Similes are one type of figurative language. They are used to compare two things using either “like” or “as”. We are identifying them in literature and looking for ways to incorporate them into our own writing.
We wrote similes of one of our classmates using the story, Quick as a Cricket, as our model.
Thresa shared the Native American legend about turquoise with us and then we used turquoise and other beads to make necklaces. “Legend has it that the Native American Indians danced and rejoiced when the rains came. Their tears of joy mixed with the rain and seeped into Mother Earth to become SkyStone or turquoise.”
We created pyramids and prisms using marshmallows as vertices and toothpicks and stirrers as edges. This is a great hands-on activity to discover the parts of geometric solids. We also discovered that shapes constructed of squares and rectangles are much weaker than those made from triangles (a little physics lesson).
Looking for a fun indoor activity? Give your child a bag of marshmallows and a box of toothpicks and watch their creativity!
Go to this site to play a shape game. Click here.
I will occasionally share literary terms that we are learning. We spent time on alliteration and now we’ll be watching for onomatopoeia. The children love these power words and I hope you’ll be able to reinforce the concepts at home when you read together. Onomatopoeia is the use of sound words in writing. I will also encourage the children to use onomatopoeia in their own writing.
We completed two writing activities to demonstrate our understanding of the difference between facts and opinions. As a class we compiled a list of facts and opinions about fall and displayed our ideas among deciduous trees.
We each chose an animal photo and wrote a fact and an opinion about that animal. I asked the children to demonstrate the knowledge they gained during our animal unit.
