♪ Good morning to a brand new day.

♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play.

♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun.

♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone.

♪ - Good morning, third graders.

My name is Mrs. Nixon.

I am so excited to have you here and hanging out with me this morning so that I can help support you to become an amazing thinker, reader and writer.

Now, usually I'm always talking about our books and things that we're going to read, and we're talking about some grammar and some comprehension, but today and for this whole week, we're actually going to change it up just a little bit, do a little review and we're going to practice applying some of the things that we've read into writing.

And I want to show you how to do it.

We're going to focus today all about writing a book review.

Now, in order to do a book review we have to have read a book.

So if you're looking for a book to read a great place to do that is by checking out a book at your local County library, your school library, or go online and you can check it out for free using the app Sora.

So I love all the different ways that we can read a book.

And then we can learn how to write a review.

Okay.

Are you ready to start today?

So I kind of gave you a little rundown of what we're going to do for this week.

We're going to warm up.

We're going to do a little bit with grammar.

We're going to practice some pronouns and then we'll get into that book review.

You ready to start?

Okay.

So let's warm up those brains this morning.

Now looking here.

Holy smokes.

Look how many words we have.

There are a ton of them.

Guess what?

Don't fret.

These are all review.

We've practiced these over the last five weeks.

And so we're just going to warm up our brains just reading the top 10 and every day this week we'll go through and read 10 of them just to remind ourselves of what you've been working so hard to do.

You've been doing a great job.

Okay.

So let's go through and let's read them together.

Here we go.

Said, same, run, round, ride, right, read or read.

Good job.

Red, put, and ran.

So you can practice all of those words, putting those into your own sentences, make up your own sentences for them and remember you're responsible for your learning success.

So there's a word up here that, ah you can't remember how to spell, that's okay.

Write it down on a post-it note practice it and you'll get it.

I know that.

All right.

So let's go through and let's talk about some pronouns.

And pronouns are actually really important for us to use, especially in writing because it allows our sentences to have a little bit of freedom and it has a little bit of more creativity.

Otherwise it sounds super monotonous and repetitive.

So what are pronouns?

Let's talk about them.

So pronouns are words that take the place of a noun.

So here we go.

A plural pronoun must match the word or words it replaces.

So here's an example here.

My friends and I saw the jugglers perform.

So my friends and I if I want to replace that with a pronoun, I can do that.

And over here I made a little box for us a little cheater box I've got singular pronouns and plural.

So singular, meaning just one person.

So he or she, him or her, it, my.

These are all singular pronouns.

Plural means that there's more than one.

So they, them, these, we and our talks about more than one person.

So right here, when I say my friends and I I'm talking about more than one so I would want to have something plural and I could put the word, the pronoun we.

So we saw them perform.

Now look here.

I also could do a pronoun here in the middle.

I could replace the word jugglers and maybe I didn't want to say jugglers every single time I wrote about them.

I could say the pronoun them.

So my friends and I saw the jugglers perform can actually be said a second way.

We saw them perform.

All right.

Here's another example or another reminder I should say.

A pronoun must agree with the word or pronoun it replaces in both number and gender.

So Tess, we know Tess is a girl, Tess lost mmmmm notebook.

We want to put in there cause we have just one girl, we know it's a girl, so we would want to say, Tess lost her notebook.

That's a pronoun, right?

So instead of saying Tess lost Tess's notebook, we can replace it with that pronoun her.

Okay.

Let's do a couple of practices here.

So we're going to circle the pronoun that can replace the nouns that are underlined.

So Cam and Tara helped out at the bake sale.

What could we say in place of Cam and Tara?

Would we say he or they.

Yes, it would be they, because there are more than one persons that are helping out at the bake sale.

Good.

Our principal let us put a table up in front of the school.

Would we replace a table with it or he?

Hmm.

Well, I know he is talking about a person.

It refers to an object.

So a table would be it.

That would be the pronoun.

Let's keep going.

David made lots of posters for the bake sale.

So would we say she or he?

You got it.

David is a male so we would say he.

We invited our parents and grandparents to come.

So our parents and grandparents, that means there's a group of people so we're going to say them.

We're not including us in that cause I didn't say myself but them, we invited them to come.

The bake sale was a huge success.

Now is the bake sale is that male or female?

Right, that's not a person so we can use the pronoun it.

You got it.

Great job.

