The Campfire Chronicles

A “Citizen of the Month” is selected from each class and honored at a school-wide assembly. Students who are selected have demonstrated the characteristics of good citizenship. Criteria include:

• A positive attitude
• Using good manners
• Being thoughtful and helpful
• Showing Responsibility
• Putting forth best effort
• Showing concern for others
• Displaying good sportsmanship

Safety Patrol is a community service activity for third graders at our school. Two students from each third grade classroom are selected to serve on the Safety Patrol each week.

Third Graders who are on Safety Patrol stand in the school hallways in the morning as the students arrive, and monitor how students treat each other as they walk to their classrooms.

Every sentence has a subject and a predicate.

The subject is who or what the sentence is about.

The predicate is what the subject is doing or being. For example:

Kevin played football at the park on Saturday because his team had a game.

Subject: Kevin
Predicate: played football

o	silent e	oa	oe	ough	ow
go no so Joseph	hope rope home note remote	goat, boat, oat, coat, moat, float, toad, road, soak, cloak, loaf	doe hoe Joe	though dough doughnut	crow tow below mow bow know

a	silent e	ay	ai	eigh	ea
bagel Casey table	lake, fake, bake, shape, place, safe, taste,pate, take, cake	say, way, away, stay, may, pay, bay, hay, play	wait, bait, pail, rail, hail, sail, nail, mail, snail, mailbox, saint, faint	eight freight weigh	great

Before we write a paragraph, it is helpful to have a plan, to map out what we are going to write. Just as an architect designs a house plan before the building starts, we can use a graphic organizer to make a writing plan before the actual writing starts. When we turn a Story Map (one type of graphic organizer) into a one-paragraph Summary, we take the sentences from the graphic organizer and put them in this order:

1. An introductory sentence that introduces the book and what it’s generally about (main idea).
2. The problem (can be copied right from the story map).
3. The events (in order) that help solve the problem (can be copied from the story map). We use “transitional words” such as “first, next, then, after that, later, finally” to help show that the events are happening in order.
4. The solution (can be copied right from the story map)
5. The concluding sentence. This sentence has an important job. It has to tie back to the introductory sentence.

Since we can copy the problem, events, and solution right off of the graphic organizer, writing a paragraph is the easy part! Most of the “thinking” goes into making the Story Map! When we are writing our paragraph, the only sentences we have to think a lot about are the first one and last one!

This week, we all worked together to make a Story Map and one-paragraph summary of The Giant Jam Sandwich! (see below). We could have combined several of our events together, but most of the book was about making the sandwich, & the problem wouldn’t have been solved if even one of our events was missing, so we included all that we decided were important. (NOTE: Most of our stories will only have 3 – 5 events.)