Friday, October 14, 2011

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.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

3-For-1 Special!

We've done a lot in the past three days. I'll do my best to keep you all caught up! I've been having some issues with my computer so it was a little bit of a struggle to blog this week.

We created a publishing anchor chart to add to our Writer's Workshop wall. We discussed that a published piece of writing is a cleaned-up version of our revised and edited version. When a student is publishing, we should see their sloppy copy, their Quick Word book, and their clean looseleaf paper on their desk. Their paper should be slanted to enable the best handwriting.
We also talked about how to make a cover for a published piece of writing. Our publishing wall has pockets for each student to store his or her writing, so I explained that when you make a cover, you will first want to trace a thin line to indicate the part of the cover that will stick out of the pocket. In this top 2 inches is where the title, author's name, and date need to appear. This allows a reader to easily identify the title of the piece of writing and the writer. The picture for the cover can go on the area below the line. Below you will see Teagan tracing a line to figure out where she needs to put her information for her cover.

We've also been practicing summary writing.
 I modeled again how to use a vocabulary organizer to write my summary.

Finally, this morning we read Tulip Sees America as a mentor text for word choice.
We took a closer look at the language of some of the states visited in the book.

We pulled out the words that were powerful and painted a picture of Iowa and categorized some of the author's language. We decided that good authors use colors and similes to help paint a picture of what they are writing about!
To store this learning, students recorded the powerful phrases from the three states we looked at in the Powerful Words and Phrases section of their Thoughtful Logs.
 Homework:
1. Reading - 15 mins., Pizza Log
2. Math - 10 mins. facts
3. Spelling - Sentences, Test Fri.
4. Social Studies - Poster due Wed.
5. Thursday envelope

Monday, October 10, 2011

Beginning to Publish!

Today many students got their personal narrative drafts back from our adult volunteer editors. Our adult editors make any last minute editing and revising changes to student writing that didn't get fixed in the students' writing process. The adults also put any circled words in students' Quick Word books. Students know that when they circle a word in their writing, an adult will help them spell it later, not by just writing it correctly for them on their draft but instead, putting the correct spelling in a resource like their Quick Word book. I want students to learn to use their resources to spell rather than just have someone always write it correctly for them without students having to do any work.

You'll notice in the draft below that this student circled the word 'donets' because she wasn't sure how to spell it. The adult wrote Q.W. next to her circled word to signal to this student that she can find the correct spelling for 'doughnuts' in her Quick Word book. When this student went to her 'D' section of her Quick Word book, she found her word spelled correctly. We don't put ALL misspelled words in students' Quick Word books, just those that students circle. The rest of the misspelled words we fix for them right in their draft.
We then discussed that good writers have a clever title that hooks a reader's interest in the story rather than give the whole story away! Students quickly revised their titles to make them a little more clever and not too revealing. We also discussed the importance of indenting, and how to publish a draft on looseleaf paper. After my modeling, students began publishing their own stories.
 Tomorrow we will create an anchor chart to add to our Writer's Workshop wall to anchor what we know about publishing!

 Homework:
1. Reading - 15 mins., Pizza Log
2. Math - 10 mins. facts, 6.2/6.3 (Line Graphs), Ch. 5 test slip
3. Spelling - Test Friday
BOOK ORDERS - Due Thursday!