Good authors reflect on what they (and other writers!) do well. This is called 'metacognition' and it's a frequently overlooked part of our curriculum.
This week, we analysed amazing sentences written by our very own Gr 5 and 6 students, and wrote about what made them GREAT! I loved reading all their ideas and thoughts about what makes an incredible sentence.
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We are embarking on a new journey in Gr 5 and 6: creative writing! To get our juices flowing, we looked at 'visual story starters' and brainstormed (as a class) some Level 4+ sentences about them. We discovered that "super sentences" contain advanced adjectives and intriguing descriptions. Next, we are rotating through Literacy Work Stations to practise our creative writing skills in a small group. Students are enjoying creating 'super sentences' on their own and in partners. While students rotate each day through these stations, I get a chance to read with groups of 2-3 students at a time. Right now we are working on carefully reading non-fiction texts and using evidence from the text to support answers to more difficult comprehension questions. A strategy that is coming in handy to remember new concepts is to reread a difficult section again before we move on to a new section. Students are doing SO WELL! I'm amazed at the reading growth I've seen since the fall.
Over the last three weeks, we have completed a fun biography project! Students researched and created a 'lapbook' about their influential Canadian - complete with a timeline, character traits, research notes, snapshots and a full written biography.
For the biography, our aim was to write several complete paragraphs (an expectation for writing in Gr 5 and 6 is to write "longer texts with paragraphs"). We took our time to go through the writing process: brainstorming, rough draft, revising & editing (with a checklist!) and good copy. To celebrate Black History Month, students have explored these influential Canadians. We are learning how to detect important information from a more complicated text, and summarize that information in our own words (always a struggle!). We're not finished yet, but take a look at our progress so far:
We all enjoyed "travelling" to the seven Wonders of the Natural World this month. As a media literacy project, students used different media conventions to design a poster advertising one of them. Take a look at their amazing work!
This week we enjoyed learning from our incredible students themselves. Topics for our Global Education inquiries ranged from Sports in Schools to Influential Leaders in Education to Schools with Unique Architecture. I learned A LOT and students enjoyed the opportunity to become teachers (while practising their oral language presentation skills!). They also used several media literacy conventions to create engaging & effective slides that conveyed a clear message to their audience.
Some of our specific goals with these presentations: -phrase main ideas in our own words (no 'copying and pasting') -cite our sources -add captions to images -put capital letters on titles You *may* find me moving to Bali to teach at this school... isn't it amazing? I'd take all my incredible students with me, of course... We've had a lot of fun these past two weeks rotating through our Global Education literacy centers. Students have had an opportunity to try a different center each day, which requires building on learning that we've already started (ex. reading infographics on education and writing down interesting points, reading an article about a school and asking deep questions with a partner, continuing their group inquiry, adding a Kazakhstan page to their Global Education booklet, learning about the Finland Education system and comparing it to Canada's). Truthfully, I don't have a lot of photos of the centers, as I use this opportunity to read with students. I've now had another cycle through of reading with your incredible kids in a very small group setting (usually a 1:2 ratio). I'm really learning more about each of their strengths and next steps, and teaching lots of strategies as we go along. I'm already amazed at how much these kiddos are learning and the new strategies they are implementing to improve their reading even further. Wow! If we're here already after three and a half months, imagine what we can do in the next six :-)
As we proceed in our language learning, we are learning about "complete" sentences. Our amazing student teacher, Ms Millotte, is teaching about: 1) Sentence Fragments 2) Run-on Sentences 3) Comma Splices Students are learning a lot as they watch videos, do examples as a class, practise on individual worksheets and play group games (charades, jeopardy, etc). Below are photos of Megan teaching, an individual practise worksheet and students enjoying a game of charades (they had to act out a subject and predicate, and then the class had to write a *complete* sentence about what that person was doing). Below are some photos of an individual run-on sentence practise sheet and a very exciting Jeopardy practise game! Students are really getting the hang of complete sentences versus sentence fragments/run on sentences/comma splices. Students also completed a culminating writing paragraph (with an editing checklist that specifically focussed on avoiding comma splices, run-ons and sentence fragments).
I also got a chance to tell them about my trip to Nepal, where I had the privilege of teaching in a remote village and hiking in the Himalayas. It was fun to learn about a country that is so different than ours, and get a peek into schools that look so different than our Canadian schools.
Our Grade 5 and 6 students have been tasked with a fun writing project this week: "YOU are the #1 Real Estate agent in the city. You've been able to sell every house at any price. Now... you've been asked to sell your first haunted house! Create a booklet to describe every detail of the house to potential buyers. You must tell the truth about the house, but you should try to put a positive spin on it. After all, 'fixer-upper' houses are a hot commodity these days! Can you sell it?" Our main focus for this writing project is to use adjectives and descriptions to enrich our word choice and sentence complexity. Students are doing SO WELL on this! We are also aiming to extend the quantity of our writing - expectations at this stage are to write "increasingly longer and more complex texts" of "several joined paragraphs." We wrote one paragraph a day this week - wow! Your children are showing such dedication, perseverance and hard work in their writing tasks. I'm SO proud of them all! A few examples of the transformations in their writing that I'm seeing daily: "I see a cat" becomes "I see a dark, purring cat that waits for me on the windowsill." "There is a ghost" becomes "There is a shadowy, screeching ghost that circles above my head." "I open the door" becomes "As I turn the rusty doorknob, I step inside the house with spin-chilling fear." Adjectives and descriptions are REALLY helping our writing! I'm blown away by how much their writing has improved with just this one activity. Below is the rubric that I will use to assess students. I find it helpful to show the class the expectations BEFORE they begin to write, so they know exactly how they will be marked. I have a class of ADJECTIVE masters! Take a look at this: On Friday, students also enjoyed making a creative Haunted House title page. Apparently junior students are not too old for crafts :-)
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Mrs JorgensenThis page is written by Mrs. Jorgensen, who loves the smell of a brand new book! Archives
March 2021
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