Read with Someone is a weekly reading activity.  Students use Scholastic News, a current event magazine for children.  Each week, the children get a sneak peak of the article using a movie clip provided by Scholastic News.  Throughout the week, they read the article with a partner and complete an activity related to the article.

This week students read about rescue dogs in Italy.  These amazing dogs are used as lifeguards.  They jump out of helicopters and are able to pull multiple people to safety.  After reading this article, students had to independently choose 6 words from the article they thought supported the main idea.  Next, they shared their words and their reasoning with their partner.  Together, they narrowed the words down to 3 mutually agreed upon words.  Finally, on Friday, we met as a class and compiled each partnerships’ words into a Wordle to help us find 3 class words.  Students wrote down the 3 class words and had to explain why they thought those 3 words were the largest in our Wordle, while keeping in mind the main idea of the article.  Please check out our Wordle and feel free to create your own Wordle using the link on the right in our Blogroll section.

As part of our Opinion/Persuasive writing unit, children chose and researched endangered plants and animals.  The children wrote a petition explaining what problem(s) the animal or plant was facing, some facts about the plant or animal, and what they are hoping would happen.  Students used Google to publish their petitions, which I shared on-line via The Petition Site where people from around the world can read and sign their petitions.  Students also made posters to make our school community aware of the plants and animals they are advocating for.  Please click on the poster to read the petition and feel free to sign it.  Please vote on May 6th!