♪ 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 ♪ (soft music) - My town, hey.

Oh, hi.

Hi Mr. Dawson here at Discovery Ranch.

I'm here to take you on adventures and discoveries, so you can learn how to read and write.

Today's Friday, which means it's reading day.

Another reading day when we're putting all the things that we've learned together to read and to write something.

Well, remember that if you will send me something and tell me something you've learned this week, right here at the studio at Valley PBS, or email me, I'll send you a book, an activity book.

It has so many things in here.

Coloring pages and puzzles.

It's just so nice.

Get yours today by writing to me.

I can't wait to hear from you.

Well, let's get started.

Okay, let's talk about our essential question.

You remember it from yesterday?

What do you know about our country?

Yesterday, we read that story, "Ana Goes to Washington D.C." and it was all about Washington D.C., and all the things that you can discover there.

Well today it might be a little different.

Okay.

The American way.

There are so many things in our country to see.

Someday you should go across the country and see all the things, because there are a lot of things boys and girls.

Yes there are.

Okay, well today's story is called "See Our Country."

This is the title.

This is a text feature.

Remember last week we talked about text features?

This is one text feature, the title, and it helps us to understand what the story might be about.

Well I want to talk about some other things too.

We talked about another text feature which is the picture.

But I want to talk about these.

These are captions.

They have little bits of information about what's going on in the story.

In this case, it's talking about the picture, and it gives us more information about what the story is talking about.

Captions can be very important.

So when you see them, even though you might read down here, going to the caption will help you understand the story a little bit more.

Yes, captions.

Now, as always, there's going to be some questions I'm going to ask you.

One of the questions I'm going to ask you is right up here.

Is this nonfiction, or is this fiction?

So I want to know is this passage, is it nonfiction which means what?

Do you remember?

Right, it's true.

And then fiction means what?

It's not true.

It's not true.

So we have nonfiction and fiction.

Now I can tell you that this piece of writing is going to be informational.

It's not narrative, it's informational because it's giving us information about our country.

You need to really pay attention to it, because when we come back, I'm going to ask you, oh, just two questions this time.

Just two questions.

And we're going to look at the book to find our information, because sometimes when you're writing, you're going to go back to our story to get what you might be writing about.

So you always can go back to the text to see what we can gather from it.

So if we're going to write something, which you know we're going to write something in just a bit.

So, remember the title of our story is "See Our Country."

I hope you enjoy this story.

- [Narrator] See our country.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France.

There are many places to visit in the United States.

This is the Statue of Liberty in New York City.

Lady Liberty is a symbol of freedom.

She welcomes people to our country.

What a beautiful sight.

The four presidents on Mount Rushmore are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Let's travel west to South Dakota.

Mount Rushmore is a monument carved into a mountain.

It took many years to build.

This monument honors four American presidents.

The great blue heron lives in the Everglades.

The alligator lives in Everglades too.

The Everglades is a national park in Florida.

Many different kinds of animals live there together.

About 350 different kinds of birds live in the park.

What other places would you like to visit to learn about our country?

- That was some good information about our country.

Did you listen?

I hope so, because I have questions for you.

That's right.

Here's our first question.

What is the main topic of this story?

What's the main topic?

Well, we can see the answer to that on page 26.

Let's look at it and read it.

It says, "There are many places "to visit in the United States."

Ah, what's the topic?

What's the main idea?

The main idea is there are many places to visit in the United States.

I can tell you there are tons of places to visit in the United States.

Ah, as part of all the things that I've done, I have been able to go to many different places in the United States.

And I can tell you that it's really, really cool.

If you get to visit places, you will find the same thing.

Like the Grand Canyon.

I've been to the Grand Canyon.

Ooh was that nice.

All right.

So, the main topic is, there are many places to visit in the United States.

All right, here's my second question.

My second question is, what kind of park is the Everglades?

What kind of park is the Everglades?

Well, what page?

