More Spider Stories

Spider Stories

We've talked so much about how we should put strong voice in our writing. We read Diary of A Spider, which is told from a spider's point of view. It definitely gave us some ideas of what being a spider might be like! The kids then wrote their own journal entries, pretending they were spiders. I was able to get a few recorded these past few days. Here are just a few!

 

Marshmallow Witches

Your kids work hard everyday so I felt like they needed a chance to do something fun for Halloween. I've discovered that anything dealing with food makes them happy! So I got an idea... to make mashmallow witches! We used the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen. They turned out so cute. Eating them was probably the best part!

Here's what we used:

1 Jumbo Marshmallow

Fudge Cookie, Peanut Butter Cup, and Hershey Kiss (for the hat)

Chocolate Chips for the eyes and nose

Sprinkles for the hair

Icing for GLUE

 Finished Products!

Red Ribbon Week

This week we celebrated being drug free by having some fun dress-up days!

Monday - Sock It to Drugs!

Tuesday - Shade Out Drugs!

Wednesday - Put a Cap On Drugs!

Pumpkin Scavenger Hunt

What did we do with all those pumpkins your kids brought in? Well, we had a Pumpkin Scavenger Hunt, of course! Each child had their own pumpkin to compare with others in the class. They tried to find someone that had a pumpkin smaller than their's, bigger, darker, lighter, bumpier, and so on! They absolutely loved this! It was so neat to see the different kinds of pumpkins that came in.

Airplane Trip

In one of our small groups, we read a book about a little girl going on an airplane trip to visit her grandparents. After reading about the experience of being on an airplane, the students worked with a partner to create their own airplane story. They were to include what they needed to do to get ready and what the actual trip would be like!

Dimitri and Julien

Savannah and Lauren

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated our October birthdays on Friday (earlier than usual since we won't be at school next Friday!) Reagan and Abby sure know how to par-tay! We all hope these 2 special girls had amazing birthdays and we're glad we got to celebrate their special day!

Candy Corn

To help get the students into the Halloween mood (and give them some creative ideas for writing), I put some candy corn story starters in the Writing Station. They were all about candy corn -- how would you get a 200lb piece of candy corn home? What would happen if it came alive? and so on...  These 2 Superstar Writers were so excited about their stories. I absolutely love them!!

Fluency

On Monday, we talked about what it means to be a fluent reader. In order to become a more fluent reader, we have to practice! Reading aloud is a great way to do this. I told the kids, even if they are reading to the walls, reading aloud is a smart thing to do. By reading aloud, we can practice adding expression to our voices.

Rereading stories is another way to practice fluency. There's nothing wrong with reading your favorite book over and over again. In fact, we learned that if you read the book once and put it away, then you're not being a good reader. Students can talk about the book, reread it, or/and take a Reading Counts quiz.

To practice, the class was broken into several small groups. Each group had a short play to practice. They read their lines and practiced adding expression in their voices. Some students even put some movements with their words. I taped all of them and put them together into one long video.

Building Blocks of Writing

Last Friday, we talked about the building blocks of writing. In each story we right, we have to have a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is supposed to grab the reader's attention and give us some background information such as who is the story, where it's taking place, and what is happening. The middle if the "meat" of the story. It's where all the exciting parts happen! And then finally, we have to have an excellent ending that wraps the story up.

The kids worked together in groups. The groups had to decide on a topic for their stories, and then each person got a "block" of the story. Their ideas how to flow together to make sense. They really seemed to enjoy this activity! As you listen, please make sure you turn your volume WAY up. The microphone we use doesn't have the best sound quality. Enjoy!

Lauren, Bailey, Reagan

Julien, Harry, Dimitri

Aidan, Gabe, Luke

Savannah, Hannah, Baylee

Xander, Destiny, Abby

Hunter, Maraina, Alex, Aaron  

Angus, Cody, Daniel

Sadly, I don't have a picture of this last group! :( But they did an awesome job!

Mary Sullivan, Katie Beth, Kellyanne, Johanna

I love your kids.

Thank you for sharing your kids with me each day. They are so fun to be around...