The Reading Round-Up!

The Nonfiction Video Rides Again!

2011-10-11T16:26:00.001-07:00

Howdy all you buckaroos! It's time to drive you greenhorns out to the learnin' pasture!

Your Social Studies, Science, and Math books are all filled with text features!

What in tarnation is a text feature?

Watch, and learn!

Sheriff Yollis and Sheriff Salsich would like to know, have you seen a text feature out on your learnin' frontier? Please share a text feature, and more importantly...what did you learn from it?

Ain't that what life's all about...learnin'?

Buckaroo Book Club: The Ox Cart Man

2011-06-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, the two classes circled their wagons for the final time of the season. Just like in the story The Ox Cart Man by Donald Hall, the season changes. It is almost time for summer vacation for the cowboys and cowgirl at the Reading Round_Up!

We had time for one more Buckaroo Book Club!

Four students from Sheriff Yollis' class met with a posse of four from Sheriff Salsich's class.

Students took turn sharing what they liked about the story and asking questions of one another.

Name tags were useful for directly addressing people at the club.

Donald Hall won the Caldecott Award for his illustrations. The fireside scene was a favorite. How is this 1800s home different from yours?

Even though the members were nearly 3,000 miles apart, they still enjoyed talking about the book and the illustrations. Skype is a great tool for sharing.

How is your life different from life on a farm? Which would you rather do - work on a farm or go to school?

This general store was very different from our modern markets.

What did you like about the book club?

Can you recommend a good book for another time?

Video: Hit the Nonfiction Trail!

2011-05-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

Sheriff Yollis and Sheriff Salsich have been out on the learnin' trail for quite a spell, but they have returned here to The Reading Round-Up and are ready to jaw about some truth.

Take a gander at their new film,

Hit the Nonfiction Trail!

Kindly drop us a comment! What nonfiction book are you readin'?

Please share an interesting fact you've learned!

What's your favorite text feature?

Now listen up all you green horns.

Don't you go a copyin' and a pastin' what somebody else wrote.

That's called plagarism and it ain't right!

Voicethread Book Club - "Fly Away Home"

2011-03-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

Last month the students from Mrs. Yollis' and Mr. Salsich's classes read Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting.

Eve Bunting has written hundreds of excellent books for children. Many of her books deal with difficult situations, and the ways that people deal with them.

Fly Away Home is about a homeless boy and his father who live at an airport. It is a great book for having a book club because there are many different opinions and feelings that people can have about the book.

In our book clubs we have been focusing on:

Supporting our opinions with details from the text.
Listening carefully to what others say and responding to their ideas.
Adding onto others opinions by agreeing or disagreeing politely.
Looking back in the text for details that connect to people's ideas.

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Here is our "Voicethread book club" about the book:

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If you have read the book and have a voicethread account, feel free to add a comment in the voicethread. Let's keep the discussion going!

Have you read any other Eve Bunting books? What did you think of them?

Cowpoke Book Trailer - "Kat Kong" by Dav Pilkey

2011-02-10T04:04:00.000-08:00

One of the cowpokes in Sheriff Salsich's class, Emmett, has been learning about iMovie 11. Yesterday Sheriff Salsich and Emmett used a new feature to make a "book trailer."
Here it is:

The following PREVIEW has been approved for ALL AUDIENCES

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This book trailer is about Dav Pilkey's creative, hilarious book called Kat Kong.

Dav Pilkey is a great author and illustrator. He has written lots of popular books, including the Captain Underpants series. If you like those books, you should definitely check out Kat Kong and its companion, Dogzilla.

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What did you think of the book trailer?
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Have you read Kat Kong or Dogzilla? If so, what did you like about them?
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Can you find other "fantastic vocabulary" words in these books?

Buckaroo Book Club - "Martin's Big Words"

2011-01-27T19:14:00.001-08:00

January 17th was a very important day in the United States.

It was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights leader who made huge difference in our country.

To learn more about his life and accomplishments, you can read this article from Scholastic News.

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For our Buckaroo Book Club last week we read Martin's Big Words, written by Doreen Rappaport and illustrated by Bryan Collier.

This is a fantastic book about Martin's life with some of his most famous quotes. The illustrations are beautiful works of collage.

Here is a video with a few parts from our Buckaroo Book Club:

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Have you read this book? If so, what was a part that you really liked?

What lessons can we learn from Martin Luther King, Jr.?

"A Heavy Load" - Read by Mr. Salsich, Sr.

2011-01-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

Here at The Reading Round-Up, we like to invite real live readers in to share their love of words and stories with all of us! Being read to is not only pleasurable, but you can learn a lot too!

★ Mr. Salsich, Sr. is back in the reader's saddle again! ★

Here is another story from Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth.

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What do you think the older monk meant when he said, "I set the woman down hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?"

What do you think is the message, or the theme, of the story?

