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Sunday, November 16, 2014

Going, Going, Gone? Book Clubs & Science Stations

Going, going, gone....where has this weekend gone?  I cannot believe Monday is almost here!  I am looking forward to Thanksgiving break, only a week and two days!  Yahooo! 

I have had a hard time coming up with something to blog about lately and then I had an idea or maybe I am avoiding doing school stuff.  Nah me? Never:)  My book clubs that I do during my 40 minutes of reading.  This month we have been reading mysteries (last month was realistic fiction).

 I gave my kids a choice of 4 different books....Westing Game, Library Card,  Bunnicula  and Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil Frankweiler.  The top three were Westing Game (high group),  Library Card (middle group),  and Bunnicula (needs support group).  We have been working on a literature circle packet from French Frenzy TpT store. It is a great buy which includes the different literature circle roles worksheets, a tic-tac-toe board for the final project, rubric and self-evaluation form.  I really love it and the kids have too!

I also have downloaded Bunnicula and Westing Game to the Audible ipad app.  For some strange reason I could not find an audio book for Library Card so I recorded myself reading the book on the ipad ( I hate listening to a recording of myself but what we do for our students.)  and the kids then listen to the book on the ipad or my phone. Each day they listen to a chapter or two then complete a page in the reading portfolio.  The next day they share their role with their group.  The kids have really enjoyed these books. 

We are going to take a short break from book clubs between Thanksgiving and Christmas and do more of a guided reading with  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.   On the AR Book Finder site they list the book level as a 5.1 which is a little high for some of my middle and needs support readers but I think if I add some extra support they should be okay.  Just think of the fun activities we can do.... LOOOOOVE!


Then in my fourth grade science class we have been working with states of matter and chemical and physical changes. So tomorrow we are going to do science stations.

Station 1 - Chemical & Physical Change Sort - The kids are given cards with different changes that they sort into the two categories and then record them on the lab sheet.  I don't have the link for the cards anymore and have made copies of the master I downloaded years ago:(

Station 2 - Read a states of matter article with their group and then answer comprehension questions about the article which I found on Readworks.org

Station 3 - In this station the kids watch a balloon inflated by baking soda and vinegar and explain if it is a chemical or physical change and why.

Station 4 - I posted on my Google Classrooms two online states of matter games from BBC for kids site - the Changing States and Irreversible or Reversible.

Here is my lab sheet I will have the kids use to go through the stations. 
 
 
What are you doing fun this week?  Please leave a comment or two. I LOVE comments.  Have a great week everybody! Thanksgiving is almost here!



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