Okay.

So today what we're going to be practicing like I said, is a book review.

And so using our pronouns in our writing is really important.

Here's what I want us to talk about.

I have a book review chart.

What is a book review?

Well, let's read about it.

Okay.

A book review states the writer's opinion about the book, provides a short summary about the book, gives clear reasons that support the writer's opinion and it often ends with a recommendation.

Okay.

So that's an overview of what we're going to be doing.

So let me give you an example.

So here's an example.

So Sunil wrote this.

Let's read what he wrote and see if it follows all of the things we saw on our poster, all right.

"Traveling the Silk Road."

As soon as I started "Traveling the Silk Road", I had a difficult time putting the book down.

Ooh.

Do you think that he was liking it?

I kind of think that too This nonfiction book details the way traders traveled from the East to the West, connecting parts of Europe to parts of Asia.

The author presented a very detailed account of the route's history while still keeping the book interesting.

These travelers traded silk, spices and other treasures.

Okay.

So let's stop for a second.

Does that sound like we're starting to get the writer's opinion?

Yeah.

It's an interesting book.

I couldn't put the book down.

He did a nice job.

All right.

Let's see if he gives us a little bit of a I'm looking at my book review poster here.

Let's see.

Does he tell us a summary and give us some reasons?

Listen for him as we keep going.

The Silk Road was not one particular road.

There were many ways to travel from the East to the West and each route led to different trading posts.

While some traders traveled by land, some merchants traveled by sea to reach the shores of Europe.

Sea crossings also had their dangers.

Pirates and storms were always threats.

It was a hard way to make a living, but over many years trade blossomed between the East and the West.

My favorite part of the book was when the author discussed the cultural contributions of the Silk Road Okay.

I wanna stop for just a second.

Are we finding a summary of the story?

Do you kind of understand what the book was about?

We haven't read it though but we know what it's about, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So are we going to see some clear reasons as to why Sunil enjoyed this book?

Let's keep going.

Over the centuries, many changes came about because of trade on the Silk Road.

People learned about new customs, beliefs and styles of living in other parts of the world.

Travelers carried stories about far away lands.

They brought back sketches to illustrate what they had seen.

They ate new spices and wore different clothes.

Trade made the world seem smaller.

All right, let's finish it off.

"Traveling the Silk Road" is a very informative book but it also shows how travels made necessary by trade can help people to learn more about different cultures.

The author obviously did a lot of research and cared about her subject.

She speaks with great knowledge about the history of the route and what it meant to the world then and now.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about the history of the world and its many cultures.

So third grade, did we hear some clear responses?

Some clear reasons as to why Sunil really agreed with what this author was doing?

The opinion that this was a great book to read?

Yes.

And did Sunil give a recommendation?

Yes.

Right here.

Now here's my next question.

So this is a fantastic piece of writing, right?

Do you think that Sunil simply sat down and wrote all of this in the first draft?

Probably not.

So Sunil would have gone through what we like to call the writing process.

I'm going to pull it over here and we're going to talk about it real quick.

So in the writing process we go through, we plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish.

Now, today it's all about planning.

I showed you what an exemplar is but I want you to start thinking about a book that you could write a review about.

So here are some things that you can think about at home so maybe you want to jot some of these down.

Think about and plan, we want to do that pre-write, plan and gather some information.

Think about what you're going to be writing about.

Maybe you want to grab that graphic organizer because I'm going to tell you, I am sure that Sunil took out a graphic organizer and organized his thoughts.

So organize your ideas.

Consider your purpose.

Are you going to share an opinion?

Are you going to make sure you're recommending or maybe you're not recommending the book?

And identify your audience.

What do you want readers to know?

And do you want them to read your book?

Hmm.

So think about that.

Map out your summary.

Kind of summarize your story there.

What are the most important parts.

But don't give away the ending.

If you're wanting your friends to read it, don't tell them how it ends.

You want to hook them.

Choose your topic.

Make sure it's something you feel strongly about.

Find that book that you really want to share that opinion.

And then plan your review.

Start organizing your ideas.

Third grade, I had a great time hanging out with you today.

I can't wait to continue this with you tomorrow.

Have a great day, and I look forward to seeing you back here at PBS tomorrow.

Bye-bye (guitar strumming) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day.

♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play.

♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun.

♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone.

♪ (guitar strumming)