The Nonfiction Video Rides Again!

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

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!

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"

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

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"

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.

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?