Procedural Writing Assignment

This week we are going to be working on an assignment focused on procedural writing and brochures. Students will be designing and writing a brochure that explains how to do something, for example, How to log into Edmodo. We have created an anchor chart to talk about what characteristics good procedural writing has, and we also created a Bump it Up wall, which students can use to see exactly where their writing might fall in a spectrum from level 1 to level 4. Here is a picture of our Procedural writing anchor chart:

And here is a picture of our Bump it Up Wall:

Using these tools, students should have a good idea of what makes quality writing when giving instructions. One thing I have tried to emphasize with students is that they need to write each step in detail, and add adverbial phrases to create more detail. For example, instead of writing:

1) get a pencil

They could write:

1) get a pencil from your pencil case  (underlined is the adverbial phrase - it describes where, how or when).

To look more closely at the examples on our Bump It Up Wall:

Additionally, we looked at brochures and came up with an anchor chart to tell us some features of a good brochure. Here is what we noticed a good brochure has:

Tomorrow I will be handing out the rubric detailing how students will be assessed and we will continue working on our assignment.

Integers, More Literature circles and Music!

We were introduced to Integers today! We started with a quick definition of what an integer is and related integers (and negative number especially) to a thermometer because it is very common. Then we did an inquiry problem in which students had to use a pattern to find the temperature at the top of a mountain, knowing the starting point and the fact that for every 150m rise in altitude, the temperature would get 1 degree lower. This was a challenge for many students because the increments that started the pattern went up by 300m, not 150m. Afterward, we looked at a presentation that explained a little more about integers. Here is the presentation I showed the class. It explains everything they need to know about integers this year and has some practice problems at the end. It can be an excellent study guide if working with your child to study for a test.

Integers

We will be having a test on Monday for our patterning unit. This week we will be reviewing the material we have studied this unit to ensure we are ready!

In the morning class we also tried to plan out our literature circle work again. I demonstrated to students how to organize themselves to make it easy to assign jobs. All students should have a copy of their jobs for the next 4 weeks in their agendas. It might be a good idea to  post this somewhere visible in the house to remind them! Literature circle books are to be read at home independently, and then students must complete their jobs using Edmodo. See our class website (literature circles link) for more information about how to complete the various jobs. Feel free to download any of the sheets for use at home. They can be used as a template and then copied and pasted into Edmodo if you wish. The first job for Literature circles is due next Monday. If you find that the book your child has chosen is too difficult, please let me know and we can make alternative arrangements. 

In Music, we are learning about the families of instruments in an orchestra. Students are using Chromebooks to learn about the four families and then making a presentation about it to show the class. They are using a website called SFS Kids. Here is the link: sfskids.org.

Literature circles, the 6 Kingdoms and Good Communication

Literature Circles

In our morning class, we are ready to try and start literature circles properly. Today we tried to organize ourselves into groups based on the book we chose, and figure out which pages we need to read this week and for each of the next four weeks. Literature circles can get confusing, so here is a brief explanation of how it works:

1. At the beginning of a cycle, I will either put students into specific books, or I will allow them to choose their own. Often if they choose their own they are more interested, but they sometimes choose books that are too hard. This time, I let students choose their own books, since I am still getting to know them as readers and writers.
2. Next, we spend a bit of time getting organized. The groups get together and have a "meeting" in which they break the book up into roughly 4 equal parts. They are responsible for reading each part over the next four weeks. For example, if the book has 20 chapters, they would read chapters 1-5 in week 1, 6-10 in week 2, and so on. I encourage children not to read on in case they give something away to their group.
3. They also divide up the jobs in their meeting. The rule is that they can only do a job once in the cycle. Also, the Discussion Director job and Summarizer jobs must be done. They cannot be left out. Here is a link to our planning Literature circle planning sheet
4. Throughout the four weeks, I expect students to:
1. read the section they are supposed to each week
2. do their job for the week and post it in Edmodo
3. make 3 comments (answer questions, comment about the book, discuss with another student, etc.) in Edmodo.

That is it for Literature circles! I am hoping that it will be like on online book club, and that students will actively discuss their books in Edmodo. The combination of choosing their own books and using technology to interact and display their thinking may encourage them to have rich discussions.

Science

In science, we are learning about classification. Today we finished reading a little and taking some notes about the 6 Kingdoms. Here are some pictures of the charts that show the notes we took:

We are going to continue by looking at how scientists further classify plants an animals, and then we are going to try to classify a "mystery living thing" with a partner.

Health - Communication Skills

As part of the Health curriculum, we are learning about the importance of good communication skills, and how we can communicate effectively. Today we watched part of a short video which showed us that part of good communication is being a good listener. Here is an anchor chart we made during the video to help us remember:

Thick and Thin questions, more patterning practice and The Six Kingdoms

Today I began reading a book as a read-aloud called "The Tree of Life" which is from our Literacy Place program and goes along with the skill of self-monitoring, or making sure we understand. The tree of life talks about biodiversity and the classification system, so it ties in well with our science unit. However, the book discusses only five kingdoms, while our science program talks about six kingdoms! Next time we have science, we are going to investigate why this might be.

As we are reading "The Tree of Life" we will be using our skills of self-monitoring. Today we learned to ask ourselves questions as we read, some which we could call "thick" questions (those that are deeper and require some thinking and explaining) and "thin" questions (those that can be taken directly from the text or might be one-word answers). As we continue to read I will be encouraging students to ask themselves thick questions to help better understand the story.

The shared reading portion of our lesson today began with a magazine article called Ad Busters, which talk about two girls from New Zealand who decided to fight against false advertising after they learned some facts about the amount of vitamin C in a popular drink. As we read this text in pairs, students will be encouraged to demonstrate understanding by writing down some thick questions and sharing them with the class for discussion.

In math we have finished up our lesson on number patterns and tomorrow will be beginning to learn about solving equations, such as _ + 4 = 3 +8. Students sometimes can have difficulty soling these types of equations. They need to remember to solve for all the constants first. In this case, find 3+8 = 11, and then ask themselves, WHAT +4 = 11? Hopefully, they will discover that subtracting 11-4 will give them this answer. We will likely be working on this for Thursday and Friday. Here is a video that we will be watching in class.

Our science lesson today dealt with identifying the 6 kingdoms and the major characteristics of each. We are learning that they are often distinguished by how they get food and if they can move or not. We will be finishing this later in the week.

On Wednesdays, we will be doing health as well during our short french time. In health, we have been learning about healthy communication skills. We learned that good communication involves looking at the speaker, using appropriate body language and practicing active listening skills. We will be practicing some of these over the next lesson or so.