October 5, 2013

Good morning! We hope everyone is doing well. This week we completed our Henry and Mudge unit, a cute writing poem project, science with UV beads, and we also started our Global Read Aloud project!

Our revamping of the Henry and Mudge lesson for our independent readers was a huge success. They are getting closer to the learning target of understanding direct and indirect characterization. Completing the character web together using the book, Henry and Mudge Take the Big Test,  helped make finding evidence to infer character traits more concrete. Another thing that helped was giving them a list of character traits to use when partner reading other Henry and Mudge books. They were able to use those traits to find evidence to match them.

Reading for trait evidence.

Working hard on this challenge.

Like the pieces of  a puzzle, a character's traits fit together to make him who he is.

Power writing to reflect on what we've learned.

Our more guided group used the story board to write a retelling of Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night. The story board truly helped them retell the story through the use of their retelling bag.

Our writing this week focused on ideas and details through writing a list poem. The students got a kick out of listening to the Shel Silverstein poem, "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out," and the Jack Prelutsky poem, "Bleezer's Ice Cream." We used these poems to introduce list poems that are organized with a beginning, middle, and end. Then, students wrote their own list poems about themselves and made their portraits.

First drafts with revisions.

We can't thank Steve Spangler enough for all of his creative and inviting science lessons. Once again our students were totally engaged in the scientific method as they learned about the UV rays from the sun.

In the classroom; no uv rays, in the sun, in the shade.

Our Global Read Aloud started this week! Our students loved listening to the book, Marty McGuire by Kate Messner. But, the best part for them was blogging about their thoughts. They cannot wait to hear back from their second grade friends in North Carolina!

Signing off now to go and plan more fun activities for next week!
Kim and Anne