Eleventh Day of School

Today we listened to the story The Princess and the Pea. We discussed the characteristics of the genre of fairy tale. We discussed the 5 oral vocabulary words. Tomorrow we will retell the story using those  words. We will use this same process every week to practice retelling, use new oral vocabulary, and practice listening and speaking skills.

Yesterday we completed the "thinking" (brainstorming/idea collecting) portion of the writing process (CCSS 1.W.3). In addition to the ideas which cover our yellow writing folders and the list of memorable moments which we practice telling with our parents at home, we also made categorized lists of topics which we can refer to in our writing folders. Having these resources will help ensure that we will always have a cache of ideas from which to draw for inspiration. Today we began the planning portion. The planning portion steps of the writing process involves:

1. Touching and talking
2. Drawing and labeling

Our first step today was to touch (the pages) as we told our story to a partner. We listened for a beginning (which answers the questions: who, where, and when?) a middle (which tells what happened) and an end (which may tell what happened next and may indicate a change of emotional state).

Tomorrow we will begin the drawing and labeling stage.

In addition to your child's Math homework, you should find a Reading Log which has your child's number and the first due date of September 30th. As discussed at Back-to-School, the Reading Log may be completed in a parent's hand and should be signed by a parent at the bottom.

Composite Reading scores, and raw spelling scores are available in the classroom to interested parents.