It’s February 1st, a month and a day from the start of my maternity leave. And things at school have kicked into high gear since New Year’s while I wind down my school year and try to fit everything in with the kids before I go. I’ll be back for 2 weeks in June, but really this is my end-of-year in a lot of ways.
Tag: 3rd grade
And I was so calm, it was great.
A lot of my bulletin boards and displays still needed to be finished, and since I can no longer easily/safely scramble on top of my bookcases like I normally would, I saved them for this week so the older kids could help. They’re so helpful, I love it. The 3rd and 4th grade classes took my “Spotlight On” bulletin board from this:
To this:
I’m still trying to decide what to make of this trailer…I see many changes from the book. And I think by now I’ve clearly established how completely in love with that story I am. As a rule I try not to obsess about changes in a film adaptation of a book as long as the film stays true to the spirit of the original and it adds to the experience. I look at them as separate things. So I’m holding my breath to see what Martin Scorcese has done with it, since every movie he’s ever made is brilliant. But if he messes up the spirit of this particular book, I’m having every Hugo Cabret-lover I’ve ever taught write him angry letters.
I can’t believe the end of March is finally coming this week. It’s always such a long month, but it’s also a great time with my students, knee-deep in library projects. Here’s what’s been happening in library class this month:
My special needs classes have been reading Dr. Seuss stories, and we made these Horton ears last week.
All the 3rd grade library classes are now finished with Pt. 1 of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret. We made these character maps of our 3 main characters, talked about historical novels, and made predictions about what would happen in Pt. 2.
The kindergartners all took out books for the first time this week, we had a big checkout ceremony in each class. They were really excited.
The 1st grade classes are all up to chapter 5 of Clementine, and the 2nd graders have been learning the layout of the library. We’ve also been talking about how we pick the books we like. This week it was time for a scavenger hunt.
I finally showed this 3 minute video to all my 3rd graders this week. Adam filmed this video of me while we were wandering around Montparnasse on New Year’s Eve, and I meant to show it to the kids at the beginning of January. I’ve been reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret with them since Thanksgiving. But then I got sick, then I had to catch up, then we had snow days. So this week I showed it to all of my 3rd grade classes, and it was a big hit. It took 15 minutes to watch the video because we paused it a lot so they could ask questions.
Read more on My Paris Video for The Invention of Hugo Cabret…
Okay, actually the 4th and 5th graders just got a refresher on this in October before moving on to learn Google Earth (which I’ll talk about next month). They’re old hands at it now.
Read more on This Month With 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade: Using the Catalog and Dewey Decimal System…