Ready to Go Lessons: Reading & Writing Grade 3

This text is a little advanced for my 3rd. graders, but these neatly organized lessons are excellent inspiration! It's always good to have an extra lesson plan on hand.

English: Grades 3-4

Review! Review! Review! English provides great homework sheets for structure and parts of speech.

Journal Writing: Primary

- Journal Cover Templates
- Cross-content area writing Prompts
- Penmanship

Grammar, Usage & Mechanics

Day 7: The 20 day count down to the CRCT is on! Test prep is the name of the game for my 3rd.-5th graders. The following few posts are for all you diligent students and teachers, honing your test-taking craft. 

P.S.

Is it just me, or should there be a comma after "usage"? The title is clearly a list of items. 

It's Ok to Be Different

I'll admit that I wasn't exactly thrilled about this colorful picture book on first read. However, I did find it exceedingly entertaining, engaging, and thought provoking. My kindergarteners reactions where the clincher though.
"It's ok to be large"
      "He's fat!"

"It's ok to be missing a tooth (or two or three)"
     "I haven't lost any teeth. I'm so mad."

"It's ok to have different nose."
     "Ewww!!!"

Now, doesn't this sound like a good time for a discussion on appreciating differences?

About Insects: A Guide for Children

Wonderful instructional text for children! No gross photos either. My kindergarteners appreciated that.Cathryn and John Sill form an excellent team to communicate basic life science through text and detailed illustrations. It's amazing how much information you can gather from a realistic illustration.

March Daily Comprehension

Happy St. Patty's! I wish I had a more exciting book to post today. Remedia Publications's March is a great way to incorporate reading with the content area social studies. Each daily reading covers an event or person in history. Cultivating a habit of  remembering has far reaching benefits for all readers.

Teaching Listening Comprehension

Penny Ur. What would TESOL do without you?

The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics

In honor of Heather Momand, who is reading Mere Christianity for the first time. C.S. Lewis has profoundly influenced me from childhood to adolescents to adulthood. He writes the truth in all it's severity.
This compilation includes:
Mere Christianity - This one alone perhaps qualifies Lewis as a modern church father.
The Screwtape Letters -Always new. Spiritual warfare is never more compelling than in the narrative style of a personal correspondence. I've read it twice and still look forward to the next reading.
The Great Divorce - Still working on this one
The Problem of Pain - Ouch, talk about convicting
Miracles -Yet to read
A Grief Observed - Raw.Must read for all who wish to walk alongside those who are grieving.
The Abolition of Man - Hm, not gotten to this one either. Bring it!

Chocolat

Chocolat = the perfect Lenten read. What better time to read about a sleeply, legalistic country villages gustatory rebirth? Vianne takes on the reigning patriarch by opening up a chocolaterie about this exact time. The very devout patriarch forbids the townspeople from patronizing Vianne's shop, but her secret chocolate recipes have a way of reeling-in even the most pious.

 When Joanne Harris' book has been made into a movie and published in multiple languages. Though the book takes place in France, it was originally written in English. I bought the French translation several years ago and am still working on it.

I Love You Like Crazy Cakes

Rose Lewis wrote this touching picture book about her daughter Alexandra's adoption story. The tale begins in a large nursery in China. Cribs full of baby girls without mommies line the room in
neat rows. Lewis notes that there was something missing, then takes readers across the ocean and into her American home, where something was missing as well. Retelling Alexandra's adoption journey, Lewis invites readers to peek over her shoulder as she writes the Chinese government regarding adoption; feel the exhaustion of Lewis' plan ride to China to meet her daughter, and rejoice back at home in the U.S. with her new family. Jane Dyer's colorful illustrations capture the wonder and deep emotion of this family's first bonding moments.


My baby sister turns 17 tomorrow. I can remember the decision to adopt her and her older sister. I was only six, and the thought of having younger siblings was both exhilarating and alarming. Besides being the cutest baby with a basketball stomach (she came to us with a belly full of parasites) and bowed legs, she was also a screamer. Waking up to her endless crying (until my twin went to calm her down) became routine as she transitioned from baby to toddler. She's not a baby anymore, and I'm so grateful I was able to watch her grow into the young woman she is today. Her life has shaped mine in so many ways, it's difficult to imagine who I would be today without her in my life. Happy Birthday, Dear!

Reading Level from Lexile: AD550L 

Oxford Picture Dictionary

Career Day took place at my elementary school today. Speaking of careers, the Oxford picture dictionary has a comprehensive (though not exhaustive) list. It's a great text for extra vocab study.

Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope

March 10th is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Ana's story is speaks directly to women, particularly the rising generation. Ana was born with HIV, an odd thing for a child to wrap their mind around. Jenna Bush Hager  (President Bush's daughter) retells Ana's narrative of growing up as an orphan in Latin America, sexual and physical abuse, teenage pregnancy, and the unforeseen hope which emerged as a result. Ana's Story brings home the AIDS pandemic while empowering readers with the courage to live positively regardless of the circumstances. 

