December 19th, 2013
Class activities for Thursday, December 19
Spelling: We reviewed soft syllable endings, such as in the words mountain, fountain, certain, again. These words are spelling surprises because the endings aren’t pronounced like they are written.
Cursive: Cursive workbook pp. 60-62 are due on Friday after break.
Reading: Today was a reading day in Literature Circles. Some students worked on summarizing and using context clues as reading strategies.
Writing: Students continued drafting for our next writing project, a Choose Your Own Adventure fiction gamebook. Students will write a fiction adventure story with choices that the reader can make. Each choice can change how the story turns out. Students will publish their adventure as a website at sites.mrhowd.com. See below for more details.
This project is due Friday, January 17. Students should be drafting the beginning of their adventure story at this point.
Choose Your Own Adventure Resources
- See examples of Choose Your Own Adventure fiction websites here and here.
- Here are some good student examples:
- Look at an Underground Railroad Choose Your Own Adventure website.
- Look through the Underground Railroad Interactive History Adventure book (hint: search for “the end” to see some of the endings of the book).
- Look at some examples of different kinds of endings in a Choose Your Own Adventure Story.
- View the titles of all the Choose Your Own Adventure books to get adventure topic ideas.
- Play Zork, a text-based computer game. Here is a list of commands and directions. Here is a map of the dungeon if you get stuck or lost.
- Find a complete list of resources here.
Math: Students worked on finished addition, subtraction, place value, and rounding skills in Khan Academy.
Science: We reviewed our last experiment about light and energy.
Social Studies: We started to learn about the global economy and imports.
- Yellow magnets: 2
- Orange magnets: 0
- Red magnets: 0
- STAR Awards: 0
- Magnets moved this week (goal: 9): 11
- Hours with no magnets (Last time: 3): 2
Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade online to see if your student moved their magnet.
Notes:
- Our Mexican Fiesta is Friday, December 20 from 11-2. Family members are invited to attend and help with serving. See our volunteer list and add your name to the guest list.
- Visit our Links page: keep track of all the websites we use for learning, or try something new.
- Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
- View grades, report cards, behavior, assignments, and attendance online.
Our Mission:
All students in Room 130 will do their best and get ready for 5th grade.