Friday, December 12, 2008

Today was Nolan’s birthday! He is the first child in the class to turn 7!

We worked on another piece of writing for our time capsules. Today we wrote about a friend we made in our class this year.

The focus during Reader’s Workshop today was on retelling using beginning, middle, and ending parts. Ms. Stern read The Gingerbread Man. She said the book was about a gingerbread man who ran fast. The class said that wasn’t okay. We turned and talked to each other to help retell the story in a way that other people would understand. Ms. Stern reminded us that good readers tell about the important parts in a book and good partners remind readers if they don’t include enough information during partner time.

In art we made snowflakes by drawing lines with a ruler on a piece of paper. We added shapes in a pattern to the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines so that the designs would be symmetrical. Then we got a special black marker to trace around the pencil lines, which we then erased. We painted the spaces with cool colors and then put salt on top (so it looks like dots or snowflakes).

During Writer’s Workshop we talked about the 3 parts of writing that we are thinking about with our “Quick Publish” pieces: prewriting, writing, and revising. Sammy revised his Braille writing by rereading and checking for his spacing in between words. Emily was writing about Halloween. Nolan was revising his election piece by adding details to his drawings and adding more words to his story.

Thanks for all of the time capsule containers, contents, and decorative supplies! If you haven’t sent yours in yet, please do so ASAP! Also, covered cupboards are still being collected…so far we only have 1!

Have a great weekend!