Guided reading groups

This week in the word work station students are focusing on words with long vowel sounds and practicing letter land words. In writing they are picking a prompt from the "write about this" app on the iPad to create a detailed writing piece focusing on having a beginning, middle and end. As well as, using describing words to make their stories interesting. We have been having the fifth grade, "tech experts" come down in the mornings to train the kids on apps that will be used during center time. In the read to self center, students are asking and answering questions in their readers response journals while reading a "just right" book. During guided reading, we are focusing on reading strategies and what to do when they get to a word they don't know. The questions they are practicing asking themselves when they get to tricky words are, "does it make sense? Does it sound right?" The guided reading groups book focus is on non fiction books this week and they are continuing to ask and answer questions before, during, and after reading the text. Students that are excelling at this are doing this as written comprehension using evidence from the text to support their answers. Students who need support with this concept verbally answer questions we come up with as a group and I guide them to how they can find the answers. 

Data Notebooks

We are tracking growth through out the year. Using habit 2, "begin with the end in mind" we started the year off setting quarterly goals in reading, math, personal and work habits. At the end of each week we check in on our goals and track progress. At the end of each quarter you will be able to see the goals your child set and how far they've come! I will show you these at parent conferences and I encourage your child to join you to be able to share it with you. It's important for them to be part of these conversations and take charge of their learning. Eventually conferences will be student lead and it is a school wide goal as part of leader in me. I will be gradually incorporating student lead conferences, starting with hopefully at least having them present at the quarter one conference and being able to show you their data notebook. If you haven't already signed up for a conference, please do so on the website! The link is on a tab at the top of this blog! The conference date is the Monday after we track out, September 29th. If that date is no good for you, let me know and we'll work something out!

End of week...7?!

Here are some fun pictures... Time to sharpen the saw and have a great weekend! I hope you can all make it out for movie night! Also, don't forget fall fest is next Thursday! 

Leaders in research

We have been researching NC(state bird, flower, flag, tree, dance, animal, food, etc) for the Twima project. Check it out more at http://thetwimaproject.weebly.com/ 

We will create a poem from this research to be a part of the iBook that will have poems from classrooms all over the US to represent the different states. We are so excited to work with the fourth grade class to have Lake Myra represent North Carolina in this book. 

Personal narratives

In writing, we have been focusing on personal narratives. We are using the writing process to create a final piece for this unit. The first step is to think about a small moment they want to write about. Then, they plan it out using pictures. We also outlined their stories using a graphic organizer. The categories used to help them plan it out are, when, where, what you wanted, who was there, how you felt, and what happened in detail. After the story is planned out they created a rough draft using transitional words(first, next, last). Transitional words assist in keeping an order of events in the story. The words don't have to be exactly that way but they do have to have a flow and sequence to the events that are occurring in the story, as well as a closure sentence at the end. After the rough draft they edit their work and read it over with a buddy and then compose their final draft to "publish."