There is some paper on the counter.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Apostrophes, Word Endings, and Plurals, Oh My!
In themes 3.1 and 3.2, the curriculum covers using an apostrophe and s to show a possessive:
In studying these possessives, it was important that the students understand what a noun is. First, we reviewed what nouns and verbs are in making a complete sentence. These parts tell who (noun) and what (verb). Then, we chose a student to be our model. Next, we picked something our model was wearing and named it by using a possessive. Each student paper had a label such as Alanna's pink shirt. I stapled the pages together, shared it with the class, then let the student who was our subject take it home. To help your child review, you can ask the simple question, "Whose is it?" The child can either reply or echo your answer, "It is ______'s." Whose blog is it? It is Mrs. N.'s blog. Hopefully, the more this is practiced the less confusing it will be when students are introduced to using an apostrophe and s in a contraction.
An online worksheet:
We used the word endings -s, -ed, and -ing this week. Again, it was important to understand the parts of a sentence, the noun and the verb. We add the endings to verbs. Coming home in Monday's homework will be a list of verbs with the various endings (picks, picking, picked). In the -ed section, a t above the word indicates the -ed makes the sound of the letter t, -ed indicates that the -ed makes the sound of the letters ed, and a d indicates that the -ed makes the sound of the letter d. We have sorted words with -ed endings in class according to the sound the -ed makes (ed, d or t). When reading, I have the students cover up the endings and read the base word first. Then, they add the ending.
An online activity for you to print:
Last week we worked on reading plurals with the letter s. I tried to distinguish the word ending s from the plural s by emphasizing that plural s works with nouns while the -s ending works with verbs. These reading and grammar skills will appear in the upcoming benchmark tests.
You can help your child by pointing out word endings, possessives, and plurals in whatever you read together. Some students were excited to point out those elements by themselves in our reading of Mr. C.'s Dinner in the anthology. If your child begins to point these things out to you I am glad. You will share in the wonder and excitement of their learning.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
What are We Reading?
This week we have been reading Mr. C.'s Dinner, a story provided by the curriculum. The students have been practicing making predictions and retelling the story in sequence using the words first, next, then, and last or finally.
We have also been reading a favorite of mine, Heckedy Peg, written by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood. I love getting the students to think about what causes the children in the story, named after the days of the week, to turn into the kinds of foods they do when the witch casts her spell. In addition to retelling the story in sequence, we are using it to review cause and effect. For example, Monday asked for butter, so she turns into bread. Here are a couple of pictures from this well written and beautifully illustrated story:
We have also been reading a favorite of mine, Heckedy Peg, written by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood. I love getting the students to think about what causes the children in the story, named after the days of the week, to turn into the kinds of foods they do when the witch casts her spell. In addition to retelling the story in sequence, we are using it to review cause and effect. For example, Monday asked for butter, so she turns into bread. Here are a couple of pictures from this well written and beautifully illustrated story:
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Good Problem Solving
The curriculum mentioned that often a character will have a problem and the story shows how it was resolved. In the anthology, The Rope Tug, in the format of a play, gave students a fun way to consider Rat's problem and how he cleverly tricked Hippo and Elephant into giving up their space in the hut.
We also used another story, Mrs. Morgan's Lawn, to work on mapping out the problem and solution. When you come to parent conferences, you can see this work on the wall. The kids loved the story and asked me to read it again. It is written by the author who wrote Where, Oh, Where is my Underwear, Barney Saltzberg. I showed the students where Mr. Saltzberg signed my copy of the book and drew a picture of Mrs. Morgan. Fun stuff.
The problem was that Mrs. Morgan kept collecting any ball that fell upon her immaculate lawn, including the boy's brand new purple and white soccer ball. After we learned how the boy resolved this problem, we talked about whether or not Mrs. Morgan was really as mean as the boy thought she was at the beginning of the story. After the first reading, many students still felt she was a mean person. After a couple of readings and talking about what makes people act in unkind ways, many students believed she was not so mean after all. Being kind to those who are unkind changes everything--a beautiful solution.
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