Short week- Oct. 15-18

Although it was a short week, we jumped right into the second quarter! This week I asked the students to combine three skills we had worked on into one cohesive writing. We combined identifying the parts of plot, summarizing, and making personal connections into one writing sample where we could identify the parts of the story, summarize a story, and then make a personal connection to the characters.

Following this, we began our grammar unit with nouns. We are working to identify common or proper nouns and abstract or concrete nouns. We worked on choosing more precise nouns than "thing" to improve our writing. We then moved into plural nouns and the rules for plural endings with the hope that the more familiar we become with noun endings, the more we can consciously improve our spelling.

In addition we also began our next Vocab unit. Next week we are looking to finish up our noun lessons, and begin talking about our next independent reading project before leaving for The Henry Ford Museum!

The Last Week of Quarter 1!

I can't believe it is already the final day of the first quarter! Believe it or not we are a fourth of the way through 5th grade! I was so impressed with the book talks presented this week. Every night I left school wishing I had more time to read because the students introduced their classmates to some really exciting books. By a show of hands after the last presentation, students pretty unanimously agreed that:
- they enjoyed listening to others present their books
- they enjoyed the assignment
- they would be willing to do another book talk
- there were presentations on books they had never heard of before
- there were books presented that they are now interested in reading
- they felt they had enough time to prepare for the presentation (even though some of them opted to wait until the last minute, they felt I assigned it with enough time)
- they still like Language Arts!

My goal for the assignment was that students demonstrate their understanding of the plot of a book, author's purpose, and to organize this information in a way that is relatable to an audience. In addition, there are many avid readers and this was a great way for students to share books they enjoyed with other students so that others could gain ideas for new books to read. While I try my best to make recommendations for students when they come to me looking for book ideas, other students are great resources too!

In addition to the book talk presentations, we finished off the year with our Unit 2 Vocabulary Quiz and practicing finding the main idea in nonfiction and summarizing a fictional story.

For your information, here is a brief preview of what we have coming up in the second quarter!
- Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives
- Vocabulary
-- Newberry Award Book Talk

- Predicting
- Visualizing
- Making Connections in our Summaries

- Recycling Project

The week of 9/30-10/4

This week we continued to review requirements for the Book Talk presentations and worked on our writing skills. Students were given some time during class to work on their plot diagrams, summaries, and presentations as well as ask questions regarding the presentation.

We reviewed the 5 elements of plot that the students were first reintroduced to in Writer's Workshop. We practiced finding each of the different parts of the plot using a book called You'll Grow Soon Alex. We then looked at how to briefly summarize fiction using the 5 parts of the plot. Students had their first "pop quiz" over the 5 parts of plot and the plot diagram.

Finally at the end of the week we moved on to author's purpose and the reasons why author's write books. Students created a 4 window organizer in their notebook to expose "P.I.E" or the three purposes for an author: to Persuade, to Inform, or to Entertain.

The rubric for the Book Talk was discussed and at the end of the week we finally reviewed for their vocab Unit 2 quiz!

Section One had their first round of presentations starting Friday. I was thoroughly impressed!