Oh that was on page 28.

28.

Here it goes.

Let's read it.

It says, "The Everglades is a national park in Florida."

There's the answer.

There's the answer right there.

It is a national park in Florida.

Whoa, that's just like the Grand Canyon.

It's a big national park, but it's in Arizona.

There's national parks all over the United States.

Oh my goodness.

There's Mount Rushmore.

Oh my gosh, that's a great place.

I think I'm going to go visit there.

In fact, I think is that right here?

Look, let's read this caption right here.

It says, "The four presidents on Mount Rushmore are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

So, do you see what I did?

I used the caption to find out more information about this picture.

That's what captions are good for.

Oh, let's take a look at the captions on the next page, on page 28, that talks about the Everglades.

This one says, "The great blue heron lives in the Everglades."

So if I went to the Everglades, guess what I would find?

I'd probably find blue herons.

Ooh cool, what are these?

Oh my gosh, alligators.

I'm not going to Florida.

No, I'm not going to Florida now.

No way.

Why?

Because it says the alligators live in the Everglades too.

Oh, can you imagine if you saw it?

Oh no, no.

I'm not going to Florida.

I don't want to see an alligator that's for sure.

Oh my goodness.

All right.

So, those are good things these captions, and we've answered the question about Everglades is a national park.

Let's go and use that information to do our writing.

Are you ready?

It says, "What helps you learn "about animals that live in the Everglades?

"Circle the clues."

Okay, what helps me to learn?

Well, first are the pictures.

The pictures, 'cause I saw the pictures, right?

I saw the pictures.

The pictures helped me.

And then what else?

Right.

The words.

The words are helping me too.

Oh yeah, the captions and the pictures are helping me.

Ah yes.

So, we have to end up with writing.

Let's look at our writing prompt here, it says, "I learned more by."

Hmm, what am I going to say?

I learned more by.

Oh, I know.

Looking at the photos and captions.

So I learned more by looking at the photos and captions.

Are you ready to write?

Here we go.

So, I learn more by looking.

Looking.

I'm going to put looking.

Ooh, by looking.

What was the next word?

I learned more by looking at.

Oh, that's a sight word.

Oh, do you know how to spell at?

How do you spell at?

A-T, right.

At.

I learned more by looking at the.

Another sight word.

Did you put that word in your brain?

Do you have that in your brain?

Yes.

How do you spell the?

Right.

T-H-E. Do you see how having those words in your brain, when you need them, when somebody says, "Can you spell the word the?"

You go, oh, I have it, it's right there.

The, T-H-E, I can spell it.

Okay let's keep going.

I learn more by looking at the photos.

Photos.

Oh, how can PH say F?

Do you remember that PH is a digraph.

And a digraph is two letters making one sound.

Here we go, I learned more by looking at the photos and.

Ooh, I don't have a lot of room, so I'm going to have to do a return sweep and put it down here.

But and is a sight word, how do you spell and?

Right.

A-N-D.

I learn more by looking at the photos and captions.

Here we go.

Captions, I'm going to put it right here.

They didn't give me a lot of paper to write on today.

I learn more by looking at the photos and captions.

And I'm going to put a period right there so I can have a sentence.

So I have my upper case, I have my period, and I'm learning, and then I'm looking, that gives me my verb, photos.

Oh my gosh, that is so many things in there.

So I do have all four parts, so it is a sentence.

Oh my goodness.

How well did we do?

We did so good today.

What did we do today?

We read the book, and then we talked about the book.

We had questions and we answered the questions based on the book.

How nice is that?

And then we came and we did some writing.

And you even helped me with some of the sight words.

We had so much fun.

It was so exciting to be here with you this week.

We've learned so much, and then guess what?

We'll learn more next week.

I hope you had a great time this week.

I had a great time, we learned a lot.

We're going to learn more next week.

I hope you will join me next week as we learn more at Discovery Ranch.

Bye.

♪ 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 ♪