The Kitchen Sink for the Week of 10/29/12

Readers’ Workshop

This week we continue our exploration of characters.  We will be recognizing how our personal experiences can help us understand and relate to characters on a deeper level.  It is important that students are not making superficial connections like “I have a dog, too,” or, “I’ve been to Texas, too.”  In this unit we are pushing students to recall a time when they have experienced a similar situation in order to draw upon their emotional memories.  This emotional connection to characters is what will help students empathize and connect to the text.  Student connections may begin, “This reminds me of…” and should transition into, “This makes me realize…(something about the characters thoughts/feelings/motivations).”  Have your child practice this skill in the strategy paragraph of their Reader’s Response.

Writers’ Workshop

We will begin drafting the rising action in our story (building up to the climax, or main problem).  Students will first complete a character map.  The character map will ask students to describe the physical appearance of their main characters, as well as the way they act and treat other characters.  We will then use the details off of this chart as we draft our story.  We are learning that readers will not want to read our stories unless they are invested in our characters (really like or dislike them).  In order to get readers invested, we need to sprinkle in details that paint a picture of the character and make them come to life.

Skills Block

Students will be tested on spelling List 8 this week.

"The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" Writing Project

Our second writing project is well under way.  We began by reading The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  It is a very unusual book, in that it only contains pictures.  Each picture comes with a title and caption, however, the stories are missing along with their creator, Harris Burdick.  We thought we were up to the task of creating our own stories that could explain the pictures.  So far, we have done some brainstorming.  We carefully looked over each illustration, before choosing two favorites.  Ultimately, we narrowed it down to our one favorite!



Some of the illustrations are scary...

Some are mysterious...

And others are just plain crazy...

After carefully considering each option, students made a quick list of ideas about their favorite illustration.  Then they shared those ideas with a peer partner.  

With the feedback from their peer partner in mind, students were introduced to the concept of a story mountain.  All narratives follow this basic pattern of five story elements.  Each narrative begins with the exposition, before rising action builds to a main problem, or climax.  Suspense is created in the falling action, which leads to a final resolution.  Our story mountain template helped us plan out our stories to make sure we had all the pieces of a narrative story.  This summary of each story element will serve as a guide when we draft our stories.  So far, we have written an engaging beginning.  Ask your child to share their beginning with you.  Notice the details they have used to set the scene, introduce you to the characters, and pull you right into the action.  We know you'll be hooked!

Here are a few samples:

Miguel-
"Mom, Mom, Mom!" I yelled coming down the stairs.
"What?" she answered.
"I saw two eyes staring at me while watching t.v.  I swear, mom!"
"Fine!  I'll go check it out."
But when we went to investigate and opened the door, the two eyes that Archie saw were gone!  Dun, dun, dun!

Elijah-
It was quite a day out on the cruise ship.  Sunny, no clouds, and the old captain was having the best day of his life.

Synonym Rolls

As part of our study of vocabulary, we challenged ourselves to brainstorm better ways of saying commonly used words.  In our writing we have frequently relied on words like happy, pretty, good, smart, and mad to describe characters and objects.  While there is nothing wrong with these words, they lack a certain pizzazz.  With the help of a partner and a thesaurus, students brainstormed synonyms for these lackluster words.  Just as we took ordinary words and made them more exciting, we took an ordinary activity and made it extraordinary.  Instead of simply listing synonyms, we created "synonym rolls" and to help us understand these rolls, we feasted on cinnamon roll cereal!  They were good...no wait...they were scrumptious!!!

We can now use our "Synonym Rolls" board to incorporate new, more challenging vocabulary into our writing and as we encounter these words in our reading, we will already know the meanings!

Fantastic Scholastic!

As avid readers, we understand the pure unadulterated joy that comes with the purchase of a new book.  The shiny new cover, the crisp pages, the magic of the story inside!  Nothing can beat it!  We may not be able to take our students to the bookstore, but we are now able to bring a virtual bookstore to our students. 

This week we are initiating our class Scholastic Book Club.  If you would like access to hundreds of books with the click of a button, you've found the answer!  Simply click here to gain access to our class page. All orders are placed and paid for online, then the books are sent to our school. The best news is, with your purchases we earn points we can apply towards new books for our classroom library!  Everyone wins!  More detailed information will be coming home in next week's Monday Mail folder, but feel free to get started now!  Orders for the first round are due by November 16.  

