Wednesday in ELA

Slowly but surely, we are getting into the groove.  Today was the first day that we were able to run through the program and hit almost all our requirements of the day.  That means we are getting faster at doing our routine and that is a good thing... especially considering we are on day 13 of school... So I am happy with the progress... we still have to get moving a bit faster, but we are getting there day by day!

In ELA we read Chapter 8 with a focus of character traits and how character's actions reveal their motivation.  After reading Chapter 8, we broke into groups.  I met with my small groups of the day and others worked on identifying character traits and motivations using a graphic organizer and then did independent reading.

Our writing focus was to continue to work with narrative writing techniques.  Our focus was still character traits and revealing a characters motivation through their actions and thoughts.  Students were asked to add a new scene to their narrative where they had to react to a student walking up and saying something really mean to a student they were giving a tour of the school to.  How would they react?  What would they say?  What would they do?  Show it through your writing, don't just tell me. 

Finally, we looked at the cover pages for our first unit in Social Studies which is about Geography.  We then read and discussed the first two pages (10-11).  We discussed the new vocabulary and how we will be studying the geography, people, and history of the Western Hemisphere (USA, CANADA, MEXICO, BRAZIL, and a CARIBBEAN ISLAND.  The students really seemed to enjoy the first day of talking about geography!

Homework:

• Read first article in packet for third time, do third practice page (check tomorrow)
• Read for 30-40 minutes, fill out summary and reflection in RRJ