I'm not sure if everyone will find this as humorous as my husband and I do. The anchorwoman makes the video even funnier! Enjoy! 2nd graders- Thank you 2nd grade moms for showing up each week for the last month. I appreciate your help and this is an open invitation for you to stay at any time. In class we worked on section2 & 3 of the story sequence chart for Goldilocks. Remember, not every line has information from it. Rather, we answer questions and then record the key words. Please have your student narrate from their story sequence chart sections 2 &3. To end the story, please do not say "The End." Please end your Goldilocks story with a clincher line that ends the story strongly. For example, "Goldilocks decided to learn better manners, " or "Goldilocks never let her curiosity get the best of her again." etc. Next week- Please bring back all 3 parts in your students best handwriting. We will try and share at least one paragraph from each student and then they will file it into my box. I sent home a noun and verb worksheet. It would be a great activity to work on during the week. 3-5 Graders: Congratulations! This is the first time all 3 grades completely finished a KWO in class! What a good feeling if you are a parent of a children in these grades. It's my goal for each class to leave with at least same amount of work completed on the KWO. Today, after reading our Final, Polished Copies of Ziggurats (and some 5th graders did the challenge), we filed them and moved on to lesson 4. Please see the attached KWO and ask your student to narrate the story back to you using this KWO. This is a crucial step in the process. This lesson introduces the idea of imagery writing. Your student has a 5 sense word list glued in their blue spirals (also they have an -ly adverb condensed list glued in too). Please work through the lesson 4 pages 37-42 and the checklist is included on page 43. The Challenge assignment (specifically for 5th graders, but welcome to anyone) is on page 44. The KWO for this challenge assignment needs to be on a separate piece of paper. The challenge assignment is an introductory paragraph to this multi paragraph assessment that we will continue next week. Please, have each of the paragraphs on their own paper.
2nd Grade: Today we reviewed the 4 types of sentences and learned the famous sentence jingle from Shurley English Grammar. Today was a lot of information for some and not enough for others. That's ok. Remembering, a lot of times IEW can seem like you are drinking from a fire hose; what gets in will and what doesn't won't matter. This week- Please practice the sentence jingle and know the 5 parts of a sentence. Please re read the story of Goldilocks from the IEW book and answer the questions from Story Sequence Chart section 1. The questions are meant to generate thoughts and ideas about the story. Please have your 2nd grader do this with you orally and you can dictate their answers into a Key Word Outline (KWO). On Thursday or Friday, please work together to create ONE paragraph about the characters & setting of Goldilocks. We will continue to work through the Story Sequence Chart and section 2 next week and then section 3 the following week. Please have your student bring a hand written copy of their story to class on 9/27. Remember, it is completely acceptable to have your student answer questions orally and you be the recorder. Modeling & imitating are KEY to learning any new skill. 3-5th Graders: Thank you to all three of these classes for your flexibility and patience as we adjusted for a guest speaker in science today. The 3rd graders had a 5 parts of a sentence quiz and the 4&5th graders had an IEW vocab quiz. Today was the first day we turned in a Final Polished Copy. It is important for your child to hand write a final draft before there is any mention of typing. Third graders, please do not type your papers until after Christmas Break. Your parent may type them for you, you may type some of it, but please do not add that to your plate right now. Fourth & Fifth grade, you are to still hand write a final copy before you have it typed or type it yourself. We reviewed -ly adverbs and introduced who/which clauses in class. Ask your student to about how squirrels eat nuts. Please do not require a new dress up until the previous one is done easily. Using a dress up easily means that it is done with minimal help. Keep that in mind. I may introduce a new dress up to the class, but if you as a parent require or modify the checklist that is completely up to you. I will upload the KWO about ziggurats so you can refer to it at home. Please have 3&4th graders work through this lesson (pages 27-35) and bring back a final, polished copy of Ziggurats next week. 5th graders- please work through Lesson 3 (pages 27-35) and complete the KWO , paragraph, and final drafts for BOTH Ziggurats and The Tower of Babel. Don't forget to keep up on the IEW vocab cards. Great job to so many of you! Keep up the good work! This adverb video is not the School House Rocks Lolly adverbs song. However, this video is very informative and helps students to think about the questions that adverbs answer. None of the classes got to sentences 4-7 in the KWO. I wanted to include it just as a guide. Sentence 4 is meant to read "The ziggurat had 7 layers, each layer smaller than the one below it." Sentence number 6 reads "At the top they placed a table and bed for the moon god in case he visited. "