The Kitchen Sink for the Week of 10/22/12

Readers’ Workshop

"It is essential that stories ignite a vital sort of imagination, one that allows readers to live inside the world of the story, to identify with the characters, seeing and sensing situations from inside the characters’ minds." - Following Characters Into Meaning.  This week, we are beginning to focus on personal response, visualizing, and empathy to strengthen the connection between readers and characters.  One way of accomplishing this goal, is focusing on the mental movie playing in our minds as we read.  Ask your child what they envision as they complete their nightly reading. 

Writers’ Workshop

We will begin our rough drafts by tackling a new type of engaging beginning.  Students will learn how to begin a narrative by jumping right into the action.  Many narratives begin by establishing the time/location and introducing the characters.  They also give a brief description of what the characters are doing.  This sets the scene to jump right into the action.  We will test out our beginnings by sharing them in peer conferencing sessions.  We will also try using a new handout during peer conferencing to get more specific and helpful feedback from our peers.

We sent home graded rubrics today for the memoir project.  Final drafts are on file in the class cookbook at school.  Please contact Mrs. Z via email if you need to borrow a copy of your child's work to review at home.

Skills Block

There will be no spelling this week due to the short week.

By now, our skills as de"text"ives are known far and wide.  We are locating and inferring the meanings of words like pros.  In celebration of our efforts, we select words to display on our Vocabulary Word Wall.  Some of these words are from our study of the TextTalk series, while others simply come from class read alouds or student discovery.  

Today, in preparation for an upcoming quiz, students participated in a Pictionary-like review game.  As partners, students illustrated a scene depicting one of our vocabulary words.  The class then came together study the clues and infer the answer.  Check out some of our student samples below!  Can you guess which vocabulary word is being depicted?!?

Misery: the worst kind of feeling

Revenge: to get back at someone

Regret: to wish you had not done something

Mesmerized: to be fascinated by something

Coax: to ask or encourage in a gentle way

Frustrated: upset when you can’t get something done

Antique: made long ago; collectible old item

Menacing: threatening or dangerous

Spectacles: eyeglasses

Pursue: to follow in order to catch

Sane: reasonable; mentally healthy

Shun: to purposely stay away from

Constantly: doing something over and over

Simplicity: a state of being simple or plain

Exotic: something interesting because it is from far away

Gossip: to talk about people when they aren't around

Peer: to look closely

The Kitchen Sink for the Week of 10/15/12

Readers’ Workshop

This week we are exploring the world of synonyms and antonyms.  We will be brainstorming other ways to say common words such as: big, small, happy, mad, etc. as these are words frequently used in our writing, but lack a certain luster.  With our upcoming writing project, we are working to add “sparkling vocabulary” and this study of words will enable us to do so!

Also, please check your child’s progress with their reading responses.  Three responses have been submitted thus far.  Please sign your child’s response for the week of October 8, 2012.

Writers’ Workshop

Our self and peer assessments of our memoir project took us until Friday of last week.  We also did some extra dictionary review with a dictionary scavenger hunt.  Our brainstorming for our new project, as highlighted in last week's blurb, will take place early this week.  Students will be writing a made up story that explains an illustration in the book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  After choosing the illustration they want to write about, students will learn how to use a planning tool called a story mountain.  The shape of the tool encourages rising and falling action to become a natural part of the story, with a main problem at the peak.  Look for more info on the blog!

Skills Block

There will be a vocabulary quiz on the words we've added thus far to the word wall.  Students will receive a pink study guide in class on Monday.  The quiz will be Friday, so look for the study guide at home.  Students will need to be able to plug words into a given context and recognize the definition.  They will also need to spell the words correctly, as they will be provided in a word bank on the quiz itself.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...Is my Memoir the Best of All?

This week was an exciting one in Writers' Workshop.  We experienced our first deadline and were introduced to the process of self reflection!  How did it go for you?  Were you on track and able to meet the deadline?  If not, what is your plan to stay on track for the next writing project?  Plan ahead and learn from what happened in writing your memoir.  It will get easier to stay on track with practice.

After turning in our memoirs, we busily completed self assessments, using the rubric that was provided at the beginning of the writing unit.  Students thoughtfully considered how they did in each area, before recording their opinion of their work.  Not surprisingly, many students scored themselves with all smiley faces.

