Thursday already?

Wow, this week is flying by!  The last day of March has been a busy one!

We began our day in the computer lab working on the Avatar lesson from yesterday. Students pulled up their saved Avatar as well as a Word document.  They then proceeded to describe in detail their Avatars.  When they felt good about their description, they gave the written piece to someone.  That person then built the Avatar based on the writing.  We are not quite finished, but the lesson here is a good one.  It is difficult to describe something in such close detail.  Hopefully, this will transfer throughout our unit on descriptive writing.

In reading today, we finished A Day of Tears!  It was a book that provided great points of discussion about slavery but more importantly how human beings should treat other human beings, no matter what.  Students worked on Day 3 activities.  Respond to Reading is due no later than Tuesday.

We learned about cell organelles in science today.  Students finished up their graphic organizers with this information.  We will be having a quiz on the cell parts soon. 

Wednesday

It was a quiet start to the day: band and chorus as well as study hall. 

In reading, we had a shorter class so there was no read aloud.  I showed a passage from Hatchet and we discussed its point of view.  Students, as a group, were able to identify that it was third person limited omniscient (in the point of view of a narrator relating Brian's thoughts and feelings).  We picked out sentences from the passage that proved this.  We then moved into our 30 minutes of independent work for a Day Two.

Writing was fun today!  We watched the Schoolhouse Rock clip on verbs.  Verbs are an important part of speech to know in order to have good word choice.  Then, students went to a site (http://www.myavatareditor.com) where they built their own Avatars.  Each student built one and saved it into their folders.  Tomorrow, students will write descriptive paragraphs describing this Avatar.  Then, they will give the paragraphs to a partner and that partner will have to build the Avatar based on the description.  Very fun!

In science today, we watched a clip about animal cells and plant cells on the computer.  Then, I showed specimens through a digital microscope.  Finally, students began to look at the parts of the cell and their jobs. 

Tuesday

Today, we began our day with math and reading.  In reading, we read aloud A Day of Tears.  We are almost done!  I, then, continued my discussion of point of view in literature.  I showed a cartoon illustrating the different third person points of view.  We also looked at samples of stories and talked about how to determine from which point of view a story is told.  I will continue to show examples and chat with students about this topic as it is not always an easy one to grasp.  Students spent the rest of the class working on their day one activities (meeting in small group, conferring, reading to themselves, reading to a partner, or responding to reading).

In writing today, we worked on our descriptive paragraphs.  Students are practicing their skill at writing description.  Parts of speech (nouns, verbs and adjectives) will be a focal point when thinking about good descriptive writing.  I did a lesson where students changed the verb in a sentence to give different meanings.  We shared these.

In science, we did the same thing in 6S as 6F did yesterday.

Monday

We had a bit of a zigger-zagger day today.  This morning, instead of writing, we did reading.  Introduced the idea of point of view in fiction writing.  Students should be thinking about what point of view their books are told in.  We began talking about the difference between first person and third person.  Also, we discussed the three different types of third person point of view:  omniscient, limited omniscient and camera view.  I will do lessons on these throughout the week.

We had a pretty powerful presentation this morning from a DEA officer.  Ms. Wardell will be de-briefing with my class during health today.

We also had the opportunity for an extra art class today.  Mrs. Emerson will take our class for the next 4 weeks to work on masks.  Very cool!

In science (6F), we looked at an animal cell digitally and drew it.  Then, we brainstormed language that we'd use to describe the plant cell as well as the animal cell were we to describe them.  Students are responsible for writing a descriptive paragraph about ONE of the cells that they drew.  These are due Wednesday.

If anyone can, I'm getting low on my supply of anti-bacterial wipes.  We use these to wipe the tables after snack time everyday.  THANK YOU!

It's a Busy Thursday around Here!

We discussed the trait of Word Choice today in writing class.  When writing descriptively, the idea of word choice is an important one.  To help emphasize the point, students worked with using a thesaurus today.  They were given some words and asked to come up with synonyms using the words.  Then, they wrote the new words in sentences that illustrated their meanings in their writers' notebooks.  Manipulating language was an important part of this activity.  We shared our best sentences at the end of the class.

In reading, we read aloud from A Day of Tears.  Students then worked independently on Day 4 activities.

For science, we read more about cells today. Also, we looked at a digital image of onion skin cells and we drew them.  We talked about the importance of observation and close attention to detail.  Students will be asked to write a descriptive paragraph about this or another observation that we will do on the next class.

Wednesday

We started our day with band and chorus today.  Those not in band or chorus had a study hall.

For reading class, I showed an example of the Respond to Reading using the read aloud book.  Students helped me formulate a response in the way they need to do for their own books.  After that, students worked on their Day 3 activities.  My small group read Stellaluna and worked with its plot line.

In writing, students got their persuasive essays back and put them into their portfolios.  Then, we read about descriptive writing and began a practice activity in our writers' notebooks.  Students will be writing a descriptive paragraph about an animal of their choice.  If students need a photo of the animal, they are to do that tonight and bring it for tomorrow's class.

In science today for both classes we discussed "How Big Is a Cell?"  We did an activity to give students and idea of this concept. 

Report cards go home today!  Please sign and return the envelope as soon as possible.  Let me know if you have any questions. 

Tuesday

We began our day a bit delayed due to C-Time.  Therefore, I did not teach writing this morning.  In reading today, we looked at the plot steps to the story of Cinderella.  Students worked in small groups to put these steps in order.  We talked about writing the plot steps in a concise manner.  They are writing out their own plot steps in small reading groups depending on the picture book that they are reading.

In science, we did the same lesson on Living Things that we did yesterday.  (See the blog from yesterday)