Quote of the Day: “Mrs. Rupp, look at how many multiple sources we are using!”
Today, we continued our read aloud of Goodbye Vietnam, learning more about Mai, her family, and her village. We made it to “Part 2: The Journey,” which described the secret departure from her home… a home that had been in her family for generations. In this section of the book, the author revealed a number of struggles caused by the move and allowed us to consider connections, changes, and perspectives related to those struggles. Grandmother’s stubbornness was a focus of some discussion. As the family entered the town of Go Cong, they (and we) encountered a suspenseful moment. For the first time, Grandmother’s stubbornness was helpful.
Reflect: How does one’s character or character traits relate to struggle and survival? (Scholars… consider different points of view!)
The following video is from a market in Go Cong taken during Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year).
(Note: the description of the video provides a bit more information about Tet).
Multiple Sources
After reading, we put our hands to writing. Since it was the 100th day of school, we enthusiastically embraced today’s writing challenge… writing a collaborative 100-sentence story. Students, working in groups of 4 or 5, took turns (sentence by sentence) drafting a 100-sentence story. Writers had the option to draft on paper or on a Google doc. And, groups could decide to focus on one story or craft 4 or 5 collaborative stories simultaneously. The energy and engagement for this activity was high. In addition, students naturally initiated thoughtful writing conversations about the effectiveness of hooks, word choice, figurative language, character development, plot development, and conventions (spelling and punctuation).
This afternoon, we spent some time reading independently in order to build up our reading stamina and apply some of the strategies we have been learning about. Scholarly readers:
- preview and predict
- monitor comprehension and clarify understanding (pause and ponder, tackle tricky words, reread)
- generate questions (about the text and about the author’s purpose and intent)
- make inferences (prior knowledge + text evidence = inference)
- envision / visualize (brain crossing)
- make connections (to self, to other texts, to the world)
- consider text structure (use graphic organizers)
- synthesize / summarize (SWBST)
- think about thinking (metacognition)
- evaluate (determine importance)
Phew… reading is a complex activity that requires a W I D E variety of skills and strategies.
- Which skill or strategy allows your to soar as a reader?
- Which skill or strategy do you struggle with… and how can that struggle make you a stronger reader?
We finished our week by completing a multiple source for measurement. This tool will be very useful in the week ahead as we apply our knowledge to a variety of problems.
Multiple Source: Math is Fun – Measurement Index
Our 100th day of school ended with a flourish this Friday as we celebrated Jessica’s birthday. Jessica herself baked a beautiful batch of chocolate cupcakes to share with icing and sprinkles to add some sparkle. We are grateful that her mom was able to join us in celebrating the joy that is Jessica!
