Since the last update, the 3/4 completed their Spooky Stories. It was quite an accomplishment to go through the various stages of writing a polished piece! The kids worked dedicatedly on their stories. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did. To celebrate, we held an Authors Fair. Each child read at least one peer’s story, and took home their final writing (and a ballon) to share at home.

We continued with the spooky theme to practice our grammar focus, run-on sentences. This required a review of understanding what is a sentence, how to use capitals, and what type of punctuation is required for the sentence. Run-on sentences requires an understanding of editing as well. We used a familiar song, Ghost of John, and an excerpt from a familiar spooky folktale to work on this grammar skill. Additionally, the children created ‘accordion booklets’, adding periods into a roller coaster themed run-on sentence.

Our small group instruction has started up. On Tuesdays, we are lucky to have Matt and Katy join us. Katy and I are leading literature discussion groups (her group is reading Bandit’s Moon by Fleischman, mine is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Dahl) and Matt is leading a spelling focus group (using a mix of student-generated flash cards and games). We will rotate and regroup the students sometime after winter break. Ask your child what they are up to on Tuesdays!

The whole group continues with our historical fiction literature study of Island of the Blue Dolphin. Each child has their own copy, and we practice reading the book in different formats. We have been using the book to further develop our reading comprehension. Specifically, how to reflect on a story by asking questions about what has been read. The children are guided through lessons that require using the “5 Ws and 1 H” to reflect on the reading. Ask your children what the “5 Ws and 1 H” are!

Before Thanksgiving break, we spent several lessons comparing versions of the Stone Soup folktale. We read three different versions, including a traditional Swedish tale and picture book written by Muth. His book is the one Orchard students reinact each year for our Stone Soup feast. After reading the versions, we created a Venn diagram graphic organizer to help us compare the Muth and Swedish version’s similarities and differences. Later, we used this graphic organizer as a resource to write a comparison paragraph complete with a topic sentence, supporting details, and a conclusion.