Wednesday Themes grades 4-6

WOW! It is hard to believe that we are in the final quarter of this school year.  Where does the time go??  This quarter we are learning about personification in literature which is objects or animals that take on human qualities.  We have discussed that sometimes authors can use partial personification such as in Charlotte's Web or complete personification such as in the book we just finished.

In class today, students had a chance to read a peer's writing and provide comments on how they did.   We also worked on learning a new strategy when we come to a word in our reading that we don't know.  Students will be practicing this during the week with the reading for their literature book.

In reading this week, students have been placed in literature groups.  They each brought home a new job that they need to do for their group.  Each group is working in their second book.  The choice of books includes: Ragweed by Avi, The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary, Charlotte's Web by E. B. White, and Stuart Little by E. B. White.  They are deciding on how many pages to read each week in order to complete the book by June 4th and they have each picked a literature circle job.  There are no weekly questions with the books since all the groups are doing different work.  This is placing a lot more responsibility on the students for their choice in stories and completion of the work.  I believe that all the students in this class are capable of it!  In addition to their 120 minutes of reading and literature job, they will still need to write me a letter about the book they are reading. 

Students have also been offered the option of doing an extra credit assignment after they finish their literature group book.  First, they can watch the movie of the book or read another book based on the same characters.  Then they need to write a two paragraph paper comparing the book with the movie or second book they read.  This will follow the same format as the paper we are writing this week with one paragraph listing three ways they are the same and the second paragraph listing three ways they are different.  Students have until June 4th to turn in this extra credit assignment.

The final assignment for this week is to have their final draft of their story completed.  They need to have this typed.  Also, please have your child carefully check for punctuation errors.  This seemed to be the biggest problem in our rough drafts.  We will be sharing these next week in class.  Also, when they are using dialogue in their writing, they must remember to start a new paragraph when the speaker changes and label who is speaking.

Many students asked to bring treats next week since we are sharing our stories and it is the last class of the year.  I explained that they were welcome to bring them as long as they brought enough for everyone.  There are eleven people in our classroom.  

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