I am looking around the classroom on this beautiful Friday in September and marveling at the work that has been happening in here already. Your kids are at P.E. We slipped out the back door to beat the traffic in the halls and take in some of this wonderful autumn weather.
We've been reading a book together--The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane--It's a wonderful thing to read a book together (they are following along with their own copies.) When I reached the end of chapter 6, I heard a collective gasp from the room. Edward had just been thrown overboard. I love this experience of sharing Edward's journey with each other.
The book is packed with words your children are working to figure out. An important lesson has been how to infer the meaning of words from the text. They are using the words and sentences around a word, and their own background knowledge to figure out (infer) the meanings of these words. They are becoming word collectors. One of the students wrote that he was full of ennui. I hope not!
In addition to the book we are reading together, your child has selected his or her own book to read to practice the skills I am teaching. I'm listening in to assess reading and help your child set goals for the short and long term.
Writing goals have included adding dialogue (and knowing how to punctuate that properly) to a story to help move the story along, and creating a picture for the reader. We've been talking in terms of showing (rather than telling) the reader what is happening in the story.
This week the prefix we are studying is a-, ab-, abs which means "away from." This can be used figuratively as in to abstain from candy, or literally as in a sponge absorbing water. I needed help figuring these out, so I can only imagine how your kids must be feeling! Speaking of that...look for the vocabulary test to come home, but know that I am not recording the grades unless it was above a 90%. We'll keep working on these prefixes and bases. Your kids missed several years of prior vocab. work and were expected to jump right into 5th grade level words. I'm seeing the learning curve!
Have a great weekend everyone!
We've been reading a book together--The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane--It's a wonderful thing to read a book together (they are following along with their own copies.) When I reached the end of chapter 6, I heard a collective gasp from the room. Edward had just been thrown overboard. I love this experience of sharing Edward's journey with each other.
The book is packed with words your children are working to figure out. An important lesson has been how to infer the meaning of words from the text. They are using the words and sentences around a word, and their own background knowledge to figure out (infer) the meanings of these words. They are becoming word collectors. One of the students wrote that he was full of ennui. I hope not!
In addition to the book we are reading together, your child has selected his or her own book to read to practice the skills I am teaching. I'm listening in to assess reading and help your child set goals for the short and long term.
Writing goals have included adding dialogue (and knowing how to punctuate that properly) to a story to help move the story along, and creating a picture for the reader. We've been talking in terms of showing (rather than telling) the reader what is happening in the story.
This week the prefix we are studying is a-, ab-, abs which means "away from." This can be used figuratively as in to abstain from candy, or literally as in a sponge absorbing water. I needed help figuring these out, so I can only imagine how your kids must be feeling! Speaking of that...look for the vocabulary test to come home, but know that I am not recording the grades unless it was above a 90%. We'll keep working on these prefixes and bases. Your kids missed several years of prior vocab. work and were expected to jump right into 5th grade level words. I'm seeing the learning curve!
Have a great weekend everyone!