Connections can be:

1. text-to-text (one book reminds you of another book you have read)
2. text-to-self (what you are reading reminds you of an experience you have had)
3. text-to-world (your book reminds you of something that you have heard about or seen somewhere else).

When you think about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, do you make a connection?  I do!  I have been in Chistmas pageants when I was a student and I have directed MANY Christmas pageants, so I make lots of text-to-self connections.  For example, I know exactly what it feels like to be interrupted by a little kid who wants to know “What happens if he gets sick?”  Let me know about the connections you make to this book.

Our next list of words will be adjectives – words that modify, or explain, the noun in more detail.  While reading our National Geographic yesterday, “Weird and Wonderful,”  I found 12 adjectives in one little section.  Here they are:

1. terrifying
2. wild
3. odd
4. weird
5. hypnotic
6. round
7. large
8. wiry
9. little
10. long
11. skinny
12. bushy

Now it’s your turn.  Using the title of your book as the title of your post, make a list of at least 5, but not more than 10, adjectives that you have found in your independent reading.  This assignment is due Friday, November 19!

By now you should know that nouns can be a person, place, or thing.  We have listed the following nouns from Charlotte’s Web:

• Fern
• Wilbur
• Dr. Dorian
• pigpen
• village
• curiosity
• grasses
• song
• goslings

Now I want you to make a list of some nouns you have found in your independent reading.  Remember to use the title of your book as the title of the post. (PLEASE use correct capitalization for the title of your book!)

“What do you mean less than nothing? I don’t think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It’s the lowest you can go. It’s the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something – even though it’s just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.”  This is part of a dialogue between Wilbur and a sheep from the book Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.  The setting is the barn on the Zuckerman Farm many years ago when boys could take air rifles on the school bus.

Now it’s your turn.  Use the title of your book as the title of your post and explain the setting and characters in the book you are reading.  You may include some dialogue if you have time!  Remember you must submit your post by the end of the day on Thursday.

Due to some  unexpected changes in our former blog, we are moving to a friendlier version!  What are your reading independently right now?  How does it make you feel?

I’ll start.  I’ve been reading instructions on how to install a new modem at my house and it makes me feel frustrated!  I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “Hey, Mrs. Brown, instructions aren’t a book.”  Well, let me tell YOU…these instructions are longer than most of the books in our classroom library!  And talk bout unfamiliar words?  Believe me, it is taking all of my comprehension skills to understand how to put this thing together.  So I’m a little irritable and cranky.

How about you?  Title your post with the title of the book you’re reading and share how it makes you feel and why it makes you feel that way.  I look forward to reading your posts.