If I had my own planet like "The Little Prince"...

I read The Little Prince aloud to my 3rd grade class.  We stopped after a few chapters to do some drawing in response to their reading.  The kids might not have the life experiences to really "get" a lot of the moralistic aspects of the book, but they have enjoyed listening to it and talking about it and definitely enjoyed this activity!

I'm kind of surprised I haven't read The Little Prince before now.  It is one of the best-selling books ever, and is actually the most prolific French-language book ever.  It was written in the 1940's by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  

In the story, a pilot has crash-landed in the Sahara desert and soon meets a "most extraordinary small person".  He engages in conversation with the "Little Prince" while trying to fix his airplane.  We learn about the prince's life (he's the only person living on his planet) and his travels from tiny planet to tiny planet (asteroids, actually), the characters he meets and the lessons he learns.

The pilot acts as narrator and illustrator.  he self-referentially refers to his own writing and drawing throughout the novella, which makes for a uniquely toned narrative.  Interestingly enough, de Saint-Exupéry actually DID crash-land an airplane into the middle of the Sahara desert, and much of the book is allusion to and metaphor of his own life experiences and philosophy.

Before starting the chapters where the prince recounts his travels from planet to planet, I had my class do a little art project in response to our reading.  I posed the question "If you had your own little planet like 'The Little Prince', what would it look like?"  I gave some instruction on drawing on their "spheres" with the right perspective and discussed some ideas and set them on their way.  I really liked their results!  

My 3rd Graders work on their "personal planets".

The final results.  I thought they were really cool!

As a mentor text, The Little Prince great for studying symbolism, metaphor, and allusion.  Those aren't big focuses in 3rd grade, but I like to discuss those deep comprehension concepts with my students, especially during read-alouds.  Some kids really are amazed when they start to see the "story behind the story" and understanding such concepts can really enrich their reading experiences.  I generally try to use poetry to teach metaphor and symbolism to such young students, but the flower on the princes planet, the inhabitants of the other little planets he visits and their idiosyncrasies, and the characteristics of the planets are all ripe for symbolism and metaphor discussions.

Read about some other mentor texts at this linky:

Fraction Task Cards

We'll be doing work with finding equivalent fractions and comparing fractions soon. I wanted to get in some review of naming fractions before then. While I was working with one group on the whiteboard on perimeter and area, and another group was practicing some 3-digit addition and subtraction, one group was working with naming the fractions on Snowy Fractions Task Cards from Mrs 3rd Grade (TeachersPayTeachers). They are a very attractive set of task cards and my students really enjoyed working with them. My kids loved the penguins on these winter-themed fraction materials.  All the fractions are full color, but two version of everything are included; one set has a nice full color border on each card, and one set is a more printer-friendly blackline border.  I used the ink-saving version, but the cards still looked great.

 Also included in this set are strips with three fractions on them for students to order from least to greatest. This is great practice for my 3rd graders; they need to realize that 2/10 is NOT greater than 1/4 just because the digits in the numerator and denominator are larger. The relative sizes of the pieces is important to consider. Having the visual there to reference really helped that concept sink in. I did some pre-teaching with these today so that next week they can work on them independently or with groups.

An InLinkz Link-up

Movie Clip Monday: "Ruben's Tube" Videos for Studying Sound in Science

At least in Indiana, sound energy is studied in third grade science.  I've enjoyed teaching our hands-on sound unit the last few years.  When we talk about sound waves, I like to show some videos of "Ruben's Tubes".  A Ruben's Tube is a tube with tiny holes in a straight line along one side.  The tube is filled with propane and sealed at one end.  The other end has an audio speaker.  Tiny amounts of propane leak through the pinholes.  The propane leaks are lit and little flames appear at each pinhole. Sound waves are compression waves, so gas particles are brought together and pulled apart as the sound energy travels, so when a sound wave travels from the speaker through the tube, gas particles become condensed in some areas (producing a higher flame) and sparse in other areas (producing a lower flame).  This makes for a really cool sound wave visual.  

The first video I've shared here is my favorite of the Ruben's Tube videos.  The second is a scene from the T.V. show "Mythbusters".

Stop Those Boring Narratives! "STOP IT!" Link-up

You read and read and read.  Students are exposed to narratives of all sorts; literary fiction and non-fiction, humor, science fiction, fantasy, suspense.  They close read it, mark it up, respond to it, and analyze it.  They study the descriptive language, plot structure, characters, and more.

They do journal writing, free-writing, power writing, and guided writing.  You mini-lesson the heck out of the six traits.

They are interesting, intelligent kids with lots of ideas and personality.

Then they turn in the most boring narrative writing assignment you've ever read.

Aaaarrrgghhhhhh!

Let's link-up and share our best ideas for improving those narratives!

Graphic novels are HUGE right now.  Our library stocks a nice collection of them and my students eat them up.  I thought I might be able to tap into that interest and improve their narrative writing skills at the same time.  So I decided to start working on sets of comic strips for students to use in creating their own little narratives, the focus being on dialogue and inner monologue.

Wouldn't we all love to see some more character interaction and dialogue in our students' narrative creative writings?  I thought these would help them develop comfort with that concept and prompt them to include it in their narrative writing more often.

Right now you can get 17 different comic strips in three different formats at my TPT store.  They are image files, so print off single strips or combine into one document to make a longer narrative.  You can use them however you like!

Want to get an idea of how these could be used?  Go get an example here: http://goo.gl/MRgJLF

An InLinkz Link-up

Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations: Markdown Monday Linky Party! (January 12th - 16th)...

I have my "Addition and Subtraction Mental Math Grade 1+2 Memory Matching Games" 50% off all week!

Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations: Markdown Monday Linky Party! (January 12th - 16th)...: Please add your link below to join the linky fun! Link a product from your TpT store that you would like to "markdown" until...