Today we talked about what we would be doing in this class. We also read The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. We followed the pattern that is in the book for writing about ourselves. Students should finish up their pages and bring them back completed next week.
Today we discussed our HW and what all we needed to make the highest grade on our HW each week. We also shared our "Most Important Thing" about ourselves. Finally, we discussed Homework Lottery! We won't meet next week (off for Labor Day), but when we return, please have The Lemonade War in class and ready to read!
Today we started our new book The Lemonade War. If you do not have a copy of this book, you need to have it. We will be reading chapters 1-3 and students cannot complete their work without reading the book. This is the first week we have had a full workload in class, so I expect there to be some confusion or struggle. This is normal. Everyone just try your best and bring back your best work next week. It will get easier throughout the year. Please watch the video about mentor sentences to help with that assignment.
Today we celebrated International Dot Day and practiced creating a "theme" from both the book and the activity. We learned that we should always try our best and that we can accomplish a lot when we work together. We also discussed a bit about the Lemonade War and we completed our diagraming and labeling of the mentor sentence in class. IMPORTANT NOTE: I have decided to change our second book. There is some complex timelines in the book that I'm not quite sure the students are ready for just yet. If you have already gotten your copy of Elephant in the Garden, please don't get rid of it (unless it is a library book). We will probably read it in the spring. I will let you know ASAP what book I am replacing it with. We will start that book on October 13th, when we return from Fall Break.
Today we learned about syllabication types, which should help us on our homework each week. We also reviewed a mentor sentence reference to helps us complete our mentor sentences. We went over our homework for this week and I also listened to most of the students read. Please check your email for what your child will be reading after fall break.
Today we talked about our thoughts about Lemonade and whether we were team Jessie or team Evan! Everyone had some really strong opinions! After break, we'll start our second book. You should have received an email from me about that title. If you did not, please let me know ASAP!
Today we started our new books! This unit will have us all working on the plot elements (no matter what book you are reading). Additionally, I'm going to give very specific spelling/phonics skills that I have noticed the students need help with. For this unit it will be words that end in Y, tion/sion words, consonant le words and a review of CVCe words (magic e).
This week we discussed what we liked about Winston and adjectives to describe him. We also cited text evidence to support our thinking. We spent a chunk of our time learning what idioms are and how we could make fun costumes to show those idioms. Finally, we reviewed our syllabication page and specifically focused on diphthongs spelling patterns.
Today we started a room escape in class. Since this is our first time doing a room escape, we will work together to solve it!
Today we finished up our class room escape and really worked on knowing what to do next when we think about our clues. For this week, you are starting our final book of the year, which is Top Elf. It is so fun and we are going to have a blast with it!
Today we listened to Chapter 7 of Top Elf. Some students were a bit lost because they weren't quite up to that point in the reading. I used the think aloud method to model what they should be doing in their own brains while listening or reading. We made predictions and discussed characterization.
Today we worked on our Top Elf at home work for this week! We wanted to get as much done as possible since it is Thanksgiving!
Here's a short video tutorial on mentor sentences.