Posts tagged ‘diagrams’
108. Who Eats What? Food Chains and Food Webs by Patricia Lauber
Retell: This book explains how energy flows within food chains and food webs. It also describes the importance of plant life.
Topics: food chains, food webs, interconnectedness, plants, animals, endangered species, ecology
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: envisionment, determining importance, interpretation, reading text features
Writing Skills: including diagrams to illustrate an idea
My Thoughts: Though our food chain unit is a few months away, I’m on the search for future read alouds. This is a great, straight-forward text for introducing food chains and food webs. I like the diagrams throughout the text. This would be a great text to read to introduce the idea of a diagram. After reading the text aloud, students could make food webs of their breakfast or lunch that day.
103. Steam, Smoke, and Steel: Back in Time with Trains by Patrick O’Brien
Retell: This is a history of trains told from the perspective of a boy who comes from a long line of engineers.
Topics: trains, generations, generators, steam engines, family
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: envisionment, monitoring for sense, determining importance, reading diagrams
My Thoughts: Though I probably won’t have time to teach a unit on industrialization this year, I think I will just have to insert this book into my read aloud plans anyway. Though my class isn’t studying trains at the moment, we are doing a unit in Math called, “Ages and Timelines”. During the introduction to the unit, students had a difficult time understanding the concept of a ‘great-great grandparent’. Steam, Smoke and Steel could be a book to help them understand this concept. The main character comes from a family of train engineers. As he looks back on his family’s history, the reader learns about trains from the past. His father drives a modern locomotive. His grandfather drove a diesel-electric locomotive. His great-grandmother drove a steam locomotive…you get the point.
Yesterday I attended a Social Studies workshop at Teacher’s College, and I’ve become very excited about time lines (I should probably get out more). In their workshop, Shana Frazin and Kathleen Tolan suggested that teachers should have moveable time lines in their classrooms. Students and teachers can add important events and visuals to the time line. After reading Steam, Smoke and Steel I think I may post pictures of the trains and the characters (the boy, the father, the grandfather, the great-grandmother, the great-great grandfather, etc.) in the book on the timeline. Doing this I think will help enrich students’ understanding of generations and time periods.
Now I just have to find space in my classroom…
92. Butterflies for Kiri by Cathryn Falwell
Retell: Kiri loves to paint and draw. When her Auntie Lu sends her a package of origami paper, Kiri begins teaching herself how to fold a paper butterfly. She gets to a point where her corners are supposed to match up and tears her paper. She attempts the butterfly the next day but she is scared that she will tear one of her beautiful papers. Through practice and persistence Kiri eventually folds a successful butterfly.
Topics: origami, art, paper, diagrams, how-to
Units of Study: Realistic Fiction
Tribes: personal best, appreciations/no put-downs
Habits of Mind: persisting, striving for accuracy, creating-innovating-imagining, thinking flexibly, managing impulsivity, taking responsible risks, remaining open to continuous learning
Writing Skills: including similes, making several drafts before publishing
My Thoughts: I wish I had known about this book years ago when I started a paper crane project with my fourth graders. We read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, folded 1,000 paper cranes, and sent them to a school in Japan who delivered our cranes to the peace memorial in Hiroshima. When I had started the project, I didn’t realize how difficult paper crane folding would be for that age. Some students were able to pick it up quickly while others got really frustrated with the process. Kiri teaches us how to deal with frustration. She took a break from the project, practiced with other materials, and tackled the project with new energy. Throughout this book many ‘habits of mind’ are presented. Even if you don’t plan on doing origami with your class, it’s great to read during the revising process of any Writing unit.
Teachable Texts 