Friday MashUp

Today we had what seemed like a million things going at once.... but we got it done for the most part!

We started the day by watching a little bit of The Magic School Bus in the Rain Forest while 502 at their breakfast!  We got to about 13 minutes into it, so I guess we will watch the rest on Monday.


After breakfast we moved into our Cyber Safety lesson for the day.  Today we focused on stereotypes in the media and how to be a smart consumer and pay attention to what the media and marketing are trying to do to you when you are online, watching tv, or playing video games.  We had a really good discussion and then looked at two websites from Lego.  It was very interesting to see the different color choices, art, and even font that were used to make it more "girly" or more "boylike"....

We then went into our homework and discussed how they collected evidence for their reasons for their body paragraphs and then I modeled how to take your reasons and evidence, along with some explanations and transitions, and craft a solid body paragraph.

Sample Body Paragraph with REASONS, EVIDENCE, EXPLANATIONS, and Transitions.

After that we looked at how to make a good Conclusion.  We went over the slides and talked about how the conclusion is very similar to the introduction, only it is kinda reversed and also does the job of making sure the reader knows exactly what they should have gotten out of your essay.  

I then modeled how easy it was to review the introduction and write your conclusion.  I showed them some techniques we discussed in our slides.  Afterward I gave them a checklist to check their essay to make sure they were doing exactly what they were supposed to do.

Students had more than an hour to work on their PBA's in class.  The ONLY homework they have this weekend is to finish their PBA's and be ready to publish (TYPE) on Monday.  The only thing we are doing Monday is typing for 2 hours.  This is it!  Tuesday we start Unit 2!

Sample Conclusion

Checklist for Informational Essay

Homework:

1. Read- 45 minutes on Friday, Saturday, Sunday - Need to AR test on Monday - Log!
2. PBA - Finish, revise, edit and publish your PBA so Monday you just TYPE!