Mr. Salsich's Class
Third Grade Explorations in Learning
Archive for Reading
The results are in from round 4 of our poetry tournament, and the winner was… Jabberwocky!
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So we now have our Final Four poems to decide which will be the champion of the whole tournament.
The final poems are: Monster Mothers read by Piper, Mosquito read by Wynn, Jabberwocky read by Sean, and Smart read by Nora.
Here they are. Listen and then vote for your choice of which one should be the champion poem for 2013.
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Which poem did you pick? Why?
What was your favorite thing about our Poetry madness tournament?
Do you have a poem of your own to share? If so, leave it as a comment!
The polls have closed for Round 3 of our poetry tournament, and the winner is Smart!
We had a total of 78 votes and 38 of them (49%) were for Smart. Weather was in second place with 21 votes.
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Now it’s time for round 4 to see which is the final poem to join Monster Mothers, Mosquito, and Smart in the final four!
Here are the next four poems to vote on. They are read by Maddie & Cayla, Sean, Daniela, and Trey:
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Which poem did you vote for this week? Why?
How was our reading?
(This post was originally posted on the collaborative blog Our World Our Numbers. Be sure to visit that blog for lots of great posts from elementary classes around the world.)
In Mr. Salsich’s class, we have really enjoyed all the great posts about animals from around the world on Our World Our Numbers over the last few weeks!
We wanted to add a post about some animals from Connecticut, but couldn’t decide on which local animals to talk about (there are so many!) So we decided to share information about our state mammal, the sperm whale, even though we don’t really see them here in Connecticut.
Some sperm whale numbers
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Sperm whales are amazing animals. They aren’t the biggest whales in the world (the blue whale is much bigger), but they are the largest of the toothed whales.
Sperm whales do hold some other “records” though;
- They have the heaviest brain of any animal (five times heavier than a human brain),
- They produce the loudest sounds of any animal, and
- They can dive deeper than any other mammal.
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We made a VoiceThread about sperm whales and the incredible number facts that help to explain them. We tried to compare some of these numbers to a typical 3rd grade student (8-9 years old). We hope you enjoy the VoiceThread!
(You can watch it in a larger format here.)
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(Sperm whales are massive, but blue whales are even bigger! Here is a link to an amazing interactive about blue whales from national Geographic.)
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What was the most interesting fact you learned about sperm whales?
If a blue whale weighs over 200 tons, how much heavier than a sperm whale are they? About how many sperm whales would it take to equal that weight? About how many African elephants would it take to equal that weight?
A blue whale can be 100 feet long. How many sperm whales would it take to equal that length?
Do you know any other interesting information about whales?
The polls have closed for Round 2 of our poetry tournament, and the winner is Mosquito!
We had a total of 86 votes and 47 of them (55%) were for Mosquito.
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Now it’s time for round 3 to see which is the next poem to join Monster Mothers and Mosquito in the final four!
Here are the next four poems to vote on. They are read by Nora, Kali, Grant, and Natalia:
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Which poem did you vote for this week? Why?
How was our reading?
The results are in from Round 1 of our poetry tournament, and the winner is: Monster Mothers! Thank you to everyone that voted. We had a total of 56 votes and 32 of them were for Monster Mothers.
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During Poetry Madness we have been working on reading with fluency. Poetry is a great way to practice fluent reading. Reading fluently means:
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Reading smoothly at the right PACE – not too slow, not too fast, and not choppy.
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Reading with EXPRESSION – changing your voice to make the reading sound interesting.
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Paying attention to PUNCTUATION -stopping at periods, slowing down at commas and line breaks, and sounding excited at exclamation points.
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Reading with good PHRASING – make the reading sound like natural talking.
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This week we have four new poems to vote on. They are read by Alicia, Bennett, Wynn, and Sophia.
Which poem will join Monster Mothers in the final four? You decide! Have a listen and then vote for your choice.
Which poem did you choose? Why?
How was our reading?
Do you have a favorite poet or poem that we might enjoy?
Every March in the USA there is a college basketball tournament. It has the nickname “March Madness” because it is always action-packed and full of excitement.
We have our own version of March Madness, but instead of basketball teams, we have a tournament of poems! We call it “Poetry Madness.”
