Language+Arts

June 8, 2008 This week’s reading and writing workshop was focused on providing time for groups to complete their reader’s theater scripts and begin rehearsal. These plays will be presented to their peers next Thursday during reading workshop. I realize that I never posted the promised poetry last week, so I have posted it below this week. Enjoy!

May 30, 2008 This week groups started to plan the reader’s theater they will script and perform for 5O and 5W about their fantasy novels. The children must find a new setting or situation in which their characters can interact while remaining true to their original characters’ personalities and to the theme of the novel. We also spend a little more time reading and discussing __The Phantom Tollbooth__. Finally, each child looked back at his or her goals and took time to reflect on their reading growth this year.

In writing, we posted a collection of the best of our poetry on the big board outside of our classroom and the students have been reading them and writing comments about them to their authors. There were so many amazing poems written that I hope parents will have a chance to drop by and read them all, but a few examples are posted here for your enjoyment.

We also continued to work on memoirs. I was able to conference with most of the students this week and they have had time to revise on their own as well. This unit has revealed how deeply some of our children are able to think about themselves and their learning. There are memoirs about how attitude affects achievement, how important it is to know who your real friends are and about how living overseas has helped make them a better risk-taker! The children will bring their memoirs home at the end of the year in their portfolios, so I hope you’ll take time to read them!

May 16, 2008 Book clubs met twice this week and the focus of their work was on finding similes, metaphors, foreshadowing and personification in the books they are reading. They have come to realize that authors sometimes rely heavily ion some of these devices and don’t use them at all at others. This will lead to some interesting discussions about how they change the tone or massage of the text! We also continued to read aloud from The Phantom Tollbooth and explore the mine of rich puns and plays on words that this author uses. In writing, most of the class has now completed all of the pieces they need for their poetry anthology and they spent some time putting the finishing touches on illustrations. Their anthologies will be put together in the next week or so. We also spent time discussing and working on memoirs as well. I was able to conference with every writer and they all have overarching ideas selected and are hard at work drafting pieces that will help reveal their theme. We also talked about how to write good titles and students shared and discussed several title ideas in small groups.

May 10, 2008

We kicked of our final book club of the year this week with Ms. Onken’s class; we will be reading fantasy novels together and building a more solid understanding of that genre. Students also had some time to continue their independent reading. In support of the fantasy study, I am reading __The Phantom Tollbooth__ by Norton Juster aloud. This novel is an incredibly clever tale and the author is master at the use of a variety of literary devices that we will be analyzing and discussing together. Ask your child about the “whether” man and the watchdog!

April 18, 2008

Visiting author Georgia Heard taught a demonstration lesson in our room on Wednesday morning. Students learned about the five doors of poetry and were then invitied to "walk through" one of the doors to write a poem of their own. Students who were having trouble finding ideas were advised to go through the wonder door...to write a poem about something they wonder about. The resulting poems were very interesting adn several were quite touching! I am looking forward to the day when the children can share theri poems with you.

March 7, 2008, 2008

This week we looked at how to use a tool called a “think-along” chart to help recognize when we are making inferences about our reading. After I showed the class how to use the chart with the book Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, they had a chance to practice with a partner using the same book. Then each child created a chart about their independent reading novel in their Reader’s Notebook and completed the chart as their literature response this week. The children also had a little extra independent reading time while I met with individual students to hear them read aloud. I am pleased to say that oral reading skills of every member of our class have improved a great deal this year and many of the children are now doing an exceptional job of reading with expression.

Our fiction writing unit continued this week with several lessons on author’s craft. We took a second look at how authors develop strong leads and then learned that endings often connect back to the lead in some way. We also learned how to tighten up dialogue so that it is believable and moves the story forward. Finally, the children were introduced to the importance of using setting details to make their story more understandable and to help their readers connect to the action. Throughout the week I conferred with students to make sure their story maps made sense and that they were developing a manageable plot. After seeing all of the story maps, I can’t wait to see the completed stories!

This week in spelling we reviewed a few rules for suffixing and worked on building word webs and lists of words that can take the suffixes -ful and -ly. The children worked in teams and each team had access to a dictionary and a thesaurus. They were challenged to see how many words they could find that fit this pattern; one group came up with over 60 words! Next we looked at what types of words can take these suffixes and how suffixes change them. The children discovered that most -ful words are adjectives and when you add-ly tot hem they are transformed into adjectives.

Did you know that your child practices keyboarding for about 20 minutes every Day 3 when we go to the lab? Notice the black "box" over Tiffany's hands and keyboards. These specially made covers prevent peeking and ensure the children are learning proper touch-typing technique! If you have a keyboarding program at home, please encourage your child to practice; this is a skill that will help them a lot in future!