It is the beginning of the year, so we are still learning how to be more critical of our work.  Again, it takes practice.  In an attempt to work on this, we also got feedback from our peers in a peer assessment.  We will continue to work on self and peer assessments of our work, for the remainder of the year.  It is important that students learn to offer honest, yet polite, feedback to bring about true improvements and change in their writing.

Students then did a final self reflection and recorded something about the piece that they were proud of, as well as a goal they need to work on in their future writing.  What's your goal?  Jack was proud of the way he used details to describe making his pie.  His first draft did not include these details, and he worked to incorporate all five of his senses into describing how the pie came to be.  His goal is to improve his use of quotation marks and paragraph form when characters are talking.  This can be tricky, and the idea of forming a new paragraph each time a new character talks was challenging to him.  Luckily, he can consult the posters in the classroom for all the information he needs to improve these skills.  How will you work to improve?  What resources will you use to get better?

 

After finishing all of that, we engaged in a friendly competition:  a dictionary scavenger hunt!  This helped us review the skills we learned during the editing phase of this project.  It also gave us an opportunity to award lots of candy prizes!  We're getting better and better at locating words, using the guide words provided at the top of each page.  If any parents are reading this, test your child's knowledge when you get the chance.  We know you'll be impressed!

The Kitchen Sink for the Week of 10/8/12

Readers’ Workshop

Last week we introduced common prefixes.  The prefixes studied include:

pre – before                                non, dis, un, im, in, il, ir -

mis – wrongly/incorrectly                  not or the opposite of     

re – again

This week we will introduce and explore common suffixes.  Suffixes to be reviewed include:

ful – full of                                 ness – state of being

ly – in a way that is                     est – the most

less - without                               able – capable of or able to

er/or – more or someone who

Ask your child for examples of words with the following prefixes and suffixes.  Look for them during nightly reading!

Writers’ Workshop

Early in the week, we will review the rubric that students were given earlier in the Memoir Unit.  This rubric will serve as a reminder of the expectations we have covered in class.  Students will be given time to recopy their drafts, before reviewing it one final time.  As they go over their piece, they will use the rubric to conduct self and peer assessments of their work.  On Thursday, we will move on to our next project, which will be a combination of fictional narratives and a response to literature.  We will read "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsburg.  The book contains a series of "seemingly unrelated, highly detailed illustrations."  Our job will be to create a highly detailed story that corresponds/explains one of the illustrations.  We will begin the brainstorming phase this week.

Skills Block

Spelling list 7 will be tested on Friday.

We will be exploring our second Text Talk book, Just Plain Fancy.  The following words will be introduced:

 peered, shunned, exotic, gossiped, constantly, simplicity

Ask your child what these words mean!

We are De"Text"ives!

School has begun and there's simply no denying it...we are readers!  And as readers, we will undoubtedly encounter the same problem over and over again; we will stumble upon words we are unfamiliar with.  The good news is, we are also detectives...word detectives.  This week we have explored strategies for determining the meanings of unknown words.

Step One: We must be able to recognize words we are unfamiliar with.  Reading on "autopilot" may make this impossible, so it is essential that we are "reading ourselves awake!"

Step Two:  Once we have identified the subject of our investigation (unknown word), we must consider all of the clues.  These clues can be found in the sentences around our subject, so we must read (and possibly reread) carefully.  Detectives must consider what makes sense.  They attempt to plug in possibilities and consider whether they seem plausible.Please note Exhibit A below for our class analysis of clues in a selected text. 

“Hey, sleepy!” Mrs. Mitchell called.  “Everyone else is up!"

John put on his bathrobe and ambled to the bathroom.  His sister, Mary, was still brushing her teeth, and he had to wait until she finished.   "It's early and he just got up, so it might mean walking tiredly.  When I plug that in, 'John put on his bathrobe and walked tiredly to the bathroom,' it seems to make sense."

“Come on, Mary,” he said a little crossly.  “Don’t take all morning.” 

             "When I say stuff like that, I'm irritated, so maybe it means frustrated or mad."

Not wanting a quarrel to begin, Mary spat out her toothpaste and swiftly left the bathroom. 

        "Well, if he's mad, he's in a bad mood and when my sister is in a bad mood it makes me mad, too.  Sometimes we start to fight.  When I plug in 'fight' it makes sense, so I think it means fight."

