Types of Print & That Darn Letter S!

*Attention Parents: Here is a link to the Land and Climate Poster Project students should be working on this weekend. It is due on Wed., Oct. 19!*

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Today we officially kicked off our study of informational and everyday text. We defined the characteristics and looked at examples of informational and everyday text.

Students glued this chart into the Genre Learning tab of their Thoughtful Logs.

 Students looked for different types of print as they read independently today (regardless of whether they had fiction or non-fiction) and tallied the number of times they saw a different type of print.

 During our share time, we discussed our observations and began brainstorming WHY authors might use a different type of print. Today specifically we discussed that an author might use italics to indicate a title or a journal entry by a character in a book. Another student found that words in all capital letters were used for both shouting and for headers.

On a different note, I've been noticing that many of our kiddos are putting apostrophes before every s at the end of their words. It was clear to me that my students didn't understand the difference between using an s for possession versus using an s to make something plural. I used a page from Amelia's Notebook (which we have been reading as a mentor text for the trait of ideas lately) and highlighted the words with an s on the end. I asked students what they noticed about all the words that were highlighted. Students discovered that they all ended in s, but those in yellow had apostrophes before the s and those in green did not.

I used this SMARTboard slide to discuss the difference. I had printed this slide out ahead of time and students glued it in the Author's Craft section of their Thoughtful Logs since good authors always make sure to use punctuation appropriately. The chart will serve as a resource if students need to refer to it during Writer's Workshop.

We practiced a few examples together, and then I had students write down two sentences that I had dictated.

Homework:
1. Reading: 15 mins., Pizza Log (Look for different types of print in your books!)
2. Math: Facts - 10 mins., 7.1/7.2
3. Social Studies: Poster due Wed.