January 19th, 2016
Class activities for Tuesday, January 19
Spelling: None today.
Cursive: Cursive pages 43-45 are available and due on Friday.
Reading: Today was a discussion day in Literature Circles. Students also received their latest STAR Reading level. Our class average is below:
As you can see, our class is having trouble gaining traction with our reading level this year. Our goal is to get to 5.4, and we are quite a ways from that. We talked today about how each person in our class matters to our class goal. To prove this, I change one person’s score, and just one change made the dot on our graph move. Everyone matters. We need everyone to try their best. We had some people take only 15 minutes to complete their test, which is about 30 seconds per question. That’s not a lot of thinking time, and their scores
Everyone matters. We need everyone to try their best. We had some people take only 15 minutes to complete their test, which is about 30 seconds per question. That’s not a lot of thinking time, and their scores showed it.
We talked about how we could get back to improving our reading level. The class suggested to take our time, to concentrate better on tests, to focus more on reading during Literature Circles, and to reading 20 minutes a night. Samantha had the idea of having a reading log to track reading at home. I’m not usually a fan of reading logs because it bogs down something that is supposed to be fun. But we discussed a simple reading log that will result in team points. This reading log will also have some contests involved with seeing how many days in a row a student can read at home, and how many mini-streaks a student can achieve. It’s called Don’t Break the Chain, and we’ll see if it encourages more students to try reading at home.
Writing: We looked at some examples of different kinds of endings in adventure stories today.
Our current writing project is a Choose Your Own Adventure fiction gamebook. Students are writing 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 Tuesday, January 26. Students should drafting at this point and nearing the end of their story. Get some ideas below or right here. Homework is to work on writing for at least 15 minutes.
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 some Interactive History Adventure books (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.
- 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.
- Play Oregon Trail, another text-based computer game.
- Find a complete list of resources here.
Math: We practiced the partial products method of multiplication today, and students continued to practice multiplication skills at MobyMax.
Homework is to practice MobyMax Math or Khan Academy for at least 15 minutes.
Science: None today. We’ll have a MiniQuiz about states of matter tomorrow.
Social Studies: None today.
Notes:
- Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
- Visit our Links page: keep track of all the websites we use for learning, or try something new.
- View grades, assignments, and attendance at ParentVue or StudentVue.
Our Mission:
All students in Room 130 will do their best and get ready for 5th grade.
