Welcome Fall! This week I left plans for a substitute since I was helping plan my daughter's wedding. New sod was laid in the front, new blinds were installed, house cleaners and carpet shampooers were scheduled before the out of towners came to stay. We had a bridal shower and rehersal dinner to attend before the big day on Saturday. Such a busy week! Anyway, enough about me....
My plans included the following...
Fifth graders completed the Lewis and Clark DVD, listed problems and benefit of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and now we are organizing our information into a Lotus Diagram. This takes time and is a process which is very beneficial for students to discuss and then decide in which sub topic the information should be located. We will continue this lesson throughout October.
Fourth graders have completed Roald Dahl's, Danny, the Champion of the World excerpt from the Roald Dahl Treasury Book. We are following up with the last chapter of the actual book. The purpose of this lesson was to listen to the great detail and word selection Roald Dahl uses in his writing to describe locations, situations, and characters. Two of the classes were able to listen to some tips Roald Dahl used himself to come up with ideas for stories and to hold the reader's attention. The students were interested in hearing that Roald Dahl's hardest story to write was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He became so caught up in describing over 15 characters in the beginning of his rough draft. He asked his nephew to read it and his nephew said it was "horrible." Roald rewrote the script and it became what is now in the book. This led us to discuss peer editing....and how we need to offer gentle suggestions to our friends in the writing process.
Third graders continued to read Esio Trot, written by Roald Dahl. We also read the tips for holding your reader's attention by Roald Dahl. Two classes also wrote a sentence to their friend backwards just like Mr. Hoppy did for Alfie in the book. We decided to use a nonfiction book about a tortoise and hippo friendship as a follow up titled, Owen and Mzee. This book was written by the father and daughter team of Craig and Isabella Hatkoff. You can visit the website at
http://www.owenandmzee.com/ to find out more.
Second graders continued their Patricia Polacco book quest by reading Rotten Richie and the Ultimate Dare. Students discussed what sibling rivalry was, their participation in sports, and ways to solve problems in family situations involving daring someone to do something. My substitute shared with me this was an interesting discussion to say the least.
(sorry...i posted first and kinders twice and each time the postings were lost)
Happy Reading,
Mrs. Wetherell
