Emily Stout
Our Classroom Blog
11.21.09
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Welcome to our classroom blog! You will find the questions for our parent/student book club here. Because this is a blog, you can add your comments on anything we post here! Just click on the word "comments" at the end of the posting and you can write your answers to the questions. I have to approve each posting to make sure that we only get messages from people in our class, so you may not see your posting show up right away. Also, if you click on the link that says, "Watch this blog" and put in your e-mai address, it will send you an e-mail every time something new is posted on the blog!

Parent - Student Book Club

Created by Emily Stout

 

In 2 nd grade, your child will learn to sharpen and extend his/her reading skills, focus on comprehension, and really develop a love of reading. You can help with that!

Our parent - student book club is an opportunity for you to read to your child and discuss the book. When you read to your child, you model fluency and your thinking of books that your child may not be able to read on his/her own. It's also a great opportunity to share something educational with your child, and it counts as part of your child's reading homework.

Because trying grownup things is such a motivator for children, we started our own book club this summer, just like grownups do! If you weren't part of our first book, you can still join us! Here's how it works:

1.   You read aloud the book club choice to your child at your convenience. You can decide the pace that works best for you and your child. All we ask is that you finish the book no later than ___________. The books we read will be a higher level of reading than what is expected from 2 nd graders, so it is important that you or another adult read it to your child. Modeling the reading behaviors and thought process we want your child to learn will help him/her apply them independently.

2. Let me know if you would like to participate in our book club and I will send you a copy of the questions to discuss after you read each chapter along with facts to build background knowledge, and other reading strategies for you and your child to discuss.

3.   After you and your child have had a chance to discuss the questions for the chapter you read, you will type in your answers on Our Classroom Blog which is on our classroom website:

 

http://schools.dcsdk12.org/egstout  

 

There will also be space on the questions packet for you or your child to write down your answers in case you need to go back and add them on the blog later. It doesn't matter if you or your child does the writing or typing - the most valuable thing our book club will offer is the chance for you and your child to discuss the book!

4.   When our book club finishes reading a book, we will meet to have a book party! Parents and students in the book club will meet at the school (unless someone decides to offer their home) to discuss the book and do some fun activities related to our story.

 

The 2 nd book we are reading for the book club will be James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I have enough copies of the book if you'd like to borrow it from me, just let me know. Please let me know if you are interested in joining our book club. We will finish reading the book by Oct. 9th so we can have our book club party before fall break.

 

Sincerely,

Mrs. Stout

 

 

 

 


 
Strategy Focus: Vocabulary and Predicting
Posted by Emily Stout on Sunday, Aug 30th, 2009.
Roald Dahl kept all sorts of notes and lists to help him when he wrote his stories. At the beginning of his career as a writer, Roald Dahl collected lists of words in an old school notebook. “When you’re describing something or someone,” he said, “you can’t just choose dull words like beautiful, pretty or nice. You must search for more meaty and imaginative words.” In this book, we will be focusing on using the strategies building vocabulary and predicting.
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James and the Giant Peach part #1
Posted by Emily Stout on Sunday, Aug 30th, 2009.
Part #1
Chapters 1 – 8, pgs. 1 – 23


Building Vocabulary
Here are some powerful descriptive words you’ll find in this part of the story:
• Peculiar (pg. 5) – unusual, strange, odd, different
• Marvelous (pg. 11) – wonderful, causing astonishment and joy
• Crafty (pg. 21) – sly; clever at deceiving others

Can you think of a good way to use one of these words? Share it in a sentence.

Question:
Why do you think the old man chose to give the green stones or crystals to James? Write how the old man made the crystals he gave to James as a recipe. Draw a picture to go with it and bring it to the book party!

Making Predictions
In the next part of the book, James enters the house – sized peach. What do you think will happen?
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James and the Giant Peach part #2
Posted by Emily Stout on Sunday, Aug 30th, 2009.
Part #2
Chapters 9 – 16, pgs. 23 – 46.

Building Background Knowledge
Centipedes: Despite their name (which means "100 legs"), centipedes do not all have 100 legs. Centipedes are fast-moving, carnivorous, venomous invertebrates. They have a hard exoskeleton and jointed legs. They live on land in moist microhabitats (under rocks and logs, in leaf debris, or occasionally in burrows). A common centipede is the house centipede, Scutigera forceps, which is about 2 inches (5 cm) long and has 15 pairs of legs. Some centipedes (like Geophilus electricus) glow in the dark.

