Will's Number the Stars Projects

Stoyle Number the Stars Project

V

Skeels Number the Stars Projects

update 2-2

Happy Groundhog's Day! The groundhog did not see his shadow so here's hoping that spring comes early!  The weather this past weekend and week make me hopeful...

We are about halfway done with the third quarter.  Reading Number the Stars was a great experience for everyone.   Many kids told me what a great book I picked.  That was sweet and kind to hear.

Tomorrow is a reading summative covering our skills of point of view, main idea, reasons and evidence, and text structure.  We reviewed today in class and are ready to take it.  We are ending our week with a project about Number the Stars to display in our hallway.  I will post pictures when it is done.

At the end of this week, each child will conference with me about Reading Counts and how they are progressing with their third quarter goals.

The first half of this quarter was spent on writing responses to reading.  We compared and contrasted, analyzed multiple points of view, and just finished a response on theme.  Our next writing unit will be opinion writing.

Thanks for your continued support!

Update 1-21

We are reading Number the Stars and the kids seem to be loving it!! It is a very action-packed and exciting book.   We are reading this book just at school so it shouldn't be coming home.  Kids should be reading an independent book at home too.

Just a sample of what we did in class today.  The students had to write a dialogue between two families, the Johansens and the Rosens.  The Johansens decided to help the Rosen family (who is Jewish) escape from Denmark before they are arrested.  See a sample below.

Our writing pieces have been centered on Number the Stars and the time period also.  We wrote responses yesterday about standing up for others.

If you are interested in hearing the book read aloud, click here.

Book orders are due by tomorrow if you are interested.

Reading Counts points are due by March 11.

update 1-11

Last week, we talked about text structure and read several articles about Space and what it would be like to live there.  This week, we move to a Social Studies topic-World War 2.  We are just doing an overview of the time period and what it was to prep students to read a class book next week called "Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry.  Click here to read about the book. 

 

We will also be talking about Point of View and how different viewpoints affect how stories are told.  We will be reading letters from different kids related to WW2.  I have one from an American boy, a Jewish girl, and a German boy.  All give a different perspective about the war taking place.  

As far as writing goes, we continue to work on literary analysis and writing using evidence from the text.  This week, we will be comparing and contrasting viewpoints of the kids from the letters described above.  

I started reading aloud, "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" last week and have given out A LOT of copies!! I am excited for kids to be reading that at home.  :)

*Remember all reading logs are now online.  They are in the Google classroom and called Google Logs.  The kids must write two paragraphs of 6-8 sentences each instead of four short entries.  This week, we will work on writing good responses.  

*FYI-This Thursday, we will be having an ALICE safety drill in our school to practice.

*Harmon Musical is January 28 and we leave for the high school after announcements.

LA update 1-4-16

Happy New Year!!  We had a great first day back today.  We started with looking at our Reading Counts goals from 2nd quarter and setting a new goal for 3rd quarter.  I will meet with each child tomorrow about this and those will be entered into the computer.   Those will be due by the end of the third quarter.

Good news for Mrs. Stoyle's class!  They had the highest reading counts points as a class for the second quarter so they have no reading log this week to complete.

Reading Logs are now all online!  Students must login through Google Classroom and complete 2 paragraph entries per week.  All had a chance last week to practice this in class.  They are still due Fridays.  Here is a link to view the new log:  Google Log due Jan 8


Next, we had some time to write in our response folders about our New Year's Resolutions.

This week, we start to work on informational text structures.  We learned about five different types of structures today.  See them below.



We will continue to read about different topics and analyze their text structures throughout the week along with work on comprehension skills.  For our writing, we will be analyzing the text structures and comparing/contrasting them with a focus on the analysis.

Please continue to check the homework board:
https://leightongreenteam.wikispaces.com/