Week 24
“If you ever find yourself in the wrong
story, leave”
~Mo Willems
I love this quote and it’s been
on my mind all week as we’ve been in and out of writing and also dealing with
some uneasy situations with classmates. When many students are writing they
sometimes get what we call “writer’s block”. This has happened to us all at
least once. Whether we are stuck while filling out a job application that
requires us to tell about ourselves or remember a time in school when we stayed
up to the wee hours of the morning because we couldn’t find the words to
write…well our kids aren’t any different! They have these great ideas for
stories in their head, but sometimes the process of getting them down on paper
can be tough. Some kids even struggle with coming up with ideas for their
stories. Whenever the kids are in “writer’s block” I always tell them to look
for inspiration in other stories that they have written and in a mentor text of
their choosing!
This quote also applies to some
of the issues and situations that some of the kids have gotten themselves into.
Many times a child may get in trouble for arguing or being with another kid
when something unfortunate happens. I’ve had conversations with many kids and
told them that they are just as much to blame and those involved and that if
they don’t like what is being done then they should remove themselves from the
situation. I believe that it is important for our kids to understand and be
able to effectively problem. Many of them are still working on this!
Conjunctions
In order to enhance their
writing, we have been looking at conjunctions! We’ve realized that conjunctions
can help us make our sentences longer! So instead of having short sentences,
the students have tools to help them create longer, more detailed sentences.
Speaking Dialogue with Mo Willems
Many of the kids have been using
dialogue in their writing, so I thought, what a perfect time to discuss the
formalities of using dialogue in writing. Understanding that quotations go
around what is being said can be quite difficult to understand at first. So we
are using the help from one of our favorite authors, Mo Willems, to help us!
Willems is famous for his Elephant &
Piggie books, which are written in all dialogue and pictures. The kids are
currently working on their own versions! I’m excited to see what they come up
with. We will use these books to help us understand where our quotations marks
should go with the help of speech bubbles.
Fractions, Fractions, and More Fractions
We are still working with fractions.
It looks like the kids really have a grasp on the part/whole of a fraction. We
will slowly be moving into looking at fractions on a number line, which I’m
sure will prove quite challenging! I know the kids are up for it!!!
Book Buddies
It was another great day with
book buddies! We were excited to find out that they too are working on their
own Elephant & Piggie books! =)
Reading with the GAMECOCKS was a blast!!!
