Tuesday, April 8, 2008

We are finishing up writing pieces to publish in the Publishing Center. A few kids go with a parent at one time. The parent and child read the story together and make corrections. Together, they create a title, an about the author page, and a dedication. They add page numbers, too. Then, the grown ups will type up the story and give it back to the kids to illustrate. In the classroom, we are concentrating on adding details, characters’ names, setting, and our feelings (internal story) to our work.

Today we had independent reading twice. The first time, everyone read from his or her book bags. The second time, people read non-fiction books at different tables. We are going to become experts on different topics that we chose. Some of the topics people are learning more about are: sea life, birds, plants, long ago, penguins, food, and dinosaurs. There are two things that we notice when we read non-fiction. The first is that the books have features (things like page headings, table of contents, page numbers, and drawings). The features help us be able to learn the information. The second is that we learn facts and get knowledge from these books. We learned that non-fiction books don’t have to be read like fiction books. We can skip around or even choose certain parts to read or leave out. Ms. Stern taught us that copying information from books is a bad idea. It’s important that we have good habits now so that when we get older, we do the same and don’t get in trouble for copying.

This was our first chance to go to Gym City this year. Everyone drives around on scooters. We have to sit, kneel, or go backwards on the scooters. There are 8 parking lots. When you get to the 9th, you get to be a police officer. They control the traffic lights and walking around making sure that people are following the rules. The police officers can even give out tickets! We love going down Coach Steingasser Road and Coach Hudson Highway because we can go anyway we want (on our gluteus maximus, abdominals, or patellas). When we leave, Coach Steingasser sprays us with water.
We’re very busy these days!