ELA: Grammar, Vocabulary, Reading and Writing

The year is in full swing with all parts of ELA being fulfilled weekly.  We have started our first writing project.  Each student has been assigned a rainforest animal to research and write about.  This nonfiction piece incorporates writing strategies from last year fine tuned for this year's needs.  Each page has its unique set of criteria to practice all of our writing skills.  The students cannot wait to finish and share with families.  We have used technology to research and write, used our reading skills to look over exemplars along with our show it: don't tell it writing strategies.  Some of these include, similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, dialogue and specific details.  As this next week begins, emphasis will be placed on including several pieces of information within each sentence.  Our goal continues to be interesting writing.  

In grammar, we have covered abbreviations and titles.  As the year continues, these grammar lessons are included in the requirements of good writing.  Our next two weeks will include a study of commas.

This week will be the first review vocabulary lesson.  This test covers the first four lessons of vocabulary.  I urge the students to visit my Mrs. Lynch 103 Quizlet page to study the vocabulary to be prepared for the review test.  

The children read their independent books in class daily and keep track of their progress in a reading log and a graphic organizer.  We also read short stories on a regular basis to discuss topics such as main idea, author's craft or reading strategies like prediction or picturing.  We will be starting a read aloud this week called The Unwanteds and a core book to be read by the class as a whole prior to the end of the month.