Crenshaw

Our fourth grade has been reading the book "Crenshaw" by Katherine Applegate.  In the book, the main character Jackson is dealing with some crazy big issues in his life as his family faces the prospect of living in their car, again.  In the meantime, Jackson's imaginary friend-- a large, surfing, jelly-bean-loving, talking cat-- has reappeared.  Jackson's not happy about this.  He's about to enter the fifth grade and has enough to deal with.  So how does he get his feline friend to go away?  And how is he going to handle the problems his family is having?

We absolutely loved this book!  It was serious with just the right amount of humor to balance it out while delving into some deep issues.  We kept a Reader Response Journal that led to some GREAT writing, and then culminated the unit with a Baggie Quilt Project where we displayed important themes, events and character traits from the book.

Just a normal old school day

It is crazy how busy a week can be when you are going back and forth between two classes...crazy and wonderful!  This week my fourth graders have been studying Economics. Aside from discussing producers and consumers, they also delved into advertising, trying to convince us to buy everything from a Dream Mobile that contained a massager and massive fish tank, to a personal minion, friend and maid! 

Then after lunch its on to the kindergarten where we were doing word family hop-scotch, adding beginning sounds to the word family endings as we jumped, and practice writing our sight words with chalk.