Monday
Objectives:
Daily Grammar Practice Week 3 (Monday – parts of speech). After we do our Daily Grammar Practice, we will learn how to sign up for Remind101. You can sign up to receive text or email reminders about important things going on in class. Then we will go to the library for our first official visit. Miss Bowman will give us an orientation on library procedures and lead us on a scavenger hunt to discover all the library has to offer.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Come visit my classroom during Open House from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm tonight.
Tuesday
Objectives:
- Begin vocabulary study of Greek and Latin prefixes, roots, and suffixes.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 3 (Tuesday – sentence parts). Why is the English language so confusing? Partly because English borrows words from other languages. Many of our words are based on Greek and Latin words–prefixes, roots, and suffixes. We will study these throughout the year. Click here for a copy of the first group. We’ll brainstorm words in groups that we know that use these prefixes, roots, and suffixes. In your group, each person should choose a different word that uses the root your group is assigned. Then on an index card, write the word, write a sentence that uses the word, and draw a picture that shows what the word means. As groups share their words, fill out the chart for Group 1. For each root, you need to write the meaning, draw a picture that illustrates the meaning, list at least two words that use it with their definitions.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Finish index card that is due tomorrow. Here is my example card. Finish the Group 1 chart that is due Friday. If you need help finding example words and definitions, you can use the words we brainstormed as a class. You can find them by clicking here.
Wednesday
Objectives:
- Understand structures of different nonfiction genres.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 3 (Wednesday – clauses, sentence type and purpose). Discuss the elements of nonfiction genres: memoir/autobiography/biography, informational text, poetry. How does point of view change in each?
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Continue writing in your Writer’s Notebooks.
Thursday
Objectives:
- Understand the structures of different formats of text.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 3 (Thursday – Correct capitalization and punctuation). Discuss the differences between short stories, novellas, novels, graphic novels, and essays.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Continue writing in your Writer’s Notebook.
Friday
Objectives:
- Understand importance of daily reading and set a weekly reading goal.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 3 (Sentence Diagramming). Discuss the two charts I found in this blog post at a Year of Reading. What difference could reading just 10 more minutes a day make? Today in class we will set a weekly reading goal for the coming week. Read for 10 minutes and count how many pages you read during that time. Multiply that number of pages by 6 to determine how many pages you could read in 1 hour. Then double that number to know how many pages you could read in 2 hours. That is your goal for the week. If you meet your goal, you will earn an A. If you exceed your goal, you will earn extra credit. If you don’t meet your goal, your grade will be determined by how much of your goal you reach. For example, if your goal is to read 100 pages and you read 100 pages, you earn 100%. If you read 120 pages, you will earn extra credit. If you read only 75 pages, your grade will be 75%, or a “C.”
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Finish Writers Notebook entry: What is your reading plan? Think about where and when you could (or already do) make reading a part of your daily habits. If you already have a reading habit, tell me about it. If you don’t already make reading a part of your day, what obstacles might you face in creating a reading habit? What can you do to overcome those obstacles?
Monday
Objectives:
- Personalize your Writer’s Notebook.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 2 (Monday – parts of speech). Bring in a notebook to use as your Writer’s Notebook. This notebook is special. Don’t use it for anything else. To make it even more special, create a collage from the bits of ephemera (pictures, ticket stubs, receipts, bookmarks, scrapbooking supplies, mementos, etc). Glue your collage to the cover of your Writer’s Notebook. You may create your collage on the front or back cover, on the inside or outside of the cover. You will need at least 4-6 things to create your collage. For your first entry in your Writer’s Notebook, give a tour of your collage. What did you include in your collage? What do these things show about you?
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Finish writing the tour of your collage.
Tuesday
Objectives:
- Understand how story elements impact different fiction genres.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 2 (Tuesday – sentence parts). Discuss the story elements (character, setting, and plot) and how they change in different genres: realistic fiction, mystery/suspense, historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Begin writing in your Writer’s Notebook.
Wednesday
Objectives:
- Understand structures of different nonfiction genres.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 2 (Wednesday – clauses, sentence type and purpose). Discuss the elements of nonfiction genres: memoir/autobiography/biography, informational text, poetry. How does point of view change in each?
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Continue writing in your Writer’s Notebooks.
Thursday
Objectives:
- Understand the structures of different formats of text.
Daily Grammar Practice Week 2 (Thursday – Correct capitalization and punctuation). Discuss the differences between short stories, novellas, novels, graphic novels, and essays.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Continue writing in your Writer’s Notebook.
Friday
Objectives:
- Collect ideas and topics for writing.
Create a heart map to collect ideas and topics for your writing. Draw a large heart on a page in your Writer’s Notebook. In your heart, write those things that matter to you. These questions might help you think of ideas to include. What has really affected your heart? What people have been important to you? What are some experiences or central events that you will never forget? What happy or sad memories do you have? What secrets have you kept in your heart? What small objects are important to you–a tree in your backyard, a trophy, a stuffed animal…? What’s at the center of your heart? What’s outside around the edges?
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Finish your heart map.
Monday
Objectives:
Remember to come in and begin reading your book! Today we will set up your Language Arts Binder. This will be your textbook for this class. You need to bring it every day and follow directions when adding new papers to it. If you ever need replacement copies, you can get them from two places: the black file cabinet next to my desk or click here to download and print a copy.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Your signed rules are due TODAY! Your letter (from a parent, other adult, or yourself) telling me about you is due Friday.
Tuesday
Objectives:
- Complete pre-tests for language arts and Daily Grammar Practice (DPG).
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice.
Wednesday
Objectives:
- Identify parts of speech in a sentence (DGP)
- Identify sentence parts.
Don’t be overwhelmed by all the notes you get today for the Daily Grammar Practice (DGP). Put them in the Language Study section of your binder. We will read them together and figure out how to use them to learn the different parts of speech. I promise that after a few weeks, it will start to make more sense. We will usually identify parts of speech on Mondays. We will go through the notes for sentence parts and learn how to identify the parts of a sentence. We will usually identify sentence parts on Tuesdays.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice.
Thursday
Objectives:
- Identify clauses and sentence types.
- Provide correct capitalization and punctuation for a sentence.
- Discover what a writer’s notebook can do for you.
Today we will use your DGP notes to identify clauses and sentence type. Then we will provide correct capitalization and punctuation. We will discuss how we will use writer’s notebooks this year. The first thing we will do is to personalize your notebooks. Collect ephemera–ticket stubs, photos, candy wrappers (clean ones, please), notes–that can be glued on the cover of your notebook. Bring those things to class on Monday.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Collect ephemera for your writer’s notebook.
Friday
Objectives:
Diagramming sentences is fun! We will use all you learned about your sentence through the week to put it together like a puzzle.
Homework: Read 15-30 minutes in a book of your choice. Your letter (from a parent, other adult, or yourself) telling me about you is due TODAY!