Buckaroo Book Club - "Thank You, Mr. Falker"

2011-01-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

Last week we had our second Skype book club.
This time the students discussed Patricia Polacco's fabulous book Thank You, Mr. Falker.

As you can see in the video chat below, this is a fantastic book for making connections and thinking about big ideas and themes.

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Have you ever tried to learn something that was very hard to do at first?

If you have read this book, please share your ideas about it!

What did you notice about the discussions in the book club?

Wanted! - Wayside School Books

2011-01-12T12:11:00.000-08:00

If you like funny books, give Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger a try.

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This hilarious book is written by Louis Sachar, who also wrote Holes and the Marvin Redpost books.

Here is a short book talk by "Strawberry" to give you some idea of what the book is like.
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This is the third book in a series, and you should probably read the other books first - Sideways Stories From Wayside School and Wayside School is Falling Down.

You might enjoy watching a reader's theater of one of the chapters from Sideways Stories From Wayside School. It is read by some of Sheriff Salsich's former cowpokes.
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Have you read any of the Wayside School books? If so, what was a part that you really liked?

Can you think of other wacky books that people might enjoy?

Buckaroo Book Club ~ The Garden of Abdul Gasazi!

2011-01-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Last week some of Sheriff Yollis and Sheriff Salsich's students had a nice face-to-face "jaw" about a real humdinger of a book - The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Chris Van Allsburg.
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Have you ever read The Garden of Abdul Gasazi?

If so, add some of your own thoughts about the book.

Have you ever been in a book club? What did you like about it?

Video: Tips For Having a Buckaroo Book Club!

2011-01-03T23:12:00.001-08:00

Attention all cowboys and cowgirls!

Here at the Reading Round-Up, we are fixin' to circle our wagons and have a Buckaroo Book Club!

First, let's listen to Billy and Clementine. They have some solid book club tips for you!

GoAnimate.com: Book Club Ideas by lindayollis

For some more tips and examples of book clubs in action,
check out this video from Sheriff Salsich's class from last year.

Have you ever been in a book club?

What did you like about it?

What makes for a good discussion?

Transition Trail ~ Help Wanted!

2010-12-13T21:10:00.000-08:00

Please help Old Buck!

If you spot a TRANSITION in one of the books you're reading, publish it here!

Any other help you could offer Old Buck about TRANSITIONS would be appreciated!

If you can, put your transition in bold...Old Buck can't see too well!

Book titles can be fancied up with a little HTML code!

"The Farmer's Luck" - Read by Mr. Salsich's Father

2010-12-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

Here at The Reading Round-Up, we like to invite real live readers in to share their love of words and stories with all of us! Being read to is not only pleasurable, but you can learn a lot too!

★ Our first guest in the saddle is Mr. Salsich, Sr.! ★

On Friday, December 3rd Mr. Salsich's class met "the real" Mr. Salsich - his dad, Hamilton Salsich!

It got a little confusing having two "Mr. Salsich's" in the room, so the students got to call their teacher "Mr. Salsich Jr." for a little while. "Mr. Salsich Sr." is also a teacher. He teaches reading and writing to 8th and 9th grade students.

He read a couple of short stories from the book Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth.

The stories in this book are a little strange.
They are supposed to make the reader think about their meaning or message.

The message of a book can also be called its "theme."

See if you can think of the theme of this story from Zen Shorts that "Mr. Salsich Sr." read:

What do you think this story is about?
Does it have a theme?

What book have you read that had a theme?
What was its message?

We've Earned an Edublog Nomination!

2010-12-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

The Reading Round-Up just lassoed a humdinger of an honor!

Click on this link to cast your vote!

Best Group Blog - The Reading Round-Up!

(Sheriff Yollis & Sheriff Salsich)

Circle Up Your Synonyms!

2010-11-15T08:29:00.000-08:00

According to that humdinger of a book called the dictionary, a SYNONYM is a

NOUN : a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language.

So...a synonym is a word that means the same thing! Yee Haw! Hot dog! Wow!

Out on the trail, it can get real dull if the same word gets used over, and over, and over, and over, and...well, you get the idea!

This week, the Reading Round-Up! is looking to lasso some super synonyms for words that are just plain tuckered out!

Let's keep our eyes peeled for some synonyms for:

said good bad

A bull's eye example: I declare that it's about time we round-up some superb synonyms, and put those dreadful old words to rest.

Any of you cowpokes who want to make your comment Ace high, put your synonym in bold!

What superb synonym have you lassoed?

Where did you spy that synonym? Please, inform us of the book title!

Welcome!

2010-11-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

What book are you reading right now?

What's the genre?

(That's a fancy way of asking What kind of book is it? What category is it?

Mystery, realistic fiction, historical fiction, adventure, sports...)

Tell us about the main character!

Unless you're a greenhorn, you know that an underlined word or phrase on the Internet is a hyperlink. That means we can't underline book titles like we do out on the trail.
So all you buckaroos, lasso the html code and put your book title...in italics!
Yee haw!