Writing...the Surprise Focus of the Day!

Today is our last day for the flip-flopped specials. So we began our day by going to art. When the students returned we went straight to our reading classes.

I had a lot planned for my reading class but didn't get far into my "TO DO" list. Instead, we spent a lot of time rehearsing for writing our rough drafts. The students started off working in groups of three, reading their story maps and practicing telling their realistic fiction stories. Many groups ran into difficulties. So, we gathered back as a class and began rehearsing our stories by telling them out loud. AS students did this, I was able to dialogue with the author as to how to add details, how to describe events and what is realistic. This might not sound like much but we were able to discuss and correct many issues, hopefully, before they made it to paper. Therefore, we did not get to our whole group reading lesson today!

While I met with reading groups...briefly...the students worked on their rough drafts (I can't wait to see the results, BTW) and created a word search using their current spelling words. If they finished early they completed any unfinished work and read.

Each reading group met with me for a brief period of time and we read aloud from last night's homework. There is no reading homework tonight.

Following lunch and indoor recess the students went to math. My math class practiced multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers by a one digit number. Two small groups worked with money. One group practiced identifying the value of coins and counting amounts below $1.00. The other groups practice counting mounds of coins where the value was well over a dollar!