This Week

Hi all!

November already! Before we know it the Holiday Break will be upon us as well as the end of the second quarter. This is the shortest quarter of the year, and of course, the busiest.

Monday Folders are coming home today. I am not making any comments in them, since many of us just met on Friday. You will notice that the Wordly Wise test was a bit more challenging. Some of the children had some difficulty with the antonym section of the test. We’re going over these today, and I will give them the opportunity to correct their mistakes tonight for additional partial credit.

Word Study words will be coming home today. Due to the shortened week, we will have the spelling test for these words on Monday.

Windsocks are due tomorrow, and the children will begin sharing them on Thursday.

Don’t forget swimming on Thursday!


Writing
I have given back the children’s most recent writing assignment which was a spooky story. We used a four square as our pre-write, though many children put too much detail into this graphic organizer. Their four square became like a rough draft. Our current focus, in writing, is organization. The four square really lends itself to developing a beginning, middle, and end of a piece before the actual writing begins. We will be using this device at least one more time as a tool for planning the organization for a writing piece. I am stressing that the four square should contain only words and phrases and not complete sentences.

The spooky stories were graded solely based on the organization components of the piece. I asked the children to complete as much as they possibly could in the classroom, so I could see their writing process first hand. There is a scoring guide attached, and I have made notes concerning any questions that came up while reading their story. The average grade on this writing assignment was 80%, which is very good for their first real attempt at a narrative focusing on organization. I’ve met with each child to discuss their story and areas for improvement. We will be going back to a piece we had begun before our spooky stories to apply what we’ve learned. I’m trying to instill in the children how important thinking ahead and planning is in the writing process. I think we’re getting there!

That’s all for now!
Kim Bushman