October 26-30

Hello, parents!

I can't believe we are this far into the school year already! Hopefully, your students have already learned a lot in this class and will continue to do so throughout the year. This week, we are progressing through the writing unit that we started last week, as well as trying to finish up the short story unit that we had been on previously.

Here is a brief run-down of everything we are doing in class this week:

Monday- short story test review
Tuesday- short story test
Wednesday- learning about narrative, expository, and persuasive essays
Thursday- working on sensory details
Friday- reading logs are due/ vocabulary quiz/ reading day

Today in class (Monday), we are reviewing for tomorrow's short story test by playing Jeopardy. The questions that your student sees on this Jeopardy board will be a good indicator of what they need to know for tomorrow's test. We took extensive notes on the elements of a short story earlier this year, and we read a few short stories during this unit as well. Tomorrow's test will cover these short story element notes, as well as a few questions about the short stories that we read. I am telling the kids today in class that they are welcome to write down the questions to take home and study if they want, but they do not have to do that. Basically, they should just study their notes and look back over the two short stories we read. Tomorrow, we will take the test.

Wednesday, we are going to continue with the essay writing unit by discussing the three main types of essays and talking about how they differ. I taught the kids a formula last week for writing good body paragraphs, and we assigned colors to each thing that should be included. I am going to review this with them tomorrow. We will probably write an essay together using these three colors. If we have time at the end, we will look at a few essays from the released items from past Oklahoma EOI tests and talk about how we can make these essays better.

Thursday, we will be discussing sensory details. I am going to give them a writing assignment in which they need to plan to use sensory details. I had intended the writing assignment to be about Halloween; however, I realize that some people do not choose to celebrate Halloween. In this case, the kids can choose their favorite holiday to write about. Friday, the students will be turning in their reading logs and having a free reading day. They have free reading days every time that they turn in their reading logs. They will also have a chance to go to the library and return/check out a book on Friday if they need to do so.

Here are some things that they will be turning in and will probably be doing for homework:
Thursday- sensory details writing assignment (due Monday)
Friday- vocabulary quiz and reading logs are due

If you have any questions about anything that is going on in this class, please feel free to contact me. You can blog on here, or you are also more than welcome to call the school or email me. Have a great week!