The Stars Aligned!!

The stars truly aligned for me and my class today! It was BEAUTIFUL!!!!

I had checked out the book Just A Dream by Chris van Allsburg from the library a few weeks ago, but it wasn't until last night that I actually read it.  You can get your copy of the book at amazon.  The book was perfect for what we were doing!!

Initially I had thought it was related to persuasive writing, but I did not get that at all!  I did however think it was perfect for our pollution centers that we were doing AND for inference that we were studying in reading.  Did you hear that.... it aligned with TWO, 2, dos, song (Thai for 2), subjects!!!

I was inspired by this picture from Stephanie at My Life as a Third Grade Teacher.  It isbeautiful and she gave me/everyone the advice of pre-planning the Evidence parts so that is what I did.

It sounds like I did the rest a little different than she did though.  I found wonderful places for inference throughout the story Just a Dream.  I made my chart like she did and placed my evidence sheets in the book so I wouldn't forget where we needed to stop!  I read my piece of evidence and asked what I already knew about the topic.  Then I asked what my inference could be!  I wrote the last two sections as we discussed them.  And I had my helper student glue it on the paper for me.  I wish I would have had the students write the other two pieces of chart so they had more ownership of it.  But it turned out great!!

While I was reading this book, some of the students were able to catch that it was about pollution!! I did not mention it, the book does not actually mention it.  I was so so so proud of them for being able to make that connection.  After we were done with the book, we did discuss pollution and they all finally got it.  We also discussed how Walter changed the future by choosing to recycle, throw things away, and plant trees.  We talked about how we could change our own futures!!

It was beautiful. My class enjoyed it and I truly thought the stars aligned to make 2 subjects that we were focusing on appear in one book!  Hope your day is beautiful as well!