I'm not going anywhere for Spring Break, but I thought this was too cute to keep to myself! 2nd Grade:The second graders did a great job in class today. We completed a KWO for rabbits and the kids just need to finish their KWO for chickens! Due Next Week: Please return from the break with 2 final paragraphs from Lesson12. Also, I handed out a bunch of papers about spring/flowers/grammar. I told the kids if they completed them during spring break I will reward them. A lot of students are still struggling with parts of speech. If you aren't going anywhere during break, it could be a good time to do just a little bit of review or at least watch some School House Rock grammar videos! 3-5th Grade:I believe all 3 classes completed the first KWO from Source 2. We are completing the third paragraph to our cumulative report. Everybody's 2nd paragraph about the Roman Government sounded organized and well written. Well done! Please complete the 2nd KWO from source 3 about Roman Engineering, and then fuse the outlines together.
Due After Break: The 3rd paragraph about Roman Engineering. *4th & 5th graders should challenge themselves to write in an active voice with not only a VSS (very short sentence) but a 3 SSS- 3 short, staccato sentences! I highly recommend this FREE webinar on Monday, 3/20. Whether you are a seasoned IEW parent or brand new, I am confident you will walk away with new insight or encouragement. https://events-na5.adobeconnect.com/content/connect/c1/946750274/en/events/event/shared/default_template/event_landing.html?sco-id=1763143153&campaign-id=
2nd Grade:This class is on a roll! The keyword outlining and summary reports are going so well. Each week the kids are giving the feedback in class and are creating the KWO in class on their own. Keep up the great work! Please make sure to ask your child to double check their backpacks on Monday night. They need to bring their IEW student book and their blue grammar spiral each week. Due Next Week: Please finish "Horses Sleep" and "Ponies" and return 2 final paragraphs next week. Also, please complete both verb tenses worksheets. 3-5th Grade:So many impressive paragraphs were read today! I really LOVE hearing their progression and seeing the pride they have for their work. I know it was a FULL week last week. A couple of quick things to note: Students are to keep their final copies of paragraph 1 from lesson 22 and 23. I would like them to be on different sheets of paper, because in the end they will combine all of them to form a 3 paragraph paper. I think it will flow nicely in their "books" at the end of the year to see the progression. Please read the lesson carefully and the sources are still from Lesson 22. Surprisingly, the 3rd graders COMPLETED BOTH KWOs from source 1 and Source 2. They now need to pick and form a topic sentence about Roman Government. Then, fuse the 2 outlines by choosing what details/information to include. Then write and edit their paragraphs. The 4th & 5th Graders completed all of Source 1 KWO and are set up and ready to finish Source 2. I think it will be a great exercise to see if they can finish on their own. The 4th/5th graders also did a peer edit in class. I asked them to share with a partner and use the checklist to listen for/watch for items on the checklist. Remember, especially as 5th graders, students need to learn to self-edit using the checklist. Moms are checkers of their editing. Due Next Week: Final copy paragraph about Roman Government. We also reviewed WWW.ASIA.B and discussed using it as a sentence opener. Remember no double dipping with dress ups and sentence openers. That means, if you use a www.asiab in your paragraph, it can't "double" as your sentence opener and vice a versa.
I'm really challenging students to think of new sentence openers and new -ly adverbs/-ly adjectives. A lot of them are quite comfortable with a few of them and want to use only those! 2nd Grade:We worked through Lesson 10 in class today. Please make sure your child has practiced reading their paper at home. We also worked on a nouns, verbs, and adjectives worksheet. Please have your child brainstorm ideas and return this sheet next week. I'm attaching a sample outline from class on Horses and a sample brainstorm session on items at the beach. A lot of the class is having a hard thinking of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It would be really great for them to be confident about these parts of speech before the end of second grade. Due Next Week: 2 Paragraphs from Lesson 10 + Nouns/Verbs/Adjectives worksheet that is in their blue spiral! 3-5th Grade:SUPER FULL day. Today we are fusing outlines. But before we could just jump into fusing, we had to label the topics of paragraphs from 3 different source texts. This entire process of writing is really crucial in organizing thoughts, especially if your student will be taking any formal state testing! Please read through all of Lesson 22 at home. Please read each picture and this post thoroughly. Due Next Week: 1 final copy paragraph of the first topic: How Rome Began The next 3 lessons will build on each other, so this first week was a lot of setting up. The following image shows how we scanned each source (there are 3 source texts in this lesson). We read each topic sentence and clincher sentence to determine the topic of the paragraphs. This seemed tedious and kinda burdensome to a lot of kids. But, by doing this work up front it saves you work in the end. When we decide what paragraphs are about and what sources have certain topics, then we can focus on just those sources when we write our paragraphs. The picture below shoes the KWO notes from Source 1 and Source 2 because those are the only source that have information about "How Rome Began." From these two sources of notes we then build our fused outline. Remember, EVERY fused outline paragraph still needs a topic sentence, this is the funnel/filter that determines what information to include . ![]() This image shows our 3 different topics and paragraphs. We listed which sources have the information. Students will only need to make a KWO of the sources correlating paragraph. Then, they fuse those 2 notes together. In this lesson there are always 2 sources to fuse into 1 outline.
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Kelli HeacockThe Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) equips teachers and teaching parents with methods and materials which will aid them in training their students to become confident and competent communicators and thinkers. Archives
May 2017
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