Can you believe that we are already at 19 paws? That is insane. We will have our first medal by the end of the week!
Our students have been doing a pretty good job at meeting expectations so far. We have a few issues to address regarding talking behavior, and appropriate behavior when Mr. Potter is not around (lunch, specials) but in the classroom things have been going very well.
This morning we talked a good bit about character traits. Character traits are adjectives that we use to describe the qualities and personality of the characters in the stories that we read. We read a short book together, entitled Lilly’s purple plastic purse.
Next we talked about how Lilly’s actions and her thoughts and feelings tell us quite a bit about her. Authors will rarely tell us straight out that a character is ‘nice’ or ‘smart’ or ‘shy’, but they will tell us through their actions and thoughts. We filled out a chart relating her actions to her thoughts and her feelings:
Tonight students should do the same thing, but for Mr. Slinger. They should identify 3 different actions performed by Mr. Slinger, and then determine what he was thinking when he performed these actions (the why) and then what he was likely feeling during that time. Then use this information to derive some character traits for him.
They should also have their letter to me to turn in. It should include:
A paragraph introducing themselves.
A paragraph telling me about their family
A paragraph telling me what they like
And a paragraph asking me any questions they might have
Next we started our gardens! Each year I like to make some little gardens with students as we talk about ecosystems and the life cycle. We planted some carrot, tomato, radish, cucumber, and corn seeds. Last year we had a nice enough harvest that we made little salads in the classroom. Hopefully we will have a good harvest again!
At the end of the day today, we went to the computer lab and took a STAR test. This test will give me a good indication of where the students are in their lexile (vocabulary and reading) levels.
so, tl;dr
FInish letter to Mr. Potter!
Tell me about Mr. Slinger: Chart traits 2
And as always, read for 35 minutes and get your reading log signed
Have a good one!
-Mr. Potter