We began class today by setting up our notebooks for the Colonial Times Unit- labeling each page in our notebooks with one of the 6 essential questions of the unit. We then began reading about the New England Colonies- focusing on the geography of the land and how it impacted the colonists who settled there.
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Yesterday at the end of class I had the students use our summarizing technique to outline a summary of Where the Red Fern Grows and then using their outline they then turned their summary into a paragraph. At the start of class today the kids took out their readers journals and finished up their summaries. Afterwards, I had them turn in their journals so that I can read them over and see how the kids are each doing.
Upon completing our summaries, the kids then took a formative assessment on inferring- these do not go in the grade book, I will be using them to inform my reading instruction. The quiz provided the kids with a couple of quotes and they had to write anything they could infer about the character based on the quote. Homework: IXL B1-2 (sentence creation), D1-3 (Sentences, fragments, run-ons) and Book Talk Students took the reading section of the NWEA test this morning- it took most students about an hour or a little more to finish the test. In class today I read aloud from our book as the kids had complained that I hadn't read since the beginning of the week because of testing and the snow day. After reading students worked on their compare/contrast essays for the remainder of the period.
Homework: IXL S1-3 Relative Pronouns The kids worked on their compare/contrast essays today in class- everyone worked productively during the whole period...so as a reward I played music softly for them while they wrote. I hope to finish these up in the next few days so that we can move on in our Colonial Times unit.
This morning we had NWEA testing for math the first 2 periods (tomorrow we will have the same test for reading). This test gives us immediate diagnostic information about each student which we use to help us in designing our units and help us determine placement for next year. As a result of this testing we did not have Language Arts class today, but we will make this class up tomorrow (in place of Social Studies). I was able to pass back to the kids their narrative stories- overall the kids did an awesome job!
Homework: S1-S3, relative pronouns At the start of class I gave each kid an essay that I wrote comparing my childhood to the childhood of kids today (see picture below). I color coded and also annotated the essay for them so that they could see specific examples of everything I was asking them to do in their own compare/contrast essay. I read it aloud to them, pointing out the thesis, topic sentences, reasons, and examples as I went. Students then took out their checklist/product descriptor and began typing their compare/contrast essay. I told them that they should have the checklist and my exemplar right next to them as they type so that they can continually refer to them and make sure they are doing the writing correctly.
As I read my essay to the class I noticed a number of errors (run-ons and typos in particular). I decided to use this as a teaching moment to show them that even though I went to college for English and have been an LA teacher for 10 years, I still can't write a perfect first draft. I wrote the essay in about 15 minutes this morning before the kids arrived and didn't have a chance to check it over before class....so, as I explained to the kids, if I can't write a perfect first draft, and Stephen King can't write a perfect first draft....then neither can they- so before they try and turn something it they should always read it out loud and check it over! I introduced this weeks IXL and suggested to the kids that they begin working on it early this week because some find it quite challenging. Afterwards, I had kids pull out their reader's journals and they shared the summaries that they wrote on Thursday with the other students in their group to make sure they all had the same important details. We then read a few pages from the book before I passed out a short story for them each to read. After reading the story to themselves they filled out a summarizing graphic organizer using the somebody, wanted, but, so, then strategy.
Homework: S1-S3: Relative Pronouns (who, whom, whose, that, which) Today was our last class day with the If you Lived... books- students finished up their note taking and then, using the product descriptor I had handed out and gone over, they were able to begin their writing. The students all worked very productively in both classes on this today!! Great job!
Today the class began with "theatrical Thursday" since all students had done their homework! Afterwards, we read from Where the Red Fern Grows and then I had the students use the summarizing strategy I introduced earlier this week to write a summary in their readers journal of the 15 pages I read today. On Monday we will share our summaries and look at how we can improve.
Homework: work on those book talks! Due to the late start we did not have Language Arts class today. However, before getting to work on the If You Lived in Colonial Times I read aloud for about 10 minutes from Where the Red Fern Grows.
Homework: IXL P1-P5 (Personal Pronouns)- reminder- no fun film fest unless everyone does their IXL. |
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