♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and the games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (cheerful guitar music fading out) (upbeat music) - Good morning, third graders.

My name is Mrs. Nix and I am so excited to be here with you and to support you as you become amazing thinkers, readers, and writers.

This morning, I had a book that I want to share with you.

It's hilariously funny if you can have a little bit of a sense of humor, right?

And who doesn't have a little sense of humor?

We all have a little sense of humor.

This one happens to be Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events."

You may have seen the TV program, you may have seen the movie, but I'm gonna tell you right now, unless you've read the book you're missing out because it is hilarious.

Lemony Snicket is writing directly to you.

It's almost like you're part of the story.

And I encourage you, if you would love to have a little humor in your life, this is a great one.

Now it's a little on the harder side, so you might need to find an adult to read it with you just so that you make sure that you are getting all of the words that are in here.

But I know that it is absolutely worth it.

There's a whole series of stories about three little orphans who are trying to figure out their lives after they've had some tragedy.

And there's a lot of humor with it.

Okay, how can you do this?

You can check it out by visiting your county library or by going online and checking it out through Sora.

Now, here in Fresno Unified, we have a little competition.

We love to do that little bit of competition, right?

We like to see what schools are checking out the most books.

And then we celebrate it here on PBS.

And we are looking at who is in the second spot for the top five checkout schools in Fresno Unified.

So let's check it out right here.

And we've got Computech Middle School.

That's our second middle school for this week.

So great job Computech.

Now, it's super easy to get yourselves onto our little shout out board here.

All you need to do is simply check out a book using Sora and then possibly tell a classmate or 2 or 3 or 5 or 10.

And then you're gonna get your name up here and a little shout out from us.

Okay, the last little thing that I want to share with you is a quick little shout out.

You're gonna see an address that's gonna pop up right below.

And we have these activity books here at PBS that we would love to send you for free at your house.

If you like doing puzzles and activities, then this is a book for you.

So send me a note, send me an email, let me know something you're learning in school, something you've learned here on PBS, or maybe it's just something that you'd like to share.

And I would love to write you a letter back and send you one of these free activity books.

All right, are we ready to start our day today?

I have three things that we're gonna do.

We're gonna practice our soft G and soft C spellings.

We're gonna look at words that end with E-R and E-S-T. And then we're going to finish off with some metaphors.

Are you ready?

Okay, let's warm up those brains looking at those high frequency words, those words we see often.

Let's read them together, here we go.

Three, through, today, time, together, two, under, upon, very, and use.

Now I love today's words.

We've got under and upon, and it's gonna be fantastic.

So upon is U-P-O-N, and under is U-N-D-E-R. All right.

So these are simply words that tell us direction, right?

So upon is usually kind of on top of something, and then we've got the opposite of upon is under.

So we would say that these words are antonyms.

They're the opposite of each other.

Okay, so essentially we could use both of these words in both of our sentences.

You just have to decide where you want to use them.

So let's look.

Have you ever wished "mm" a star?

So you could have, "Have you ever wished upon a star," or you could have, "Have you ever wished under a star."

It's kind of up to you.

And my cat was sleeping "mm" our couch.

So we could say, "was sleeping under the couch," or, "upon our couch."

Doesn't matter, what do you want?

Oh, you want to wish upon a star.

Okay, I like Disney too.

They always ask if we wish upon a star.

Then our cat was sleeping under our couch.

Both of those work.

Great job, third grade.

Okay, let's talk about the soft C and soft G. I've brought my jump spelling card and my sun spelling card to remind me of the sounds that they make.

And any time that we have G that's followed by E, I, or Y, it's going to have that "J" sound.

And any time C is followed by that E, I, or Y, it's gonna make that soft C, which is a "Ss" sound.

Okay, let's look at a couple of examples here.

So you can see the C-Es, they're highlighted here for us.

So we're gonna have slice and cents.

And then G-E you can see are underlined here.

So now we have gemstone and charge.

Great job.

We're gonna switch gears and start talking a little bit about comparing.

And when we're comparing things, when we're comparing two items, so two people, two places, two things, we add E-R to the end.

If we have more than two, we add E-S-T.

So here's an example.

So calm.

So the kitten, this kitten is calmer than that kitten.

Right?

But if we have a whole bunch of kittens, we might say this is the calmest kitty in the bunch because there's lots of kitties.

