Summer SAVY 2016 (Session 1, Day 2) – Playing with Words

Posted by hallep on Tuesday, June 14, 2016 in Grade K, SAVY.

These authors are already beginning to synthesize the new content they are learning. We began the day developing hyperbole and similes that they played with during the hot afternoon yesterday. It’s fun to see them notice adjectives, idioms and similes as we enjoy various literature. Crazy Like a Fox sparked our imaginations as we began our simile lists.

We began noticing how the language of books can elicit emotion and help us resonate with the text. We are making continual text-to-self and text-to-world connections. As gifted curriculum, we are encouraging students to develop analogical reasoning skills as it pertains to figurative language. We played emotions charades as a preface to developing our self-similes. We collaborated with an 8-part feelings chart. We thoroughly enjoyed the books Scaredy Squirrel and Mirette on the High Wire. Tomorrow we will write about a time in which we changed from nervous to brave. Tomorrow we will also tie various emotions to colors. 

We are even realizing how communication can occur without spoken or written language. The class was totally engaged with the reading of award-winning wordless book, Tuesday, by David Weisner. Your young authors’ minds were dynamic with the figurative language they applied to describe each page.

Change is the overarching concept around which we are organizing our content and activities this week. Discussion of change is threaded throughout our week. Today we looked at ways language and words can change the way we think about the world by creating new images and connections in our minds. In considering the concept of change in nature, we discussed the life cycle of a butterfly.  We are learning to be actively engaged readers in both fiction and non-fiction. In guided groups, we used non-fiction sources for ‘5 minute research’, researching monarch migration and then individually presenting our findings. We were filled with wonder at this time-lapse video of butterfly stages: http://www.natgeotv.com/ca/great-migrations/videos/growing-up-butterfly. We will connect our change study with the water cycle and the Rock Cycle tomorrow. Readers of non-fiction: •   read “with a pencil in their hand or mind”; •   think of main idea and supporting details;  •   retell with the 5W’s and How [who, what, when, where, why and how]

 Each day we are discussing various traits that a creative person develops: awareness, imagination, wonder, courage, dedication, and enthusiasm. Share time today regarding the trait of dedication included discussing the initial rejections authors J.K. Rowling, Madeleine L’Engle, Judy Blume, and Dr. Seuss experienced. We also looked at Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. As gifted learners, we discussed having dedication toward excellence rather than letting perfectionist tendencies stop us from trying new things.

 Today was a full, fun, fabulous day exploring figurative language with friends!