2nd Grade:We had a fun and full day in 2nd grade! First of all, I forgot to hand out 4 new sheets of printer paper for their alphabet animal books. Please find 4 clean sheets of computer paper to use for the letter pages M, N, O, P. Here is our brainstorm page for these letters. We also enjoyed HOT COCOA ! I read the books that you see in the previous picture and we discussed adjectives! We enjoyed our hot cocoa and then we brainstormed adjectives to describe our hot cocoa. The kids all have a mug of hot cocoa glued in their blue spirals. Please go over the difference between adjectives and nouns at home. A lot of the students struggled with identifying adjectives. DUE NEXT WEEK- Please bring back letter pages from M, N, O, P. The next two videos should help reinforce adjectives. The second was is incredibly cheesy and a little hard to listen to, but seriously, quality info. Seriously, put these two on repeat! 3-5th graders:![]() We started class with a short vocab quiz covering lessons 6 & 7. Then, we read & filed our papers and began a NEW UNIT. IEW is broken down into 9 structural units. We are officially starting Unit 3 , which is inventive writing. This writing is VERY different than Units 1 & 2. In Units 1 &2 we picked key words from each line of a source text. In Unit 3 we are answering questions! Keep with me. And, I am attaching a short video from Andrew Pudewa showing the Unit 3 model on youtube. Please watch! All the students glued a story sequence chart into their blue spirals. We also discussed how each part of the story sequence chart is its own paragraph. And, each paragraph has a purpose! A paragraph is considered a paragraph in IEW when it is comprised of at least 4 complete sentences. 3rd Graders- Please do this story sequence chart orally with you a parent. Parents, please act as a scribe for your 3rd grader and do this story sequence chart orally. It can be very intimidating to sit down and write 3 paragraphs in one setting. Read a paragraph, answer the questions together, write down key words that answer those questions, your child re tells the story from those points. Do 1 paragraph a a time. 4th Graders- Please work with your parent for at least the first 2 paragraphs. Answer the questions from the story sequence chart together and orally. Parents, please scribe at least the first two paragraphs and let them try the last on their own if they wish. 5th Graders- Please work with your parent through the story sequence chart orally, all three parts. You may re tell and write all 3 paragraphs independently after your parent approves of your re telling from the story sequence chart! DUE NEXT WEEK- Final copy of your Croc & Croak story- all 3 paragraphs ideally! I was flooded with a lot of questions, and a lot of them were the same ones in the. Please refer to my Frequently Asked Questions from Unit 3: FAQ: 1. Q: I can only write 4 sentences? A: No, but you need to have a minimum of 4 sentences and try to answer the questions for that section. 2. Q: Do I have to write about the Croc & Croak from Lesson 8? A: Yes, the assignment is to re tell this story in your own version. Just like many Aesop fables have changed over time, your version can be your own! We are imitating quality writing. You can add your own details. 3. Q; Do I turn in 3 separate pieces of paper with 3 different paragraphs? A: No, you may turn it in as one story. Parents, you may need to discuss new paragraphs/indentation/formatting etc. 4. Q: Can I change the setting or problem? A: Depends. Parents, if your child has a firm foundation of the Story Sequence Chart, then you can encourage them to have a new setting, or change the conflict, or alter the story....so long as the Story Sequence Chart still works for their story. It is a pretty advanced skill. However, if for this first lesson you want them to simply re tell and get their feet wet, then don't worry because we will have a few more weeks in Unit 3 and then later in another unit we will purposely change and challenge the Story Sequence Chart. 2nd Grade: This week I asked all the kids to get up in front of their classmates and share their alphabet pages. I was so impressed ! They all did it! Please let your 2nd graders know that they will do the same thing next week. The alphabet book who/which project is coming together very nicely. Please remember to follow the formula and have your student write out their sentence. ________ is for ______, which ___________________. Speaking of writing their animal alphabet pages, we listened to a fun and cheesy verb song. I think it helped solidify the idea of verbs! Verbs are extremely complex. They have moods, tenses, and many other factors. In our 2nd grade class we are working with verbs as action words and maybe learning the helping verbs. Your student should have a few pages glued inside their blue spirals. The calendar pages we have in there are to supplement some of the IEW PALS assignment this week, which is to review the months of the year. I'll attach the verb song at the very end of this post because the 3-5 graders watched it too. Due Next week: Please return the next 4 letters of your alphabet animal book! 3-5 Graders: Once again a very full day. The kids are really catching on to the KWOs in class. A lot of your kids have some impressive sentence structures and wide vocabulary. I really enjoy hearing how different the paragraphs are, especially since they are all derived from the same or very similar KWO. I'm attaching a picture of the class that finished the most of the KWO, which happens to be the 3rd graders! Not a contest 4 &5, but good job 3rd graders! I"m also uploading the youtube video to the cheesy and catchy verb song. The students all have a spiral page titled "BANNED WORDS" and 4 matchbooks, which are all labeled the pairs of banned words. Please check their blue, spiral notebbook (not the IEW student book). We brainstormed replacement words for each of the banned pairs of words. Due Next Week- Please finish LESSON 7. Return with a final copy of the Pyramids paragraph and 5th graders the challenge as well. There will be a minute VOCAB QUIZ covering lessons 6-7 ONLY. Surprisingly, many students have asked for a vocab quiz! I love it! This is a sample brainstorm list for the words to replace say/said. Many people have heard the phrase "said is dead" and these word walls give students stronger verb options. In class we got stuck on come/came, so here are some more ideas for your student's banned word matchbook: plunge, forge, advance, plod, wander, ascended, departed, dashed, crusade, or meander. 2nd grade: Great job 2nd graders on completing the first 4 pages of your alphabet animal book. In class we brainstormed the next 4 letters and I sent home 4 clean sheets of paper. Please return these next week! We also brainstormed stronger verbs. This was a little bit of a challenge. Please try to complete the worksheet that is glued in their spiral notebooks. An idea is to keep that paper out and while you read books during the week be on the hunt for words to replace the ones listed. Eat/ate, go/went,said, etc....are all kinda boring and overused. We want them to expand their vocabulary and in turn strengthen their sentence structures and overall writing. I'm attaching the youtube video that I tried to show in class but it never loaded. I'm also attaching two pictures from class to help you in your week. 3-5 Grade:Wow, we had a full day! Great job everyone for writing so much about Gilgamesh! I also loved hearing about your ice cream shop flavors. One thing I'm noticing is it's taking us a long time to read through all of our papers, so some of the classes aren't getting as far in the KWO in class. My goal is for everyone to try to get to the same stopping point, so I apologize when that doesn't happen. In class, we worked through lesson 6 and went over the symbols on page 60. We read and started the KWO on page 63. I'm attaching a handwritten copy of a final KWO for your reference. All 3-4 graders are to return next week with a final copy of this paragraph. All 5th graders are encouraged to complete a final copy of this paragraph PLUS the challenge assignment King Tut. Please work through the brainstorming activities on page 64 and use those checklists! I heard a couple of kids say that the KWOs and paragraphs were getting easier! That's music to my ears. If your student thinks this is too easy please encourage them to do the challenge activities and challenge checklist components. Keep up the great work! We are over the honeymoon stage in IEW and are definitely approaching the trenches of doing the work each week!
Thanks to everyone for their patience and cooperation with the modified schedule. I think everyone would agree the NASA simulcast was a great experience for our kids. Thank you Mrs. Hogervorst, Mrs. Hahn, and Mrs. Langan for coordinating the opportunity. . 2nd Grade- We more than survived our first week with just second graders! They did grrrrreat! A couple of notes going forward this week. -We are working on compiling an Alphabet Animal book with a letter, an animal, and a which clause that describes the animal. I am attaching an image of the white board we brainstormed ideas about the first 4 letters. Kids can draw, color, paint, cut out, trace, stencil, mod podge each page. I handed each child 4 sheets of plain computer paper. Please keep it to this size for book binding purposes at the end of the year. Each 2nd grader wrote their name on the back corner of each sheet too. For Next Class- Please bring your student's alphabet animal book for letters A, B, C, D. Also, I will collect their Goldilocks and we will file them in the portfolio book. They also glued in a noun/verb sort activity. Please follow directions on the sheet and reinforce the differences between a noun/verb. Have a great week! Your kids have been so much fun in class! 3-5th Graders: Here's an image of some of the anchor charts your student sees during IEW. Thanks Darcy for sending this to me. ![]() I owe a HUGE apology to the 3rd graders! I forgot we were combining 3/4 grade for IEW and I gave the same vocab test to both grades. Please tell your student I am so sorry and I will not count their vocab quizzes. We will fill them out together in class next week and I appreciate their willingness and diligence to work hard at a daunting task! In class we reviewed imagery writing and introduced a new decoration. In IEW there are dress ups and decorations. Alliteration is considered a decoration and it is a fun and approachable one to teach. I handed out an Ebenezer's Ice Cream Shop alliteration activity & kids had a lot of fun with it. Please have them Finish their Five, Fun, Flavors and be ready to share with their classmates next week. We read and completed the KWO for part 2 of Gilgamesh. Fourth & fifth graders please do part 3 if possible and third graders who would like to challenge themselves should complete part 3 of the assignment as well. Due Next Week:
I'm also attaching a picture of our KWO from class. Here's an alliteration youtube video as well! |
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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