Valentine's Day & Powder & Break! Oh my!

February break is just a week away!  I am amazed at how fast this year is flying by!  Here's what we'll be up to this week in Melissa's class:

Reading Workshop:  

We've been working on reading responses through our literature circle jobs.  Literature circles (or book clubs) will begin after break, but we decided to practice the jobs (Connector, Illustrator, Discussion Director, Word Wizard, and Literary Luminary) with our self-selected texts.  This week, we will expand on our learning with the introduction of Junior Great Books.  We will read one story from JGB each Tuesday in class.  Students will read the story again at home Tuesday night and will have a written homework assignment starting after break.  On Wednesday, students will participate in a discussion where they will share their insights and interpretations. This is called Shared Inquiry.  Shared Inquiry is a way that students can achieve a thorough understanding through discussion.  Books will come home this Tuesday along with a note with further explanation.

Writing Workshop:  The time has finally come for fiction writing, realistic fiction that is!  This is challenging work and it is not taken lightly.  We have been studying published realistic fiction to see how the pros do it.  We have learned so much from our class read aloud Wonder by R.J. Palacio.

This book is not only shaping the way we think about realistic fiction, it is changing the way we see the world and ourselves in it.  Pretty powerful stuff huh?  Our explorations didn't stop there.  We also delved into many realistic fiction books by one of our favorite authors, Patricia Polacco.

Here's some things we learned:

We have worked hard to take what we've learned and apply it in our own writing.  Last week, we created believable characters with interesting problems.  This week we will begin to draft our pieces starting with amazing leads!

Math:  We are plugging away on our unit on fractions and decimals.  This unit can be challenging, but we have been enjoying the idea of breaking chocolate bars into tenths and hundredths!  We will continue work with decimals this week as we wrap up this unit.  After break, we will be moving on to geometry.  

This week we have our last ski day on Thursday and of course Valentine's Day on Friday.  I have included Valentine's Day information with this week's homework plan.  Progress reports will be coming home on Tuesday!  

As always, thank you for reading and feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Melissa