Oct 24-28
This past week, students dug deep into his/her character study and began comparing and contrasting the characters in the just right books they are reading. Ask you child what subtle changes their characters go through when reading at home. Have them describe their actions and words with strong characters traits (not feelings like happy/sad/mad.) We have discussed how these are dead words and do not allow for much insight into our characters. Also, ask them about the 7 habits and which characters are or are not showing leadership. For example "Do you think Harry is being proactive or reactive? Why?
We have also discussed how important it is as a readers to discuss and talk about the books they read with a classmate, friend or parent. Ask your child if they want to start a book club with you. Have them pick out a just right book to read. You could read this book together or seperately, then come back to discuss your thoughts, predictions, and questions.
Students have also written a reading comprehension goal based on the DRA levels and Raz kids. Students have set a personal reading goal to accomplish each week including reading a minimum of 150 minutes per week at home, and discussing what they read with a classmate, parents, and/or friend. These are being tracked in leadership binders.
This week students will be introduced to different forms of writing in either first or third person. Students will apply this knowledge when performing their story boards in the MPR Nov 7th at 9:30am-10:30. Their presentations must be in first person. Parents are more than welcome to come and see our "Wax Museum" project in action.
All students should be continue working on their Story Board Projects, outside of class. (also posted in our Reader's Google Classroom) ** See the Power Point attached*** This has been shown to all students in class. To complete our Character Study, study will be required to present their boards, in the costume of either their protagonist or antagonist. An email has been sent inviting parents to this Wax Museum.
Students are also working on language standards within both Reader's and Writer's Workshop. This week we are idioms. Students are to try and learn some of these meanings and incorporate them into their personal narrative that is currently being revised and published online. (Scripsi account) Ask your child to show you some of the strong and vivid adverbs and adjectives added to their stories.
Last, your child is continuing his/her small guided reading group within our workshop. Each group is on chapter 4 of their novels. Ask you child what predictions they have about chapters 5 and 6 this week. (Books are different for some groups) Within these groups, we are focusing on applying our newly learned reading comprehension strategies, discussing our findings, making predictions, as well as, discussing unknown words and using context clues to help us determine the meaning.
Raz kinds has been set up according to your child's lexile range taken from the fall NWEA data. They should be reading Raz Kids at home.
WRITERS WORKSHOP
Students are continuing to work on their personal narratives in order to publish their individual books by Nov 16th. We have begun publishing these books in Scripsi. Students are also expected to revise their stories by applying the following elaboration techniques; writing in slow motion, adding sensory details, using vivid verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They will continue adding strong examples into their Writer's Interactive Notebook. These can be used while revising their stories in Scripsi.
Students are also expected to upload at least two hand-drawn illustrations into Scripsi. They can also use google images and clip art for their final publications.
As students are typing within Scripsi, they are to use the rubric (handed back with their pretests, located in their leadership biders) , to make sure that the are working towards making progress within their academic wigs for writing.