Lilly, Lilly, Lilly

We began our Kevin Henkes author study last week by reading four of his books featuring the indomitable Lilly.  Lilly is one of the great characters in children's literature; she's a bit full of herself; she's impatient; she fearless; she's fun.  In short, she's just likable, and our students really felt they could relate to how "real" she seemed as a character.  We talked a lot this week about how Kevin Henkes gets his ideas for the stories he writes.  Because he is inspired by snippets of actual experiences he's noticed in his daily life, his characters are believable and meaningful for children.

As we explored Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Lilly's Big Day, Julius, Baby of the World, and Chester's Way, we talked about Lilly's character traits and how she changes in each story.  We also made text to text and personal connections as we read.  Tomorrow we will make a Lilly's Great Big Character Trait web linking those traits and evidence from the four stories.  Students will also be writing about whether they would like Lilly as a friend based on our reading.

Last week, students wrote letters to Lilly giving her advice about how she could treat her baby brother, Julius, better.  I was really impressed with the level of thinking and the connections students made in their writing!

We've begun our poetry unit in Writer's Workshop.  The children are not only exploring all sorts of poems and learning about poetic language, they're beginning to write some great poetry of their own.

In math, we began learning about fractions.  We made "personal pizzas" and decorated them with delicious toppings.  We also used jelly beans to figure out how to equally divide portions among various groups of students.  It's always fun when you can eat your math manipulatives when the lesson is finished!

Later this week, in science, we'll be exploring meal worms and ladybugs--yes...real ones!

Thank you to everyone who brought in tissues last week!  We sure did need them!