I hope you had a great vacation.  It seems as though the children are mostly rested and back in the swing of things.  We are nearly into our last third of the school year.  It is hard to believe.

Reading and Writing Informational Text

This week we have been learning how informational texts are organized in several different ways.   We have been examining different forms and formats – descriptive, sequential, problem/solution and compare/contrast this week.  We have been exploring how different graphic organizers can help us uncover the information in the text.  And we have been discovering how can use them to organize our thought and prepare for our own writing later on.

Through this study we have been reading about many different topics and they have sparked some interesting discussions.  We have learned about skeletons and how puppies are born.  We read the story of Henry “Box” Brown and how he escaped slavery and we also read about the Underground Railroad.  Finally we explored volcanoes.  There have been many questions and great conversations.  They may come up at home as well.

We are working to use what we have been learning about in Readers’ Workshop when we gather to write.  The children have each chosen a topic they feel they can teach others about and they have begun a first draft of this work.  We will examine how we can organize what we know differently and choose how best to present this information.  It will be interesting to see how each child chooses to craft his or her piece of writing and bring it to a final form for presentation in a class magazine.

Monitoring Self-Talk

We have been working to pay attention to the voice in our heads to see if it is encouraging or discouraging.  We are learning about metacognition and have been thinking about our thinking.   We are working to become more aware of how we help ourselves solve problems and deal with difficulty.  We have also been trying to pay attention to how we cheer ourselves on and keep on going.

Self-talk is an important way for each of us to solve problems and to take responsibility for staying on the positive side of things.  In the classroom we have been working to put ourselves in book characters places during different parts of the story.  We have discovered that characters change and develop.  They do not stay the same.  We have also discovered that characters change throughout a series of books.  We do too.  We do not behave exclusively in a single way.  We are learning about temperament and we are learning about choices.  We are trying to remember to stay calm when we are on the edge of upset because it is then that we can identify our different choices and feel better about ourselves and our work.

Artist-Writers’ Workshop

One time that we are specifically trying to pay attention to our inner voice is during artist-writers’ workshop.  We are trying to stay quiet and think about all the things we are wishing to say outloud.  Sometimes this talk bubbles out, but mostly the children are thinking about how they are dealing with frustrations when the work isn’t coming out as expected or the excitement when the work is going well or even better than expected.

In this first round of work we have been exploring six different media – crayon, colored pencil, marker, tempera paint, watercolors and mixed media.  The children are working to create the same picture six times.  They are uncovering what works well for them and what does not work as easily.  Once the children finished their six pictures they were asked to write about the one they liked best and to explain why that was their choice.  Finally they were asked to write a story to go along with their pictures.  It is a fun way to create and strengthen our problem solving abilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bits and Pieces:

• We are continuing to explore multiplication.  We have been playing and enjoying each others’ math games every day.
• We started a new chapter read-aloud, Secrets According to Humphrey.  It connects to our conversations of how we are all responsible for ourselves and also for creating a peaceful classroom where everyone feels cared for.
• The children are reading more than ever as they keep track of “just right” pages.  Being aware of pages read seems to be very helpful to them.  It is a concrete way of knowing which books are good fits from them.
• We are completing our unit on magnets and magnetism.  Hopefully you’ll begin to see some blog posts about that work next week.