December 6th, 2007

English Update
December 7, 2007

Poetry
We have finished our unit on poetry! Due to some scheduling conflicts, students did a cursive final copy, which they decorated. We will share them in class and then return them to you to enjoy. Our main objectives were:
Finding a topic about which he/she had strong feelings
Trying poetic language or saying things in a different way
Looking at line breaks and how poems are organized

Ask you child what he/she learned! They really did a nice job with this first English writing project.

Reading
We wrapped up our unit on Celebrating Traditions. We also looked at non-fiction text organization and the special skills involved in this reading. We used the opportunity to provide some background information on Native Americans in English to support their learning in the French homerooms. We even slipped in a little work on nouns. Our next unit is called Incredible Stories. We kick off with a Third Grade favorite, Dogzilla, by Dav Pilkey. These are really fun stories that explore the differences between fantasy and realism. Please visit www.eduplace.com for great activities to support these stories.

Word Study: HOMEWORK CHANGES
Thanks for your on-going support with word study. Many of you will recall that at Classroom Information Night, we said that once students were well-established in their routines, we would make some of the word study work homework. Well, that day has come! On Wednesday, December 12th, your child will bring home his./her take home list, as usual. He/she will also have a packet with two activities. The packet will have all the instructions and your kids know how to do them independently. They do not need to come back to school. They are the activities we do Thursday and Friday in class. We will now have that time free for more reading and writing instruction. They should each take no more than 15 minutes and can be done anytime before the following Wednesday. We will send more detailed directions on Wednesday. As always, let us know if you have questions!

Have a great weekend!

Lynnea West and Amby Takekawa