A Week of Writing

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend enjoying all the spectacular parts of fall!  I sure did!  I took my family up to a beautiful part of Wisconsin called Door County.  This is an area that is full of gorgeous scenery and lots of history.  My favorite activity was visiting the Maritime Museum in Sturgeon's Bay.  Maritime is primarily an adjective that describes objects or activities related to the sea.  I learned so much about the "hard-working fishermen, brave ship captains, skilled craftsmen, bold inventors and lonely lighthouse keepers" that helped to develop this area back in the 1800s.  The thing I enjoyed most was watching the shipbuilding process (on video) and watching the ships get launched into the water.  FASCINATING!!!

While that was a memory from my weekend, students today have the assignment of writing a 5 paragraph memoir of a specific event focused around fall, Halloween, or Thanksgiving.  Brainstorming today, we came up with specific topics such as buying or creating a costume, decorating the house for Halloween, raking leaves, or a favorite food at Thanksgiving.   Kids were asked to go back to an event in the past, focusing on events in 2011 or before.  A list of expectations was sent home today, so the kids know what belongs in each paragraph.  Attached to that is also a rubric (grading guide) so kids know what they are going to be graded on for the FINAL MEMOIR.  This assignment is formative in nature, meaning I will use it to help me see who needs help with specific parts of writing for the final assignment next week.  The main focus in memoir is writing all the details of a specific event (not a broad event).

We will use this draft this week to study and prepare for next week's final assignment.  For next week, kids get to choose the event to focus on for their memoir.  Again, it is not to be a broad event, like a birthday.  Students will be directed to focus the memory down to a manageable task where proper focus can be given to the details (using all the senses to make the reader feel like they are experiencing it).

Writing will be a major focus this week.  We do not have a Harcourt story, but students are responsible for reading and logging pages daily.  Tomorrow, you will have a Genre Plan to discuss at home that outlines all the reading and reading related work that your child will have outside the Harcourt stories (which we will continue to use periodically to work on vocabulary and skill work).

Math:
5G - link 2.1 and study the notes we took in class on different ways to write number values (Also, the survey half sheet is due, so don't forget!  I can't wait to see what you plan to survey!)

5K and 5R both have sheets for homework (and some kids have to correct their test #2 and return signed tomorrow).

REMINDER: We are giving the district Interim Assessments this week (in the morning before math).