Liam and I read chapter 18 in his book and together we identified similes and metaphors in the chapter. I pointed out the clever way that the author, Sachar, conveyed the protagonist's feelings by 'projecting' his own thoughts onto the other characters, and we identified the feelings we thought the characters were experiencing.
Today we read a Christmas story called, "The Clumsy Elf." We used context clues to determine the meaning of new words. We also worked on foreshadowing to determine what might happen next.
Liam reviewed the cell theory and who came up with this idea. He wrote notes in his notebook about the origins of this theory and the scientists who came up with it. He reviewed the plant and animal cell structure. He learned about specialized cells.
Liam and I read the next chapter, 16, in the book and Lima was queried about how he would react to situations that arose. We reviewed the recurrent phrases the author uses as a literary device (e.bg. leit motif), and Lima was encouraged to identify the phrase when they arose in the chapter (e.g., "last seat/last row). To engage him, I encouraged Liam to act out some of the roles of the protagonist in the story. He was asked if he could identify the emotions and feelings suggested by the behaviors and situations depicted. Liam was prompted to stay on the page and shown how to find where I was reading by counting the paragraphs mentioned and finding key words. He was reminded to use transitional phrases if jumping to another topic as he would respond tangentially periodically but was responsive to prompts and modeling technqiues.
We started the class with story cubes. Liam did a great job using all of the cubes to create a story. Story cubes help with critical thinking and imagination. We then watched a Pixar short called "Pigeons" to learn how to make inferences. We applied this knowledge to a story called "Creepy Carrots."
