End of the first trimester news

It was so nice to see all of the children after the break. They came back eager to learn and dove right into lots of activities this week.

In the beginning of the week the learners were introduced to their Writer's Notebooks. We mentioned that most authors use a notebook of some type as a tool for writing ideas. I read an excerpt from my own notebook about a Fondue Party. I explained that these sentences and phrases decribing eating fondue, could maybe inspire me to draft a longer piece of writing in the future. I shared my experience of writing a gratitude list as well. Drafts of stories, poems, overhead conversations, and songs were also discussed as possibly entries. On Tuesday we had another lesson with our Notebooks regarding observations. Many details and good descriptions come from being a good observer. This skill is equally as important in other areas such as science and math. Many learners headed outside to write down observations of the moment to moment happenings outside room 11 at the CLC. These notebooks will travel back and forth between home and school for the time being. The homework asks for a couple of entries, as I want it to be more inspired than forced. If you see them following you around or hiding behind a chair with notebook in hand, you will know why. I gave them the expectations of writing neatly, skipping lines unless they are naturally small, neat writers, using margins, and scanning for no excuse words. However, I am not expecting final drafts, with perfectly edited work.

I hope you were able to go by the book fair and see the special table of 4th grade recommendations! It was nice to give the learners such an authentic connection to their writing in class. Thank you so much for buying books for the classroom! I can't wait to share them in the class library and as read alouds.

It was the third week of Enrichment. I was able to see sundials being made by the art group (Thanks to Sabrina for preparing detailed lessons, and for Tracey Fecher, Sarah and Adam Fecher's mom for stepping in to sub the class.) and creative movie making by the imovie group, thanks to Karen Venturi. I heard about the human body from the leaners working with Karen Friis and Betsy. I was interviewed by Eric, who is part of the newspaper group run by Jamie.

We got to revisit some of the concepts that were introduced at the Lawrence Hall Of Science a while ago. Gina Reidy came in and helped run some static electricity experiments on Tuesday. We did a little non-fiction reading and learned about the natural phenomenon called St. Elmo's Fire. It's not just a hit pop song from the 80's, believe it or not. Ask the learners about where the word electicity originated from (and why).

From before break...

Language Arts

The learners ended their first round of book groups this week. Their
last discussions involved conversations about plot, theme, and
author's message. They continue to share their think marks that
include thoughts, predictions, questions, etc. about the story. They
were also responsible for writing a response paragraph regarding the
book. Another activity completed was connecting to the characters, by
writing a paragraph about a text to self, text to text or text to
world connection. The learners also did a related activity out of
their Daybooks for Critical Readers and Writers using text from Judy
Blume.
We had a mini lesson in Writer's Workshop about revising for ideas. I
read a passage and they drew pictures of the details to get a better
understanding about sharing detailed ideas. They also reviewed the
importance of sharing the 5 W's in writing a narrative...Who, What,
Where, When, Why. The learners will work on revising ideas while they
continue their drafts of unforgettable moments in their lives. The
learners continued their practice of cursive and use of commas during
language arts time as well.