Since the last blog update, the kids completed and took home their perpetual calendar. I hope your child showed you how to use it, and you noted their use of abbreviations.

We have spent our class time working on writing spooky stories; and continuing to study Island of the Blue Dolphins.

To start each class, we do a journal lesson focusing on comprehension skills or word work (grammar, spelling). We have been focused on spelling Halloween themed words, and identifying proper nouns.

The children love writing spooky stories!! We are moving through the various steps of the writing process.

The students had the option to use "dice" to help generate ideas for their story.

Even those kids who want to just dive ahead and get down their story, are being shown how to slow down to make sure the content captures all the story elements. To ensure this, the students have been using a pre-write guide. This guide contains the story elements we reviewed, and has space to write and draw adjectives/descriptions for their story. After using the pre-write guide, each child got to work writing the draft of their story. Most have completed this stage.

Now, we have just begun the revising process, using a peer feedback model. Our goal is to have the stories complete (revised and edited and rewritten anew!) by next week.

Island of the Blue Dolphins continues as a popular literature selection amongst this group. Each student has their own copy, and we use it not only to practice reading, but as a resource for various comprehension activities. Thank you to Holly for providing the playdough to recreate the islands! The students were constantly referring to the text for accuracy. They are truly impressive, please stop by and check them out while they last!

Further, our field trip to Nisene Marks was a hit! We all learned a lot about our local California natural history. Thanks again to Rock, Janelle, April and Holly for driving our children.

We have been applying some of the field trip interest, and relating to the protagonist in the Island of the Blue Dolphins, in our recent Take Home Project. An email went out Tuesday 10/24 explaining the project further. Please ask if you have any questions about the Take Home Project.

a graphic organizer using the senses to describe a character in the spooky story prewrite stage

Language Arts

Garden

Music