February 29, 2008

This week in reading we continued to explore what it means to make inferences. On Monday, the children worked in pairs to draw inferences from single sentences. For example, from the sentence “Two students were passing notes to each other in class.” The children were able to draw the following inferences: Ö  They might be bored Ö  They are probably friends Ö  They could be sharing news or making plans Ö  They might get caught and get into trouble. Ö  They don’t have time or the chance to talk to each other. After this activity, students shared their inferences and we discussed how it is possible that several different students can read a single sentence and draw such similar conclusions. A few days later, students worked in pairs to discuss what inferences could be made from a set of pictures with captions. Once again, we discussed how they formed these inferences. At the end of the week, we were able to generate a group definition of what inferences are and how we form them. Meanwhile, the children worked on recording scenes from the book they are reading independently, and noting what inferences they could draw from those scenes. Finally, they used these inferences to develop a theory about their characters. On Friday, we shared and discussed in class some of the ways in which authors lead us to make inferences that help us understand characters better. Students concluded, for example, that it helps us understand a character better when the author reaveals the characters feelings and emotions and reactions to events. In writing we continued to look at strategies for writing great realistic fiction stories. The children had already developed their main character(s) and created a story mountain with rising action. This week they learned how to “show not tell” by putting themselves into the shoes of a character and living the moment. Students practiced the strategy of making a movie in their mind of a scene, then telling from inside the story. Before they went off to draft their scenes, they had a chance to tell the story to their writing partners. In each of these lessons, we have been using a class idea to demonstrate and practice the skill being taught. Ask your child to tell you about the class story that we are writing together and about the story they are writing!



February 22, 2008

We kicked off a new reading unit entitled “Everyday Inferencing” this week. In this unit, the children learn what inferences are and they begin learn to recognize when and how they make inferences. Finally, they begin to apply their new knowledge in literature responses and in book discussions. On Monday we had a double writing block and used the time to wrap up our essay unit and kick off a unit on fiction writing. To wrap up with essays, three students read their essays aloud to the class. Each reader was selected because their essay was a particularly good example of some aspect of what we had studied in the unit, such as using specific examples slanted to support the thesis, or using strong transition words. In addition, all of the essays were posted on the bulletin board in the hallway and every child had a chance to read two or three of these essays and post brief responses to them on post-it notes.

Select a link below to read some of these wonderful essays.



January 18, 2008

__**Reading and Goal Setting**__ This week in reading workshop I gave each student a copy of the reading continuum that has been specially written for students to use as a self-assessment. Each child worked on marking themselves on the continuum, then conferred with me to see if we are generally in agreement about where they are in their reading and what skills they are using consistently. Next, the children used the continuum to help them set to or three new goals for their reading for this semester. Finally, the children wrote reflections on their growth as a reader so far this year and on their goals. An important step in learning how to set goals is recognizing when you don’t know how to do it yet! Several children commented in their reflections that they had not understood how to set goals well early in the year, but have since learned to do better. Allison May wrote, “My goal was to read more challenging books. I think I sort of accomplished this goal. Maybe about 50%. But back then I wasn’t that clear about setting goals. That’s probably why I chose a simple goal to work on.” Allison went on in her letter to set two much more specific new goals! Sidney Thompson wrote, “At the beginning of the year I didn’t quite know how to set good goals. I set goals that aren’t always possible, like it is not always possible to make myself like certain books or genres. But now I know how to set a good goal. I’m better now because I look back at my work and take awhile to see what I need to improve on. Then I decide the important ones and choose them as my goals. Now I choose goals that I can accomplish if I try.” Sidney’s comments also reflect the fact that the children are starting the think about what goals are important and why. Logan Kuo wrote, “One of my goals is discussing character, plot and setting and point of view. I want to do this because when we’re discussing books and I want to say something, I can’t because of not knowing how. This is very important because discussing is a way of thinking, but if I can’t discuss, I won’t be able to think as well, too.” Each child is fully focused on their goals for the second quarter and I look forward to watching them grow!

__Writing: The Thesis is the Thing!__ This week during writer’s workshop we continued to work on strategies for generating a thesis statement from narrative writing and personal experiences. The children practiced pushing their thinking about statements they make and elaborating on them by supporting them with stories or examples. The children came up with a number of very touching and insightful theses and I have been very impressed with how well they are learning to dig more deeply into their own thoughts and ideas! Some examples of amazing thesis statements we heard from students this week are:


 * Parents make huge sacrifices to their children everything.
 * You have to be a friend to make a friend.
 * Be open to new things because they may one day become favorite things.
 * Sometimes changes happen too fast.
 * Sometimes people can be good at something really hard and bad at something really easy!
 * We are learning in ways our parents never had a chance to learn.

January 11, 2008

This week in reading I introduced the children to reader's theater as a means of strengthening and reinforcing their expressive oral reading skills. In a reader's theater, students read a play script from seated positions using as much expression as they can muster. Memorizing the script, learning blocking and cues and making sets and props is not necessary, so groups can "perform" for an audience after a very short period of rehearsal. This week, the children were split into four groups and each group practiced briefly each day, then performed for our class on Friday. Next week, the groups will shuffle and each child will have a chance to play a new character in a different play. We will perform again on Friday, but this time, our Kinder Buddies will attend the show!

In writing, we kicked off a new unit of study on personal essays. This unit will combine elements of what the children learned about personal narratives and literary essays to deepen their understanding of the differences between narrative and essay writing, and to further their ability to generate and support a thesis.

In word study, we started a study of the i/y conventions. We reviewed the rules for changing an -i- to a -y- in the middle of a word and the children were introduced to a word matrix that allowed them to review how to build words using word sums. You can see an example of a word matrix and word sums using the base word family here.