Book Fair by Jack M.

In the Knollwood library, there was a Book Fair from March 31st to April 4th. There was a family even on Tuesday night. People visited the Art Show, then they walked to the Book Fair. The library was full of families.

Did you know that the Book Fair is a fundraiser? Our school gets to keep some of the money from the Book Fair. Did you also know that you could get books for your teachers?

The Book Fair at Knollwood didn't have as many books as the one at Sickles, but there were plenty of good ones. One of the books I chose was Hunted, about four kids with these magic animals. Some books were so popular that they sold out, like World's Worst Monsters and Villains, and Jackpot. The Book Fair was a great event, if you didn't make it, you can come next year.

The photos in the video below were taken by Jack at the Book Fair.

Room 101's Invention Convention by Maia

This blog post is about room 101's Invention Convention. It's where all the kids in our class think of a real life problem. Then, they have to make an invention to solve that problem. It's really fun and cool to make your own invention because it solves your own problem and, it's just fun to make!

Your invention could not only help you, but it can help other people who have the same problem as you! Most of all, it's awesome to display your invention for the parents! Maybe, you could make your own invention too!

Invention Convention by Christina

Invention Convention is filled with fun and science. Invention Convention is when everyone's family comes in to see your invention. The kids have made things that they can use if they have a problem and maybe other people have the same problem. The kids have to make a speech to explain their invention.

Published Fantasy Pieces Around Fair Haven

Room 101's published fantasy pieces are hanging around town! Thanks to Jack M., Caroline, Harris, and their families for helping to hang these pieces! As always, we're so appreciative of Fair Haven businesses that are supportive of our writing work.

When you check out our fantasy pieces, be sure to scan the QR code hanging in front of each piece to hear the writer read aloud his or her "about the author." You may also want to take our pieces out (they're our most elaborated pieces so far this year) so that you can read the entire story, including the character cards or setting maps we included at the back of our pieces (most of our fantasy books had these, and we wanted to include them, too!).

Here's where you can find our pieces:

Tavolo - Ellie, Connor, Cameron, Jack S., Maia, Marcus, Megan, Harris, Lily, Lucas, Christina, Maisy, Braiden, Quinn, and James

Fairwinds - Harry, Patrick, and Caroline

River Road Books - Sophie, Jack M., Sal, and Maddie

Vocab Raps by Jack S.

Once every two Fridays, we have Vocab Raps. We get lanyards that have vocab words like grit and pessimistic. So at Lit Skills, we do raps (or songs) that have our vocab words in it and at the end, we perform them in front of the class. Hope you enjoy the videos!

The videos below include some of the vocab raps performed by our class. The first video includes footage shot by Jack S.

Book Fair by Maisy

Are you looking for a book? Have an extra 10 bucks to spare? Looking for a book and don't know where to find it? The Book Fair is the place. It's where you can find bestsellers. You can even buy books for your teachers.

The video above includes photos taken by Maisy at the Book Fair. 

Vocabulary Work

Every other week or so, we've introduced 3-5 new vocabulary words to the class. These words have been tied to our class work somehow; they may have appeared in a read aloud, been used to describe traits as learners that we're working to adopt, or are more sophisticated words to use in our writing and speaking.

When introducing new vocabulary words, we teach the definition, synonyms, and antonyms words explicitly and the students copy them in their vocabulary notebooks along with a sentence and picture for each word. Additionally, we have physical actions that we do as we say each word that help us recall the meaning of the words. We post our vocabulary word cards (pictured below) around our room. They're color-coded to show what part of speech each word is and have the synonyms in the right-hand corners and antonyms in the left-hand corners.

We've recently begun wearing a vocabulary word on Friday. Each student is given a word on a lanyard as he or she arrives Friday morning, we greet each other with our vocabulary names, and then do our best to use the words throughout the day. Our goal is that we begin to use these words more automatically in our speaking and writing and that we recognize them in our reading. 

During Lit Skills, we've spent some time working on getting to know these words more thoroughly. We've written and performed vocabulary raps, taken turns leading the class in mimicking the motion to our word, and, most recently, created short skits that show the meaning of the words.

The videos below show our most recent work with the skits inspired by tingoed.com. We used the video for "chide" on Tingo Ed for inspiration (you can watch that video here: http://www.tingoed.com/vocab-videos---chide.html). The videos show our work towards growing more comfortable with the words.

Research Celebration! by Maddie

I like to research animals because you learn more about the animal you choose. I chose frogs.

I got to learn more about frogs, like that some frogs eat other frogs! Some frogs also eat other insects or rodents.

My classmates chose a topic and for a couple weeks, we gathered ideas, facts, and things we didn't know about that topic.

My video will show my classmates' projects. Everyone included one idea from their notebook and added facts using a paragraph or boxes and bullets.

The video above includes photos and video that Maddie took during our nonfiction research celebration, during which each student shared a slide they created in a class slideshow on Google Drive. Each classmate has access to our class slideshow, and so can share it with their families at home through their Google Drive account.