Waiting For Butterflies!// Deep Thinkers While Reading

Well all the larvae are in the chrysalis stage now. They have attached themselves to the little plastic lids of the containers they were in. I had to tape the lids holding the chrysalis' into the top of the butterfly home. Now we wait for the painted lady butterflies to emerge! It will be exciting!

We are finishing up our unit on using "deep thinking" comprehension strategies. In this unit we have really focussed and practiced how to really think about what we are reading. Instead of concentrating on literal questions such as who, what, where, and when, we are trying to make connections that may help our understanding, make inferences to further our learning, ask questions to deepen understanding and fuel our curiosity, and determine importance in order to help us organize our learning into main ideas and details. These types of comprehension skills really get children thinking about what they are reading. As we practice these strategies together, I am always amazed by what the students can do at this level. I have seen such a huge improvement in their reading skills. The children no longer think that fastest reading is best! They know now that sometimes a great reader needs to read slowly, reread or even pause for thought-especially when reading non-fiction.