All right, now there are some things that we have to consider when we think about our spelling and adding those E-Rs and E-S-Ts.

When we have a word that ends with the letter E already, like in large, notice we've got that soft G, we want to drop our E before adding E-R.

So larger.

All right?

So the apple is larger than the grape.

And then we could say the watermelon is the largest fruit in the bowl.

So we are comparing more than two.

So drop that E and add E-S-T. Now the word sad has a vowel in the middle with just a consonant here at the end.

So we want to make sure that we double that final consonant before we add E-R.

So sadder.

That movie was sadder than the one we watched yesterday.

And then I could say it's the saddest.

Again, I'm going to double that final consonant before adding E-S-T.

It's the saddest movie I've ever seen.

And I know I've seen a lot of sad movies.

All right, let's practice a little bit.

So up here, we're gonna read each word in the box and we're gonna sort our words based with the soft C or the soft G spellings under the correct heading.

Now, not all of the words are gonna be used, so they're trying to trick us here.

So we have to be good thinkers.

All right, what's this word right here?

Giant.

And I know it says "J" because it's got the G-I.

So giant, that's a soft G. There we go, let's put it over here.

How about this one, guard?

Nope, how about careful?

Nope.

Okay, keep going.

Pickle.

Do we have a soft C or a soft G?

Nope.

Places.

Ooh yes, places does.

That C-E makes it have a soft C. Gentle, yep, we've got that G-E.

So it's got the "J" sound.

Garden, nope.

Dangerous, yes.

Century, yes.

It's got the soft C. Iceberg, yes, iceberg.

Bigger, nope.

Giraffe.

Giraffe has that soft G. Celebrate, yep.

It's got the soft C. Great, camper.

All right, good job third grade.

Okay, now down below, let's do a little bit of practice here.

And it says, "Choose the correct word to complete the sentence that follows and write it on the line."

Okay, so if I was to have the word loud and I want to say louder, we're just gonna practice this so we can see it.

There's nothing special I have to do.

I'm just adding the E-R. if I want to add E-S-T to loud, then it becomes loudest.

So now, which of these two words would I use in the sentence?

"The horn on the large truck is louder than a car horn."

And I know it's louder because I'm only comparing it with one other thing.

There's just two items being compared.

I'm gonna do one more.

So we've got happy.

Now, happier.

Ooh, and we didn't talk about this one.

We're gonna change our Y to an I and add E-R. And happiest.

And again, change the Y to an I and add E-S-T. Now, here we go.

"Of all the puppies, I think this one is the happiest," because there's lots of puppies, "to be here."

Okay, so I'm gonna switch gears.

I want to talk about some metaphors, and I've got a poem for us today.

So we've been reading it every day, and we're gonna continue reading it until we get all the way through.

But I'm gonna, I think today, actually, I'm gonna read it all the way through.

So let's go through.

This is called "Why I Run."

Okay.

The first marathon I ever saw was years ago with my grandma.

We stood out on the Boston streets and marveled at the number of feet, and marveled at the number of feet.

The runners were a rumbling herd, except for a few like the swiftest birds who shot out alone to run their races with determination carved into their faces, with determination carved into their faces.

Motorboats speeding over the gray water, these runners would inspire anyone's daughter.

That was the day I made the decision, the bounce in my steps clarified my vision, the bounce in my steps clarified my vision.

I went home that day and laced up my shoes, and although my feet started out as one big bruise, I've run in every Boston Marathon since, and now I'm so strong I don't even wince, and now I'm so strong I don't ever wince.

Okay, I have a metaphor right here.

"I went home that day and laced up my shoes, and although my feet started out as one big bruise..." What picture is the author helping us have in our minds?

And what is the author comparing here, two different things?

So let's think about it.

Is the author comparing shoes to a bruise?

Hmm, close, but not quite.

How about my feet, or this girl's feet and a bruise?

Those are being compared.

So, "Even though my feet are one big bruise," are they really a big, giant bruise?

No, but they're probably really sore, right?

So she overcomes it.

Can you picture it?

Yeah, metaphors do that for us, that figurative language.

So boys and girls, I just want to say, thanks for hanging out with me today as you're getting ready for school.

Remember, you're responsible for your learning success.

So listen, ask questions and share your ideas because together we can do so much more.

I had a blast with you.

Enjoy looking for these metaphors in your reading today.

And I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Buh-bye.

(cheerful guitar music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and the games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