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The students enjoyed hearing, and acting out different Fables with our Reader's Theater activities today.
We are excited to start our new unit about story telling. In English class we will be exploring different styles of story telling including: Fairy Tales, Tall Tales, Myths, Legends, and Fables. Before we start out unit, we completed a carousal activity which consisted of 5 pieces of paper, each with the title of one style of Folktale storytelling at the top. Students moved freely around the room and wrote their ideas about the type of story on each paper including examples, features, and definitions. We will revisit these ideas after we have explored the genres in more depth.
There is no better way to celebrate the personal success of finishing a well crafted Narrative Fiction story, than to share with your peers. Everyone was very impressed by their fellow peers creative and well written stories. Great Job!
Students have a good start on new novel for this Unit's Novel Study, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo . The book is being read as a class, which allows us to discuss many reading strategies and stylistic elements of the story as we read.
For every two chapters we read, students complete 1 chosen activity from their choice board. At the end of the Novel, students will have completed all activities from their choice board ( minus 4 they do not wish to complete!). Students are gaining some valuable skills such as time management, independence, self-regulation, and personal commitment. This is the first time students have completed an activity like this in English class, so this structured and monitored approach allows the students to develop these skills while still have teacher guidance and support if needed. As part of Library day, students choose a book they would like to read from the library, and the following week respond to a variety of questions. This week students incorporated all types of questions they had encounter so far, and did Book Talks for their peers.
Students completed a Venn Diagram comparing what it means to have a HOME vs having a HOUSE. We have decided that a home includes emotions and feelings, a house is strictly a physical building or place.
Students are hard at work Publishing their writing piece! I am very proud of how well the students worked through the Writing Process and am happy to see the pride everyone is taking in their work.
After practicing composing Observational Reports of our surroundings, we compared the differences between a regular Observation Report and a Scientific Observation Report. Using our science fair experiments, we drafted our reports. While composing, we decided that writing a Scientific Observation Report is like a snap shot into our personal experience with the experiment vs the practical application of the experiment.
The students took the IB approach to research and create a poster for themselves, and peers, to refer to when writing. Students used prior knowledge to think of verbs they had encountered in their reading and writing in the past. Then they used books around them to gather new and interesting verbs that they could use in their future writing. This approach helps students take ownership over their writing and word choice, while reinforcing grammar skills.
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