update 10-11

Next week is the last week of the first quarter!  I can't believe it!  This week, students self-selected a topic to read and learn more about from the choices of:  pollution, eclipses, and climate change.  They read articles with the purpose of reading for causes and effects.  We used Google Classroom to take notes on these topics.  Book projects are due next Thursday, 10/19.

We continue to focus on main idea, vocabulary, text structure, summarizing and looking for details.  Using our informational books, we looked for VIPs or very important points to remember.  This helped us stay focused and remember what the books were about.  See the sample below.

In Google Classroom, we took notes this week which the kids loved.  Check out this sample too and ask your child which topic they learned about.

This week, we also had a day where students self-selected skills they wanted to work on based on some independent work comple

ted in class.  After working on the skill, they had to share with the class what they learned.  We ended with students writing reflections in their notebooks.  See sample whiteboards below.

Reflection:

update 10-4

Reading:  We continue our work with informational text this week.  The two big skills we covered are learning how to annotate plus main idea and details.  This week, are focus was on animals.  Each group learned about either sharks, ants, wolves, or pandas the first half of the week.  Today and into the rest of the week, kids are reading and learning about Gray Whales, Birds of Flight, Life in the Sea, and Plants/Animals of Antarctica.  Not only did kids engage in conversation with each other about their books, but they also learned to Jigsaw.  Jigsaw means to teach others about your topic.  The pictures below show us teaching and sharing about what we read.  Since we are reading informational text in class, your child should be reading 20 minutes each day at home of their choice book.  


Writing:  We continued to work on our expert writing pieces.  Yesterday, we learned what elaboration means and tried it in our writing.  Also, we talked about the difference between run-ons and fragments.  Our goal is to write detailed sentences that clearly share our thoughts.    We completed these on Google Classroom.  Ask your child what he/she wrote about!   Our next writing pieces will  focus on using informational text and more than one source.

 

 

update 9-27

This week, we have moved into informational reading!  Today, we brainstormed all the things that good readers do when reading informational to try to understand it.  Below is what we came up with:

Kids are self-selecting information text on a wide variety of topics to read about.  We read one Monday and today they selected another.  Ask your child what he/she is learning!  The kids also had the opportunity to teach each today about their topics.  It was a great experience for them.

Last week in writing, we did some comparing and contrasting.  We analyzed our writing using different colors to show the different parts.  Once done with this, we reflected on the writing.  The kids wrote compliments to themselves along with suggestions as what could be done differently the next time.  I will pull those out and hand them back before writing our next compare/contrast piece.  See the sample ideas below:



We also started some informational writing.  The kids had to choose some topics that they were experts in and knew a lot about in order to tell someone about it.  Those were started in Google Classroom and will be worked on Friday as well online.  It was amazing to see all the different things our classes know about!

All students did practice and perform idiom plays.  Pictures are below- I forgot to put them on the last update.  Enjoy!

update 9-20

Writing good reading responses has been a focus for us.  We are working on including evidence and explaining that to support our thinking as readers.  On Google Classroom, we have used the question feature to practice typing responses.  We wrote about who we thought stole the flag and the theme from the book.  See a sample below:

We also used Reading Counts for the first time.  We will be using this as the year continues.   Login info should be glued into your child's planner (a purple paper).  If you have questions, please let me know.  Info below:

• Students read a book of their own choosing.

• Each book is assigned a certain number of points based on length and difficulty.

• Students log in to take a quiz on the book. If they pass the quiz, they are awarded the entire point value of the book.

• If they do not pass the quiz with at least a 70%, they may retake it up to two additional times.

• If a book is not on the Reading Counts website, students may fill out a book review sheet to earn the points.

• The reading counts points they earn will be totaled at the end of each quarter and used as a summative reading grade. The grade is based on meeting their quarterly goal. For example, if the goal is 30 points and your child earns credit for reading 27 points worth of books, they would receive a 90% for the Independent Reading Assessment in the grade book.

We had a reading summative this week followed by watching National Treasure. We will be using it to write a compare/contrast response Friday. Next week, we will start informational text for the rest of quarter and focus on main ideas/details along with vocabulary.

update 9-13

Capture the Flag is going to be finished by this Friday!  Today, we discovered who was guilty, so ask you child about it.  We have used the strategy Sketch to Stretch.  This is where you sketch a picture of something related to the book and have some guess what it is before revealing what it actually is.  The kids seemed to have fun with this.  See a picture below.

Our week will end with working on a project related to the book which should be fun.

The big push continues to be reading is thinking.  This week, we added into using emotions.  We also worked on writing quality responses to reading.  The kids had to write about who they thought stole the flag with evidence.  Those are on Google Classroom.  I sent an email asking if parents wanted to be added on to that website.  Please contact me if you have any interest and haven't done it yet.

Next week, we will be having a summative assessment with two fictional stories.  Next week, we will be also watching the movie National Treasure and comparing it to the book.

update 9-6

We are getting close to being halfway finished with Capture the Flag.  Ask your child who they think stole the flag!  The kids have been sharing some interesting theories.

We took a poll and here are the results as of right now.

This week in writing, we started a compare and contrast essay about one of the main characters and ourselves making sure to look deeply at character traits.  Tomorrow, we will finish with a focus on elaboration and giving evidence along with structuring our writing so it makes sense to the reader.  Check out the writing on Google Classroom!

In class, we have been collecting interesting words from Capture the Flag to teach each other and recording them in our notebooks.  See a sample below:

Strategies are also a big focus this year in class.  We brainstormed strategies to help us answer questions for an assessment that is hung in the classroom.  Today, we took our first formative (weekly ten) and the kids had to reflect and record one strategy they used.