Must Read Mentor Texts and #IMWAYR April 14th

Today we started a unit in Science on Scientific Thinking and the Scientific Method.  Normally, you would do this at the beginning of the year, but it fit with what I wanted to cover right now.  We are finishing up the Civil War in US History.  After that, I want to spend the last six weeks or so covering the US Regions.  We have been looking at Ecosystems in Science, so we will look at how the Ecosystems and climates, etc. are different in the different US regions. I am putting my students in groups.  Each group will have a region.  They will choose an experiment based on features on their region, as well as conduct a research project to find real world problems and solutions in their region.

Before we can do all that though, we needed to talk about the Scientific Method.

Today we read 11 Experiments that Failed. (I am linking up with Collaboration Cuties.) It is a great story to introduce the Scientific Method.  The little girl tries all these experiment ideas that go completely wrong.  The kids pick up on the steps and process super quick from the story though.

We followed it by completing some activities from this Scientific Inquiry Unit, which worked out great. We will complete some more of these, while they start identifying what they want to research for their region.

Some other things I read this week:

We read Come on Rain today to introduce our fictional narrative unit.  We discussed how it was a great story for small moments.  We also identified all the sensory detail and descriptive details. There are some great descriptive sentences in this book, so it will flow well into also doing some poetry over the next couple weeks. We will be using a mentor sentence from the book this week from one of Jivey's mentor sentence units.

On my own, I have been reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.  I really like Sherman Alexie.  I first read one of his books in a graduate literature class.  It deals with some real issues about the poverty, alcoholism, and depression that exist on many of the Native American reservations.  Alexie is a very witty writer, and his books are very enjoyable to read while also very real.  I am about half way through and really enjoying the book.

I started an ebook I checked out from the library called The Wicked and the Just.  I love Historical Fiction and was interested in learning more about the history of England taking over Wales.  I am not enjoying the book though, so I am not sure I will finish it.  The characters are really flat with no depth, which is sad because the history is interesting.

I am just starting The Diviners by Libba Bray.  I have loved all of Libba Bray's books.  Loved! So when I saw this one, I had to read it.  It takes place in NYC in the 1920's with some supernatural stuff.  I am curious to see how it measures up to her other books, which are some of my favorites.

What are you reading this week?