Step Three:  Detectives may also refer to knowledge of affixes to identify the unknown word.  In preparation for this task, detectives have begun exploration common prefixes and suffixes.   

Prefixes:

mis - wrongly or incorrectly; misspelled, misunderstand

re - again; reread, restart, rearrange

pre - before; preview, preschool, preseason

un/dis/non/il/im/ir/in - not or the opposite of; unhappy, disagree,                                  nonfiction, illegal, impossible, irresponsible, incorrect                           

Suffixes:

ful - full of; hopeful, meaningful

less - without; helpless, homeless, pointless

able - capable of or able to; lovable, washable

er/or - someone who; teacher, sailor, inspector, reader

er - more; faster, bigger, longer, cuter

est - the most; quickest, brightest, shortest

ly - in a way that is;  clearly, swiftly, happily

ness - state of being; peacefulness, messiness, forgetfulness

Please note Exhibit B below for an example of careful reasoning when detectives were confronted with an unknown word:

He attempted to complete the assignment again, but was dissatisfied with the results.

"I know if you are satisfied you are happy.  The prefix dis- means 'not,'  so if he is dissatisfied, he is not happy."

Step Four: Detectives have reviewed proper use of the dictionary.  While this resource will not always be at their disposal, detectives have the knowledge to locate information.

Our investigation continues to progress.  As diligent sleuths, we are constantly on the lookout for unknown words.  

What's Black and White and Red All Over???

Our drafts, that's what!!!  As we prepare to publish our final drafts next week, we are busily making edits in red pen.  Day by day, we have worked to create a C.U.P.S. Checklist in our journals.  C.U.P.S. is an acronym, which helps us edit for (C.) capital letters, (U.) understanding/Does our story make sense, (P) punctuation, and (S) spelling.  Check out the example of our checklist pictured here.  We learned to go over our work on our own, checking off each item on the list, one at a time.  Then we had the opportunity to E.E.K.K. with a partner to make further changes; partners signed off on each item with their initials.

On Monday, we worked to make corrections concerning capital letters and punctuation, since they work as a team to mark the beginning and end of sentences.  Here is a student sample.  You can see how Frank made an effort to insert punctuation after "Mmm!" Of course, following the rules of quotation marks, he made sure to insert the punctuation inside the quotation marks.

On Tuesday, we focused on making sure our stories were understandable.  We checked for a subject and verb in each of our sentences, so that we could be sure that we had a complete sentence.  We also read sentences in isolation to make sure we didn't repeat words and/or leave words out.  Here is a student sample.  You can see how Frank noticed that a word was missing from his sentence about eating Rice Krispy treats, so he added in the missing word.  He also made an attempt to use the actual copyediting symbol, a caret (not the kind you eat), to mark where he needed to insert the word.  These symbols are made available to students on a copyediting chart in our E.E.K.K.ing area.

Thursday and Friday will be spent taking a closer look at our spelling.  We will check over our spelling and "No Excuse" words.  Some of us took risks (Yay!) in our writing and sprinkled in some sparkling vocabulary words, which we will correct using our new dictionary skills.

How is your draft coming along?  Will you be ready to turn your draft in on Wednesday?  Have you made corrections based on the feedback from Mrs. Z?  Have you looked at the rubric lately?

The Kitchen Sink for the Week of 10/1/12

Readers’ Workshop

This week we are exploring clues in the context, and how they can help us determine the meanings of unknown words. We will be examining homographs (words with similar spellings but different meanings depending on the context) and will end the week by introducing common prefixes and suffixes.  Be sure to check out the blog later this week, for more information about the specific prefixes and suffixes we are exploring!

Reader’s Response journals are due this week according to our new schedule.

Writers’ Workshop

The deadline for our memoir project has been pushed back until next Wednesday, October 10th.  This week, we will begin our first attempt at editing.  Our focus will be two-fold:  adding punctuation and capital letters in the appropriate places to create complete sentences that make sense and learning to use a dictionary to check our spelling.  Students will work independently, with peer partners, and in teacher led small groups to complete this important part of the writing process.  Check on your child's progress by asking to see some of the edits they make this week; they should be marked in red pen.

Skills Block

The quiz for List 6 will be given on Friday.  Students should be completing one of the homework activities from the list in their red folders, each week.  Last week's homework completion rate was worrisome.

Basic dictionary skills and ABC order will be covered this week.