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This is how it works: There are 16 poems in the tournament. Every day Mr. Salsich reads two poems and the students privately vote to see which poem is more popular. The winner moves onto the next round and the loser is out of the tournament. After the first round, we will get down to 8 poems, then 4, then 2, and finally we will crown the champion poem.
You can help us vote!
We want to have our families, friends, and blogging buddies be able to vote for their favorite poems too. So, each week we will record four poems from the tournament and ask visitors to vote for their favorite one. The most popular poem will advance to the next round. After four weeks we will have the “Final Four” most popular poems. Then these will face off against each other to see who is the champion poem of 2013.
Round One
Here are the first four poems to vote for, read by Brendan, Piper, Cole and Sandy:
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Which poem did you choose? Why?
How was our reading?
If you have written a poem you would like to share with us, please write it in the comments.
We have been learning about the importance of reading fluently.
This means to read smoothly, at the right pace, paying attention to punctuation, and with the right expression. Reading with fluency is very important for reading comprehension.
A great way to practice reading fluently is with Reader’s Theater scripts. Reader’s Theater scripts are kind of like scripts for a play, but instead of acting the parts out, the readers have to use their voices to bring the reading to life. They are fun for the readers, but also for people who are reading along in their head.
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the Wayside School books by Louis Sachar
Below is our performance of a Reader’s Theater script from the book Wayside School is Falling Down by the hilarious author Louis Sachar.
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If you enjoyed this reader’s theater performance, you might like our previous ones about Wayside School also; Joe Learns to Count and Miss Zarves, or this fractured fairy tale – Don’t Mess With Red Riding Hood.
The Wayside School books are very strange and very humorous. If you like these kind of books, give them a read, you will be laughing for sure!
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How was our reading?
What did you think of the story? What were some humorous parts?
Did Mrs. Jewls use technology in an appropriate way?
Today we started practicing for the World Education Games, which will officially take place March 5-7.
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Every year students from all over the world compete in friendly, 60 second competitions of math, spelling, and science. It is a great way to get faster at math, spelling, and keyboarding – and it is a lot of fun!
Competing against students near and far
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When we played today we played against students from as far away as Nigeria and Hungary, but we also played against some of our friends right in the classroom!
playing against friends
Victory!
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It will be fun to have practice games, and the real thing on March 6, 7, and 8 will be very exciting. Last year 5.9 million students from over 235 countries combined to correctly answer 293,571,830 math questions! Wow! How many will we answer this year?
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Since part of the fun is seeing what country you will be playing against, we will keep track of the countries we have played against in the comments.
Click here (or in the Learning Links) to visit the website and login to compete with students all over the world.
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What do you enjoy about playing the World Education Games?
What countries have you competed against?
We have been learning how to share our ideas about reading through writing. Being able to explain our ideas to others through writing is very important.
Below is a video with tips for how to answer “reading comprehension” questions. These questions want you to show that you understand what you read, and to explain your ideas about the reading.
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Here are the five steps that can help you answer reading comprehension questions:
R-R-D-D-R
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Now that we have gone over the steps, let’s listen to the story Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox using the fantastic website Storyline Online and try to answer some questions.
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After you have listened to the story, try to answer one of these reading comprehension questions using R-R-D-D-R.
(Of course, you can just leave a comment about our video if you’d prefer!)
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1. Do you think Wilfred Gordon can be described as caring ? Why or why not? Explain your answer using evidence from the story.
2. Which character in the story would you like to know, and why? Use details from the text to support your answer.
3. How did Miss Nancy feel when Wilfred brought her the basket? Using information from the text, write a brief description of how she felt.
(Leave your answer in a comment below, or just leave us a regular comment.)
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What was your favorite part of the video?
Do you have any other tips for answering reading questions?
Besides school assignments, why is it important to be able to explain your ideas in writing?
Every year around Halloween the third grade students at our school dress up for Book Character Day. Because of Hurricane Sandy, we missed school the week of Halloween. So, we had to reschedule Book Character Day to November 16th.
The students can dress up as one of their favorite characters from a book that they have read. Then they write down five clues about the character to see if others can guess who they are.
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Here is a slideshow of some of the costumes and clues. Can you guess who they are?
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