Q & A Journal

Have you seen this book?  My wife came across it on Pinterest the other day and absolutely fell in love with it, as did I.  We both found it very pinteresting! (Insert eye roll here.)

The idea behind the book is for your child to answer a question a day in just a few short lines.  It's billed as a family keepsake to keep treasured for a lifetime.  What a wonderful idea!

Then my fourth grade educated mind...wait...can I try that again.

Then my educator of fourth graders mind...there we go...went into high gear.  Can I use this in my classroom?  And the resounding answer inside my mind was YES!

And then my edtechy mind took over and I began envisioning my fourth graders tweeting an answer a day to the question in 140 characters or less.  While tweeting may not be the way to go, maybe blogging, I still love this idea.  Asking a question a day; some questions dealing with content and CCGPS, some dealing with current events, and some just dealing with life.

How will my students respond?  How will I respond?  Since this is a new idea I'm not sure if I will start it this year.  I think I'll make some questions up with a cutesy font and whimsical pictures and make a million dollars on Teachers Pay Teachers!  

Any ideas on how you could use this idea in your classroom.  I'd love to for you to share so I can steal it!!  (It's called collaboration, right?)

Until next time.

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Mythology

Okay...so the Common Core has arrived in Georgia and we have jumped in head first.  (And here I forgot my floaties, because I think I'm sinking!)

Um, yes I believe I am adjusting well.  Or is it, well I am adjusting.  Not sure of the correct syntax for that sentence.  Two very different meanings!  And that's mainly because of this standard:


ELACC4RL4:  Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in 
a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology 
(e.g., Herculean).

In order to determine the meaning of words as they allude to mythology the students must know mythology.  Do I really spend precious time teaching mythology just so they can determine the meaning of an illusion...er, allusion.

Well I guess so, and recently Richard Byrne posted about Hero's Journey from Read Write Think.  While it's designed for more advanced learners, I do believe it holds some potential for my 4th graders.

Within the next few weeks my students will pick from a list of mythology.  I plan to give them a list of options of different mythologies from different cultures to choose from; mostly Greek/Roman, but also some Native American and Chinese.  This will be a great opportunity assess on several of our new Common Core standards!!

I'm excited to see what my students discover...and maybe they can venture out and write their own mythology.

BTW...Check out the Myth-O-Mania books(if you haven't yet) by Kate McMullen.  My LBK's love them!

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