Students enjoyed watching and performing in a few different Fables during our Reader's Theater workshop.
0 Comments
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. We are very excited to announce that Robert Munsch wrote back to Ruben!
"Hi Ruben: Thanks for writing and for reading my books. You asked if I like to do other things besides writing. I used to love to go hiking and cycling but now my health does not allow it. I love to read and spend many hours reading all different sorts of books. I get my ideas for books from my own kids and sometimes from other children. Often when I am telling stories I will say I am going to make up a new story. I get a kids name to use in the story and I still don't know what I am going to say. I just say whatever comes into my head and see if it's good. Usually it isn't. But sometimes it is very good. Lots of my books have started this way. Thanks for reading my books. Bob Munsch" The Author of the Month is ... ROBERT MUNSCH! Students will be focusing on how to include dialogue into their own personal writing, using the funny and entertaining stories by Canada's own Robert Munsch. During our research, we stumbled upon the official website of Robert Munsch. Ruben and Summer drafted an email to the author asking where he gets his inspiration and ideas for his many stories. Fingers crossed we get a response!
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.
I am always telling the students to "show me" their stories when they write, not "tell me." This was put to the test today when students had to use their senses to write down what they observed around the school. They used their jot note skills to record all the events they saw, heard, and recorded their thoughts and feeling about these observations as they occurred. Eventually, once they have mastered these recording and observational techniques, the students will complete an Observational Report for their science fair activity.
|
Archives
October 2018
Categories |