Highlights of the Week

We tried a "Thinking Routine" with this fabulous book, Ivan, the Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla .Before reading we accessed background knowledge about gorillas, during reading we recorded our thoughts about how Ivan was feeling, and after reading we noted our changes in thinking about gorillas.

I surprised the kids with their own copy of the newest Flat Stanley chapter book, courtesy of the author and my good friend, Kate Egan!

On Friday the kids arrived to a new seating formation.  They were so excited with the change and bustled in smiling and happy to join new seatmates.  These children are flexible and cheerful humans !

We had an illustrating session on Friday to add detailed drawings to our realistic fiction series.

We put work into the covers too!

On Friday we did another thinking routine with a story about Noah Webster and how he tried to change the strange spelling in America many years ago.  He wanted to get rid of silent letters.  The kids thought he had some awfully good ideas!

During grammar work we practiced editing a sample letter for capitalization and comma use.  Our editing skills are improving!

Students work hard to "write down the page" with details and "across many pages."  

One of our student authors let us use her introduction to help us focus on how a writer can use strategies to really pull you into their story.