Just a reminder that next Thursday and Friday (August 5th and 6th) I will be teaching teachers how to teach writing. This is the day I will providing you with pizza, drinks and some home made dessert from Mrs. Wittmer, Aidan and Brielle. The time will be from 10:30 until 12:45. Please have someone email me or if you could respond to this blog it will help with the food order. If I heard from you or a guardian already there is no need to do it again.
I hope your summers are going well and you are enjoying yourselves.
I am sitting on my hotel in Myrtle Beach right now as Brielle and Aidan take an afternoon nap. I have been reading a great book about what to do during writing workshop for this coming school year. We will be using the same format but I have some new ideas that I hope will make you writers like the famous Rick Riordan. I was reading his blog and found that he has now published the first two chapters of his newest series, The Lost Hero. Here is the link for you to take a look at the cover and see what his plans are for The Kane Chronicles and a sequel to The 39 Clues (last book comes out August 31st.
The beach is very relaxing after spending all that time with all of you. I have met some teachers from around the US while sitting on the beach or by the pool. I have explained to them about most of you coming on the journey with me to 5th grade. They are all reassuring me it will be a great time. We will see in August if that falls true or not. Until next time, keep reading and writing.
Today marked one week since we have been out of school and not one rainy day to speak of just yet. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t take a few minutes each day to read a book and write in your writer’s notebook. I am about to finish The Red Pyramid a week later then I had anticipated but it will be done.
This week has been a busy one for myself and some of the other PH teachers. About fifteen teachers from Park Hills and 49 total have been spending time at Penn State- York learning to become better teachers. One of today’s sessions dealt with how our brains work best. I came away with some great activities we will be trying the first week or two of school. Should be lots of fun.
Anyway, here are the dates that I would love to see you and former Team 207 members at the local library. They are July 14th, August 4th and August 18th. We will meet around 6:30 and start to wrap things up around 7:30. Be sure to bring a book with you so you have something to read. If want me to bring a book from the classroom library, just drop a line and be sure to give me a couple of days to get into the new classroom.
August 5th at 10:30 is the time I need your help in helping other teachers about writer’s workshop. If you could simply let me know if you can make it or not on the blog it would be great. We will help teachers until about 12 and then have pizza and dessert before departing around 1:00. Your parents don’t need to stick around if since you will be helping me the entire time.
Finally, be sure to update us on any vacations your family takes this summer. I am leaving on Saturday for Myrtal Beach with Mrs. Wittmer, Aidan and Brielle. I will be sure to post pictures when we get back. Have a great summer and if you are friends with former Team 207 members, please pass the library dates along.
Fourth grades at this point of the year are usually looking towards summer vacations, baseball/softball games or other outdoor activities. Not this group of 4th grades from Team 207! Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a series that I would recommend to anyone who’s child is struggling to find something motivating to read. It is so good that myself and fellow paraprofessional are reading along with the students at an alarming pace.
The 39 Clues series (created by Rick Riordan) is one that was very hot in the beginning of the year, died a bit half way through the year and now has picked up again with those students that didn’t catch the idea back in the fall.
The best part of both series is that Mr. Riordan is coming out with a new series in under the next two weeks. The Kane Chronicles looks to be another amazing book since Disney has made the first chapter available for anyone to read and get hooked. Be sure to check it out here.
The even better part is that I will be traveling towards good old Philadelphia the day after the book is released in stories for Mr. Riordan’s book tour. I can’t wait to meet him and hopefully will have a second to explain how his books have changed my classroom’s attitude towards reading.
Getting the entire building ready to take the annual PSSAs, my class took the tall task of putting together a motivational presentation, STOMP style. With brooms, basketballs, trash cans and creativity, they put it together with just three total hours of practice.
With minor microphone issues, the presentation went off without a problem. This really seemed to get the crowd thinking about what it takes to prepare for such a long week of testing.
I was so proud of my entire class for working together, thinking hard and knowing what to say during the whole presentation.
As for the actual testing, they did the same thing. Worked hard, took their time and used many of the strategies we have been working on all year to become a successful test taker. We will see this summer and fall if they were up to the test of achieving a certain percentage to shave my head. In the meantime, enjoy their presentation.
Personification? What in the world is it and why do we need to know about it? These are great questions I am sure want to ask if you have never heard of this form of Figurative Language. Don’t worry because you all were unsure about similes when we started on Monday and now you are recognizing them in text (Hugo had examples on Tuesday) and you are experimenting with them in writing as well.
Personification is when you give human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas) Why not take a look at this example to see an example of this fun and exciting figurative language. Now that you have heard an example of personification, why don’t we give it a try as a class. Once we have worked with this part of figurative language, I want you to post your own example of personification using this tool which is referred to as blabberize.
With the snow falling once again in our area, what do you plan on doing if there is no school tomorrow? I will tell you that I will have fun with my own children, shoveling the driveway and sidewalks and just hanging around the house. Please be careful playing out in the snow, be sure to help mom/dad or whomever does the driveway and don’t bug the parents too much while you are at home. Remember all that they do for you before saying that you are bored and can’t find something to do. Why not pick up a book/magazine and read for a bit because you all told me this morning (Tuesday, February 9th) that you love to read.
We are going to try a new tool today that we will use at night once in awhile. I will help you through this process today and in the future. Remember, If you say it, if you say it, you wouldn’t mind having mom, dad and Mrs. Kelly reading your comments. Let’s have some fun!
The next couple of weeks we will be getting into more reading of chapter books or books that can create much more discussion then the our anthology stories. I know that you have a reader’s notebook and we haven’t done much with it yet (that is my fault)! In thinking about how we could replace or give an alternative to the reader’s notebook, I thought about creating blogs with you the student being in charge of posts (this is an example of a post), your own blog name and set up. Yes, you would be posting thoughts and ideas and your classmates would be commenting on what you have to say. In order for this to happen, the responses to the weekly blog need to have more thought and contain more then just one simple sentence. So my question to you this week is a simple one, What can you do to improve your answers to the blog so that we can each have our own blog?
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