Grasshopper: Grasshoppers are insects that can hop, walk, and fly. Many male grasshoppers make noise by rubbing their back legs together. There are about 10,000 different species of grasshoppers.

Earthworm: Earthworms (also called nightcrawlers) are very important animals that aerate the soil with their burrowing action and enrich the soil with their waste products (called castings). Good soil can have as many as as 1,000,000 (a million) worms per acre.

There are over 3,000 species of earthworms around the world. These invertebrates (animals without a backbone) range in color from brown to to red, and most have a soft body. Earthworms range in size from a few inches long to over 22 feet long. The largest earthworms live in South Africa and Australia.

Glowworm: is the common name for various different groups of insect larvae and adult larviform females which glow through bioluminescence. They may sometimes resemble worms, but all are insects (Arachnocampa being a fly and all the others being beetles).

Ladybug: (also called lady birds or lady beetles) are small, oval-shaped winged insects. These shiny insects are usually red with black spots or black with red spots on the wing covers. The number of spots identifies the type of ladybug. Most ladybugs are less than 1/4 inch (4-8 mm) long. As ladybugs age, the spots fade.

There are about 5,000 different species of ladybugs throughout the world. A common species is the two-spotted ladybug (pictured above); it is orange-red with two black spots.

These tiny predators (Family Coccinellidae) are helpful in gardens because they eat many garden pests (like mealy bugs and aphids). Birds are the major predator of the ladybug.

Spider: There are many thousand different kinds of spiders. All spiders have eight legs. Most spiders have eight eyes but some have fewer than eight. They don't have ears, they feel the sound vibrations with tiny hairs on their legs. Their bodies have two parts, the head and the abdomen. The abdomen is plump. Spider blood is light blue. Blood fills up all the empty space in the spider's body, it helps to keep the legs stiff so the spider can walk. Spiders breathe, too.

Building Vocabulary
Here are some powerful descriptive words you’ll find in this part of the story:
• Colossal (pg. 46) – of enormous size, huge

Can you think of a good way to use this word? Share it in a sentence.

Question
What do you think of James’s new friends? Which one do you like best? What do you like about him or her?

Making Predictions
James and his friends realize that the giant peach is floating on the sea. What do you think will happen?
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James and the Giant Peach part #3
Posted by Emily Stout on Sunday, Aug 30th, 2009.
Part #3
Chapters 17 – 23, pgs. 46 – 75

Question
How do you think the travelers felt when they realized they were finally in the air? Has your opinion of any of the characters changed after what has happened in this part of the book?



Making Predictions
In the next part of the book, the peach travels onward. Do you think the peach is out of danger now? What do you think will happen next?
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James and the Giant Peach part #4
Posted by Emily Stout on Sunday, Aug 30th, 2009.
Part #4
Chapters 24 – 30, pgs. 75 – 103

Building Vocabulary
• Spellbound (pg. 76) – fascinated: as if caught in a spell.
• Rambunctious (pg. 79) – wild; unruly in behavior
• Stealthy (pg. 87) – done in a secret, quiet way.
• Enthralled (pg. 95) – charmed; fascinated; spellbound
• Flabbergasted (pg. 97) – very surprised, amazed, astounded
Can you think of a good way to use one of these words? Write your sentence below.



Question
What do you think of the Cloud-Men? Could they somehow become friends with them?




Making Predictions
Where do you think James and the other travelers will end up? What do you think will happen to James at the end of the book?
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James and the Giant Peach part #5
Posted by Emily Stout on Sunday, Aug 30th, 2009.
Part #5
Chapters 31 – 39, pgs. 103 - 126


Building Vocabulary
• Gruesome (pg. 115) – frightful causing disgust.

Can you think of a good way to use one of these words? Write your sentence.



Question
What did you think of the end of the book? Would you have ended it differently?
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Book Club Party
Posted by Emily Stout on Sunday, Aug 30th, 2009.
It's time for our book party! Let's pick a day the week before fall break to have our book party.

We're going to have 'Peach Party' in honor of James and the Giant Peach! Here's want you'll need to bring:

· Something peachy to eat (peaches, peach cobbler, peach ice-cream . . . you get the idea!)

· Any drawings and the recipe you made as you read the book

I'll bring the movie "James and the Giant Peach" and we'll watch it together and compare the book and the movie. Let me know what day and time would be best for you to have our party. See you at our Peach Party!
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