Balloons Over Broadway

Over the past few days we have been working on our own Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon activity.   We read the book, Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet. We also looked at the balloon line up for this year's parade and then created our own balloons and wrote about what kind of balloon we felt should be in the parade and why.  
Macy's Balloon Line-up

( I can't take credit for the cuteness of this project, as I got it from a teacher I follow on instagram 😂)
Here is our parade route:

New Lit Circle Books

New Literature Circle Books

With our new Lit Circle books, we are dealing a lot with empathy.   These books all connect to social situations and how to work through tough issues with friends and peers.   I picked these books to correlate with our current read aloud book.   This too, follows along the same theme.  The social emotional learning that happens alongside these books is a wonderful thing to watch unfold in the classroom. There is some mature content in these books which make it realistic and relatable.   

Our current Read Aloud 

New Lit Circle Books

Posted:  In middle school, words aren’t just words. They can be weapons. They can be gifts. The right words can win you friends or make you enemies. They can come back to haunt you. Sometimes they can change things forever.

When cell phones are banned at Branton Middle School, Frost and his friends Deedee, Wolf, and Bench come up with a new way to communicate: leaving sticky notes for each other all around the school. It catches on, and soon all the kids in school are leaving notes—though for every kind and friendly one, there is a cutting and cruel one as well.

The Revealers:  Parkland Middle School is a place the students call Darkland, because no one in it does much to stop the daily harassment of kids by other kids. 

Three bullied seventh graders use their smarts to get the better of their tormentors by starting an unofficial e-mail forum at school in which they publicize their experiences. Unexpectedly, lots of other kids come forward to confess their similar troubles, and it becomes clear that the problem at their school is bigger than anyone knew. 

The school principal wants to clamp down on the operation, which she does when the trio, in their zealousness for revenge, libel a fellow student in what turns out to have been a setup. Now a new plan of attack is needed . . .

Loser:  Just like other kids, Zinkoff rides his bike, hopes for snow days, and wants to be like his dad when he grows up. But Zinkoff also raises his hand with all the wrong answers, trips over his own feet, and falls down with laughter over a word like "Jabip."

Other kids have their own word to describe him, but Zinkoff is too busy to hear it. He doesn't know he's not like everyone else. And one winter night, Zinkoff's differences show that any name can someday become "hero."

Flying Solo:  When the substitute for Mr. "Fab" Fabiano never shows up and his sixth-grade students are on their own, they set out to prove that they can run the class by themselves. With a little ingenuity and some careful planning, they might just succeed. 

But when a fight breaks out between Bastian Fauvell and Rachel White over a classmate, Tommy Feathers, who died six months earlier, everything begins to fall apart. Can Rachel deal with the anxieties that plunged her into silence the day Tommy died? Inventive and uniquely constructed, "Flying Solo" follows Mr. Fab's students hour by hour as they tackle the challenges of an unusual school day.

Because of Mr.Terupt:   It’s the start of a new year at Snow Hill School, and seven students find themselves thrown together in Mr. Terupt’s fifth grade class. 

They don’t have much in common, and they’ve never gotten along. Not until a certain new teacher arrives and helps them to find strength inside themselves—and in each other. 

But when Mr. Terupt is out, will his students be able to remember the lessons he taught them? Or will their lives go back to the way they were before—before fifth grade and before Mr. Terupt?

                                           

Gratitude is the Attitude

This month's superpower is GRATITUDE.  We are already on a roll brainstorming on things we are grateful for.  

Spinning the wheel to find the ABC's of gratitude

Please post on the padlet below with something you are grateful for! 

Literature Circles

I am loving the conversations I overheard during the past few Lit Circle meetings.   The kids have been passionate about their feelings on the books and eager to share their ideas and takeaways.   They have been respectful while partners share and add to the discussions with meaningful comments.  

Restart

Tale of Despereaux

Because of Winn Dixie 

Shiloh

Hatchet

Sometimes they are given time to just read and catch up on their work independently and they find a nice comfy spot to read.