Dear Teacher,

A book, a plan, and a snowpal guide readers to successful reading comprehension! Your students' reading strategies will really shine using our snowpal graphic organizer pattern. And that's not all! Today's newsletter has great ideas from The Mailbox magazine to use in your classroom now.

Do you count on these weekly activities to fill in the gaps in your lesson plans? Click here now and be sure to check “Weekly Activities” to get each installment.

Todd E. Savelle
Newsletter Editor

PS: Make a free picture book about the Bill of Rights, go on a virtual scavenger hunt, and more! Click here for free resources brought to you by The National Constitution Center.

Math
Measuring With a Ruler

With this activity, students will be recreating a masterpiece! Secretly make a drawing and a list of descriptors students can use to duplicate your art (see the example). Then give each child a copy of the list, a ruler, colored pencils, and an 8-1/2 inch square of white paper. When students finish their drawings, show them your illustration to see whether their pictures match the original!
Example descriptors:
1. In the center of the paper is a snowman that's 1-1/2 inches wide in the middle, one inch wide at the top, and 2-1/4 inches wide at the bottom.
2. The snowman has a black hat whose brim is a 1/4" x 1" rectangle and whose top is a 3/4-inch square. Decorate the snowman.
3. Behind and to the right of the snowman is a 3" x 4" brown house. Its black door is one inch wide and 1-1/2 inches tall.
4. Atop the house is a green trapezoid roof that's 3-1/2 inches long and one inch tall. Atop the roof is a red chimney that's one inch wide and one-half inch tall.
5. Coming from the chimney is gray smoke that's one-quarter inch wide and curls to the paper's top edge.
6. To the left of the snowman is an evergreen tree that's four inches tall and two inches wide at its widest point.
7. Behind the snowman, house, and tree is a horizontal line that's 3-1/2 inches from the paper's top edge.
8. In the upper left corner is a gray cloud that's 2-1/4 inches long and three-fourths inch tall.

Language Arts
First-Person Perspectives

What do you get when you mix mystery, a classroom object, and first-person point of view? A fun writing lesson! Ask each student to think of a classroom object and a situation that could involve the object. Then have the child write a paragraph or story about the event from the object's point of view without revealing what the object is. When everyone is finished, invite each writer to share his work while the class tries to guess the object's identity.

Print-and-Use Pattern

Cool Reading Comprehension

Reading strategies really stack up when students have a little help from a snowpal! Print the free organizer and make a copy for each student. A student writes her name and the title of the book or story she's reading on her copy of the page. Then she completes a strategy before, during, and after reading. Possible strategies include making a prediction based on the book's cover or illustration before she begins reading, describing a mental image or writing a question (and its answer) during reading, and copying and completing the sentence "This story reminds me of..." after reading. Invite students to add colorful details to their completed pages. No doubt you'll have a flurry of happy readers on your hands!