Literary Pumpkins

Today I'd like to introduce two guest bloggers who are students in our class this year, Kara and Adrianna.  They will explain our literary pumpkin pictures to you. 

Our teacher read us the Skppyjon Jones book.  

One day we painted the pumpkins. 

We put brown on the back and white on the front.

When the paint was dry, we put whiskers, a cape, ears, and a mask on the pumpkins.  

In the book, Skippyjon Jones pretends he is El Skippito, the great sword fighter.  

Here's our class when we were done painting the pumpkins.  

The literary pumpkins are in the front lobby of the school on display.  

Fiction vs. Nonfiction

In Readers' Workshop we're learning about nonfiction text features.  What better way to explore nonfiction than to compare it to fiction?  Students worked in small groups to compare and contrast two books about a common topic - one of them in each genre.  They wrote their noticings using a venn-diagram in their reading journal.

The book on the left is clearly a fiction story.  The book on the right is nonfiction.  Students can easily identify the genre based on the title and picture on the front cover.  

This group of boys can't help but concentrate on the content of their nonfiction book!

These girls are comparing their books side by side. 

An example of student work. 

Sorting Through Our Nonfiction Library

As we begin studying nonfiction in our classroom, I challenged our students to organize the nonfiction books in our library.

First we created random piles of books all over the floor. Then we discussed the possibilities for sorting them.

I referred to Lucy Calkins and learned that students will make meaning of their world by sorting objects into categories. Second graders can do this with nonfiction books. It will help readers find materials and inspire them to explore new topics!

Students were given index cards and markers and then set out to create categories of books. They came up with animals, people, places, solar system, weather, patriotic, math, and we even discussed the need for a miscellaneous pile.

If you visit our classroom, you will see that our nonfiction books are neatly labeled in baskets all around the classroom - organized and ready for students to read!