The Jesus I Never Knew

Jesus. Who was he? Who IS HE? Outside of the Bible, Yancey's book has influenced my thoughts on Jesus of Nazareth more than any other work. I believe you can never fully knew Jesus, because his character is infinite. But I am absolutely confident that the act of knowing him is the meaning and source of life.

Here's a snippet from the Amazon review:
"In The Jesus I Never Knew, Yancey explores the life of Jesus, as he explains, "'from below,' to grasp as best I can what it must have been like to observe in person the extraordinary events unfolding in Galilee and Judea" as Jesus traveled and taught. Yancey examines three fundamental questions: who Jesus was, why he came, and what he left behind. Step by step, scene by scene, Yancey probes the culture into which Jesus was born and grew to adulthood; his character and mission; his teachings and miracles; his legacy--not just as history has told it, but as he himself intended it to be."

Sound and Sense

Happy National Poetry Month! Perrine truly did introduce me to the world of poetry. I credit my appreciation for John Donne to this textbook. Here's one of the poems I committed to memory senior year:

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God

BY JOHN DONNE

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Words and More Words: A Reference Book for Young Writers

My fifth graders wrote the Georgia 5th Grade Writing Assessment last Friday This week we're testing through Thursday...in order to get ready for the CRCT Test in May! It never ceases to amaze me how test-driven the Public School System has become. I can count on one hand the number of standardized test I took K-12. The total amount is less than what the average fifth grader takes in school year these days! No worries, you writers -- Babs got your back.  Mrs. Bell's rhyming word's dictionary is a unique feature that contributes to the resourcefulness of this handy text.

Ages 9-11

The Hidden Alphabet

Who knew that ABCs could be such fun? Each page of Laura Vaccaro Seeger's text is a visual adventure. I may have enjoyed this delightful sensory experience more than my kindergarteners!

On each page, there is a top layer with a shape cut out to reveal an image associated with a word beginning with the specific letter (i.e. arrowhead for a). 

The reader lifts up the flap to reveal the entire letter, of which the first image is just one part. Seeger did the creative illustrations herself. Props. Here's a link to the flash version of the whole book. It's hard to explain, but  understand how tantalizing it is when you see it.  

Maniac Magee

He's a kid on the run. This orphan-turned-miracle-worker leaves no life untouched, especially the racially divided community in small town America. I like the way Publishers Weekly reviewed it:

Publishers Weekly

In this modern-day tall tale, Spinelli ( Dump Days ; Jason and Marceline ) presents a humorous yet poignant look at the issue of race relations, a rare topic for a work aimed at middle readers. Orphaned as an infant, Jerry Magee is reared by his feuding aunt and uncle until he runs away at age eight. He finds his way to Two Mills, Pa., where the legend of ``Maniac'' Magee begins after he scores major upsets against Brian Denehy, the star high school football player, and Little League tough guy, John McNab. In racially divided Two Mills, the Beales, a black family, take Maniac in, but despite his local fame, community pressure forces him out and he returns to living at the zoo. Park groundskeeper Grayson next cares for the boy, but the old man dies and Maniac moves into the squalid home of the McNabs, who are convinced a race war is imminent. After a showdown with his nemesis, Mars Bar, Maniac bridges the gap between the two sides of town and finally finds a home. Full of snappy street-talk cadences, this off-the-wall yarn will give readers of all colors plenty of food for thought. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)

Reading Level from Lexile: 0820L

I Thought My Soul Would Rise: The Diary of Patsy, a Freed Girl, Mars Bluff, South Carolina, 1865 (Dear America Series)

Can I just say how much I love the Dear America Diary series? For the die-hard curious (or ultimate snoop) such as myself, there's nothing like being able page through someone's innermost thoughts. That's not all -- story's such as Patsy's offer a life-like glimpse into the past.  Did I mention that next to English/Language Arts, Social Studies is my favorite subject? Oh Dear America, you do both so well!

Joyce Hansen is a wonderful fiction and non-fiction writer. She infuses her works with a since of hope, carrying the theme across centuries and culture.

Fallen Angels

Rotting feet. Sticky forehead, arms, legs, and back. Haunting screams. Devastating visions. Walter Dean Meyers brings the Vietnam war into the present in the this tale about a young Black man's service. I tasted, felt, heard, and smelled the battle when I first read Fallen Angels. Well chosen words convey the bitterness of war more profoundly than any movie ever could.


Reading Level from Lexile: 650L

Zora's Cry

Adoption. Orphanhood. Adulthood. Essence Bestselling Author Tia McCollors delves into these weighted themes into a moving narrative. Tia, a young woman grieving the recent death of her parents, uncovers a life-altering secret that sends her fragile world into whirl. This book isn't really for kids. But it's appropriate for those adult ELLs who happen to be in high school.