the best summary to represent their group. What criteria was used to determine the best? Following the Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then format, incorporating high level vocabulary, and inserting useful phrases.   Then students made revisions and made the best summary even better!

Here are the group summaries: (Click to enlarge.)

Jumanji

Ben's Dream

A Bad Day at Riverbend

The Sweetest Fig

Two Bad Ants

The Widow's Broom

The Garden of Abdul Gasazi

Which is your favorite Van Allsburg? 
Give at least two reasons with support.

Compare (what is alike) and Contrast (what is different) your favorite book with another book. 

What illustration is the best? 
Give at least two reasons with support.