When writing the IEW papers, please remember to encourage complete sentences. All 3-5th graders have a Sentence Jingle glued in their blue spiral notebooks. Second graders will learn it next week. 2nd grade: This second grade group is such a delightful way to begin my day. Thank you everyone for being prepared and ready to learn! Today we covered 4 types of sentences & it only costs a DIME... Declarative Interrogative iMperative Exclamatory I also sent home a packet of 4 types of sentences activities. It would be a great idea to work through them together and then challenge your student to do some of the sorting independently. The flip book of the 4 types of sentences should become a reference guide. As you read out loud or they read independently, encourage them to be on a "hunt" for the different types of sentences. Plickers! Wow, I'm impressed with this class's ability to try new things and have a good attitude about them. On my end, I could gather data quickly as to what topic or type of sentence was harder and what student/s needed more help. I hope they were fun because I plan to use them frequently. Next week we will be reading & writing from our IEW PALS writing book. 3-5th Grade: I unloaded a lot of information to your students today. We learned the 4 types of sentences & the sentence jingle. Please have them practice filling in the 5 parts of a sentence, which is already glued into their spirals. We MAY have a plickers quiz on the 5 parts of a sentence next week. Speaking of Plickers, you should ask your students about them! I used individual a type of QR code per student to gather data and assess how our class is learning new material. It's very efficient and helpful for me. Here's a reminder for any students who didn't get it completed in class. 4 Types of Sentences only cost a DIME. Encourage your 3-5th graders to either give a definition or example of each sentence and record it in their 4 types of sentences flip book. Declarative Interrogatie iMperative Exclamatory Next week the 3 &4th graders need to bring back a Final Polished Copy of The Amazing Ancient World. Please work through lesson 2 in the student book and use the checklist on page 22. The 5th graders need to complete a Final Polished Copy for both The Amazing Ancient World and The Great Flood. If the first week or few weeks need to be done orally by the student and a parent is the scribe, please know that that is more than ok! All students need to complete a Final Polished Copy of their paragraph(s) handwritten first. Typed paragraphs are NOT required, but are permitted. They will turn in their paragraph to my folder for the year. Please have your student cut out and learn the vocabulary cards (green cardstock in the back of the student notebook) for weeks 1 &2. A quiz is likely to occur. If you watch this Shurley English jingle video fast forward to 1:28 and the sentence jingle ends at around 2:08. 2nd Grade- We covered a lot in class, so here's a recap: Everything should be glued into their spiral notebooks (blue) and please bring the blue spiral back each week! Please work on the GROWTH MINDSET foldable for this week. I would also love for the second graders to watch some of the youtube videos I'm attaching and fill out some spaces in their 8 parts of speech foldable (the videos are in the same order as the foldable). 3-5th Grade- Please finish the KWO from Lesson 1. Almost every class got to line 2 or 3 of the KWO. Remember, we read each line of the source text and carefully choose 3 key words (numbers, abbreviations, and symbols don't count). Each class should finish the KWO, retell the KWO, and then ALL 5th grader should complete the challenge assignment from lesson 1. Please bring your blue spiral & IEW student book EACH week. Also, all 3-5th graders should fill out their personal goals page & their GROWTH mindset foldable. Both of these handouts are important to evaluate their progress at the end of the year. I'm attaching some youtube videos to watch for fun! I'm uploading the 8 Parts of Speech coordinating School House Rock videos in the same order that we learned them & wrote them in our foldable. Enjoy! |
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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