Another great day in Room 240 – here’s the low-down:
After our usual morning, we had a special guest reader – Hannah, who is our Star of the Week, had her mom come in and read one of Hannah’s favorite books – The Princess Gown. After the book, we moved on to Reader’s Workshop. Today the mini-lesson was about features of text – we discovered Tables of Content and captions in a non-fiction book that we are reading. When the kids went out to do Independent Reading and Buddy Reading, they were of course looking for those features in their books, and each shared his/her findings at our end-of-workshop share.
After reading, we had Writer’s Workshop. Today we continued our quest for details in the kids’ writing. Today I gave them each a writing partner to read their story to. After their reading, their partner gave them a “Have you considered…?” idea or two (or five or ten…). We’re working on ways to give and accept constructive criticism, in addition to writing, so the reader would respond with “Thank you for that suggestion.” After the exchange of detail ideas, the writers did what writers do – they wrote! At our end-of-workshop share, each shared a way in which their partner helped them to improve their story.
After writing, it was down for lunch and out for recess, and then back up to our room for Read Aloud. We read Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, to continue with our geology unit in Science Lab. After Read Aloud, we headed up to the art room for class with Mr. Fairbanks.
After art, we ambled down the hallway to the computer lab to take installment number one of the MAP assessment on the computer. We will take another segment of the reading exam tomorrow afternoon, and then two math parts next week.
After sitting for quite awhile in the computer lab, we just HAD to go out to play for awhile, and then when we came back in, it was time to pack up and head home!
