I hope everyone enjoyed the extra family time over break, even though it was shorter than usual! I know mine was filled with a lot of sleep, silliness and kitten cuddles (I know, it sounds horrible ;)) I know the kids were just excited to share with me all of the wonderful things they did over break- and almost all of them said they were happy to spend it with family.
With that said, to help amp up the learning this year, we are finally adding in more word study in class. The last quarter or so we've been using those grammar sheets as word study practice, but now we are finally focusing on some more specific work. It's been a little hectic this week starting on a Tuesday, but here is the procedure:
1. Each group will be meeting once a week with Ms. Davidson during our morning warm ups from 8:30-9:00. This is when the kids are working on Monthly packets and grammar sheets or doing some IR. On those days we will be learning the new sort together, as well as taking a short checkpoint/quiz from the week before.
2. Every day after, they will meet as a group to answer a question about the sort they have. Essentially, they are doing a sort together and writing it down everyday. Some example questions will be: "What are some words that start with the same sound/letter?" or " What words have the same number of syllables"
3. By the next meeting day with Ms. D, they should have all 4 questions answered and have written the words in multiple ways on the sheet in class, as well as homework assignments.
4. For homework, I have assigned the words on Google Classroom that they can look up. The entire book of words is in that google document, so they have access to all their sorts all the time. Then, on the resource page, if you scroll to the bottom, their is a Word Study Choice board. They should choose one of these activities to do each night (4 is their goal). Parents need to sign the box on the completed activity for credit, or students need to turn in the page of the completed activity to get credit.
Also, our Informational Unit is finally completed on Friday, 1/12/2018.
The kids are supposed to be ready for revising and editing this week, but many of them forgot their drafts or did not finish them and are slightly behind. Please talk to your kiddo and check in with them. I am trying to do some conferring tomorrow and Monday with students, but it might not be enough time to get to everyone.Those I guess are all the major updates so far this year. The quarter will be ending in about 2 weeks and the 5th graders are officially halfway finished already! Blows my mind how fast we are flying through the school year already!
