In Language Arts today the students finished reading about the pros of video games. Afterwards, they worked on the first half of a T-Chart gathering evidence to determine whether or not they thought video games had a positive impact on today’s youth. We will continue to work on this throughout the course of the week.

Additionally, the students started learning about story vocabulary and we reviewed key words from elementary school such as protagonist, antagonist, plot, setting, and conflict.

Lastly, the students were given time in class to work on their Moby Max that is due next Friday.

Have a great evening! Don’t forget tomorrow is a late start!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Read Theory due Friday
3. Moby Max: Parts of Speech due NEXT Friday
4. One-Pagers One and Two due NEXT Friday
5. All Late Work for First Marking due NEXT Friday

In Language Arts today the students continued to learn about CER. We discussed that CER is a format of writing to help us organize our thinking. It could be used when writing a short, single paragraph response or for a multi-paragraph essay. Today in class, we looked at an example of an essay written in this format. Then, we discussed the similarities and differences between the format of the essay and the format of a single paragraph.

The students also started reading about video games in class today. Today, they started reading about why video games are good for kids. We will continue with this tomorrow and we will look at why video games are not so great later in the week.

First Marking Period ends two weeks from THIS Friday. That means the students have 15 day before their first report card will be prepared. That also means that all assignments that need to be turned in late for any class must be completed by next Friday. One-Pagers One and Two and Moby Max: Parts of Speech are due next Friday too. Students will be given time in class over the next two weeks to work on their assignments.

Have a great evening!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Read Theory due Friday
3. Moby Max: Parts of Speech due NEXT Friday
4. One-Pagers One and Two due NEXT Friday
5. All Late Work for First Marking due NEXT Friday

In Language Arts today the students were given the results to their CSI mystery. They also turned in their CER response about whether or not they felt Queenie was lying.

Additionally, we finished learning the parts of speech. The students have been assigned one lesson on Moby Max that must be completed by Friday, October 25th. There is a second lesson that can be completed for extra credit.

Lastly, we spent the remainder of our class time writing a CER response about the point of view of “Eleven”. We discussed how to properly cite evidence as well as the meaning of plagiarism.

Have a great evening!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Read Theory due Tomorrow
3. Moby Max: Parts of Speech due Friday, October 25th
4. One-Pagers One and Two due Friday, October 25th
5. All Late Work for First Marking Period due Friday. October 25th

In Language Arts today the students had time to read their chapter book or work on Read Theory. Afterwards, they wrote in their metacognitive log about the main strategy they used while reading.

With the remainder of class time, we focused on how to gather evidence to support a claim and explaining that evidence. We did this by becoming crime scene investigators involving the unfortunate circumstance of Arthur Volupides. It was the job of the students to determine whether his wife, Queenie, was lying about why Arthur was laying at the bottom of their foyer stairs. The students worked on gathering evidence to support their claim and explaining why their evidence was important. For homework, they were asked to take their two most important pieces of evidence and use them to write a CER paragraph that the lawyer could use in the court cause involving Mrs. Queenie Volupides. Some students finished in class but most kids should be working on this paragraph tonight as homework. Below is the fill-in-the-blank version for students who need help with their writing. This will be due in class tomorrow and students will receive the results of the case!

Queenie is (insert your claim statement here). According to the text/picture, “(insert your first piece of evidence here).” (pg. 1) This supports the claim because (insert your reasoning here). Another piece of evidence is, “(insert your second piece of evidence here).” This is important because (insert your reasoning here).” (pg. 1) In conclusion, Queenie is (guilty/innocent).

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Finish writing your Slip or Trip CER
3. Read Theory due Friday

In Language Arts today the students started learning about the parts of speech. Today we talked about nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. We will talk about the rest of the parts of speech on Thursday.

We also began learning about CER. We discussed that CER is a way we an organize our writing that stands for claim, evidence, and reasoning. For many students, this was a review from elementary school. We also spent time digging deeper into the types of textual evidence we can have such as expert research and statistics. We talked about evidence that is credible versus evidence that we cannot rely on to be accurate.

Have a great evening!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Read Theory due Friday

In Language Arts today the students were taken to the library for good fit books. At this point, every student should be done reading their first chapter book of the year and moving on to their second. If this is not the case, students will need to spend extra time reading at home this week.

The students were also given time for SSR in class and they wrote out their Metacognitive Log about the reading strategy they were using.

With the remainder of our class time, we reviewed the difference between facts and opinions and determined whether the example statements they were given in class were facts or opinions. If this wasn’t completed in class, it was assigned as homework. However, most students finished.

Have a great evening!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes

In Language Arts today the students worked at stations. Their choices were:

• One-Pager
• SSR
• Read Theory
• NewsELA
• Moby Max

I am doing my best to update grades as quickly as possible but it will take me some time to make that happen. Grades will not be accurate today but I will send a Remind when I am finished.

Have a great weekend!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes

Today in Language Arts the students were given more time to work on their Moby Max. This assignment is due tomorrow.

With the remainder of our class time, the students finished reading the story, “Eleven”. We also participated in small group discussions about the text. Then, we wrote a written reflection in our writing notebooks.

For tomorrow’s lesson, I gave the students the choice to continue on with what we have been learning or to pause until Monday and do stations. The students voted to do stations tomorrow to put the finishing touches on their work since several assignments are due. Therefore, the students will have a little bit of class time to work tomorrow. If students have not been using their class time wisely and have a lot to do, the time they have in class tomorrow will not be enough to finish and they will need to get some of their assignments done for homework tonight.

Have a great evening!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Read Theory due Tomorrow
3. NewsELA: Cell Phones due Tomorrow
4. Moby Max: Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words due Tomorrow

Today the students had shorter classes due to an assembly.

In Language Arts today the students began writing a Metacognitive Log. This log will be to track their thinking while they read during SSR on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We will be writing our thoughts after we read in our writing notebooks. Each entry will be worth three formative points. Once a month, I will collect students’ notebooks to give them credit for their entries. This is NOT something students will be expected to do at home. This will take place in class. The only reason a student should have to do this at home is if they run out of time in class and need to finish or they were not focused during the time I gave them in class to log their thoughts about their reading.

With the remainder of our class time, we started listening to reading for the story, “Eleven”, from our literature book. While reading, we discussed what was happening in the story as well as thoughts students had about the text. We recorded these thoughts on a double entry journal in our interactive notebook since we cannot directly talk to the text in our literature book.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Read Theory due Friday
3. Moby Max: Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words due Friday
4. NewsELA: Cell Phones due Friday

In Language Arts today the students were given time to work on their Moby Max. They will be given more time in class on Thursday. This assignment is due Friday.

We also finished presenting our book talks in class today. I am in the process of updating grades but won’t be done until the end of the school day. Grades will not be accurate until then.

Lastly, the students took the words from the story we previewed on Friday, “Eleven”, and created frayer models for the vocabulary they did not know. Then, they presented their findings to the class with a partner.

Have a great evening!

Homework:

1. Read for 20 minutes
2. Read Theory due Friday
3. Moby Max: Prefixes, Suffixes, and Root Words due Friday
4. NewsELA: Cell Phones Article due Friday