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

Posted by hallep on Tuesday, June 21, 2016 in Grade K, SAVY.

These authors are already beginning to synthesize the new content they are learning. It’s fun to see them notice adjectives, hyperbole and idioms as we enjoy various literature. Today we jumped into similes. 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 that we had changed from nervous to brave. Tomorrow we will also tie various emotions to colors. 

Author Jessica Young will join us tomorrow, talking about the writing process and sharing the inspiration for her book, My Blue is Happy. If you would like to familiarize yourself with this Nashville writer, here is her website: https://jessicayoungbooks.wordpress.com/

As we hone our observation of authors, 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. 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]

We were filled with wonder at this time-lapse video of butterfly stages: http://www.natgeotv.com/ca/great-migrations/videos/growing-up-butterfly. 

 Each day we are discussing various traits that a creative person develops: awareness, imagination, wonder, courage, dedication, and enthusiasm. A picture frame, used from two perspectives, prompted our share time today regarding the trait of imagination. Today was a full, fun, fabulous day exploring figurative language with friends.